10 Inspiring Classical Music Masterpieces

Burnt out from the long week? You’re not alone. I’ve been feeling that way myself, which made me think about looking for inspiration. When I look for inspiration I turn to classical music. The following list is a mixture of my favourite symphonies and sonatas that will hopefully strike a chord with your imagination.

1. Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67 by Ludwig van Beethoven – Beethoven’s 5th Symphony was quite popular during WWII. BBC broadcasts would use the opening chords because it mimicked the letter “V” for victory in Morse Code. It was later turned into a disco song called “A Fifth of Beethoven” by Walter Murphy. Its popularity has not faded in today’s modern age.
2. Piano Concerto No. 2. in C minor, Op. 18 by Sergey Rachmaninoff – I love dark and moody minor pieces. Rachmaninoff takes it to new levels. This song is also featured in the anime series Nodame Cantabile. This song made Rachmaninoff famous.
3. Impromptu in C-sharp minor, Op. 66, No. 4 (Fantasie-Impromptu) by Frederic Chopin – This is a famous piece by Chopin. I forget how I found this one, but it’s one of my absolute favorite piano pieces.
4. Piano Sonata No. 8 in C minor, Op. 13, Movt. 3 (Pathetique) by Ludwig van Beethoven – Pathetique might be considered one of the first songs to be banned in music history. Piano teachers often refused to allow their female students to play this song because it was considered too emotional.
5. Tocatta and Fugue in D minor (BMV 565) by Johann Sebastian Bach – Tocatta and Fugue in D minor is considered to be one of the most famous musical pieces meant for the organ. Its also one of the songs featured in the animated film Fantasia.
6. Piano Sonata in A minor (D.845) by Franz Schubert – A gorgeous piece by Schubert. This sonata featured in Nodame Cantabile. If you’re a fan of classical music and anime, watch Nodame Catabile.
7. Rhapsody in Blue by George Gershwin – Rhapsody in Blue is a combination of classical music and jazz. This is a popular song by Gershwin, and the one that made the music world regard him as a serious composer.
8. Hungarian Dance No. 5 in G minor by Johannes Brahms – Brahms composed 21 songs based on Hungarian tunes. This is my favorite.
9. The Arabian Dance (Peer Gynt Suite) by Edvard Grieg – A beautiful song by Grieg. Songs from the Peer Gynt Suite often feature in television shows like The Big Bang Theory and Bugs Bunny.
10. The Sorcerer’s Apprentice by Paul Dukas – Dukas composed this song as a symphonic poem. It’s inspired by a poem under the same name written by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is later featured in the Fantasia soundtrack where the sorcerer’s apprentice is played by Mickey Mouse.

What music do you listen to when you’re looking for inspiration? I’d love to know!

Freedom Is Not Free & Row80 Check-In

Row80 Check-In

• Still planning but it’s starting to come together. I have an idea to tie in chapters one and two. I’m trying not to get too hung up on the details because I don’t want planning to be another form of procrastination.
• I wasn’t able to do my fifteen minutes of exercise on Sunday-Tuesday. I either strained/pulled a muscle in my leg, which might have been from my Tae Kwon Do lesson on Saturday. It’s much better now.
• I’ve been slacking on commenting/promoting. Will be doing more of that this week!
• I am considering changing my goals, but I’m holding off on that for now. Need to keep trying.

Tales of Words Arcane: Freedom Is not Free

Photo credit: jdurham from morguefile.com

The words on the wall declared Freedom is not Free. He nodded sadly in agreement, and continued on his way home in the pouring rain.

As centuries went by, the human race had become so drunk and blind on the word freedom they had lost its concept. They rediscovered its definition when the invaders from the stars came.

Those who resisted became one of the corpses that choked the streets, or were sent to the concentration camps. Those who submitted became imprisoned.

He stopped and looked at the stars the humans now hated because of what had come from them. He understood the words very well, and considered the writer to be a fellow brother or sister who has felt the bitter truth of the universe.

The truth was freedom is only a word until you realize what life is like when it’s taken away from you.

Freedom is not free.

Review: Peter & Max by Bill Willingham

When an unspeakable tragedy befalls a family of traveling minstrels, they become stranded and left for dead. Here in the heart of The Black Forest, Peter Piper and his older brother Max encounter ominous forces that will change them both irreparably. Thus begins an epic tale of sibling rivalry, magic, music and revenge that spans medieval times to the present day when their deadly conflict surfaces in the placid calm of modern-day Fabletown.

Before I begin, I am forewarning anyone who wishes to read the book to do so before they read my review. There be spoilers from this point on!

This was a hard review to write because it’s not a good review. This review does not bear any ill will towards Willingham’s comic book series. I’m a fan of Fables. I love how he intermingles fairy tales and gives them an adult twist. Initially I was excited to read Peter and Max when I found this book in a comic book store. However, once I started reading my inner editor would not shut up.

Peter and Max is structurally flawed.

I think Willingham attempted to write a novel using the same rules that govern comic books. The first chapter briefly introduced the characters of the story and then went into the history of his long-running comic series Fables. When Willingham wrote Peter and Max he meant it to be a standalone story, but the first chapter is a huge information dump to give to the readers in one gulp. It would have been better served as additional notes.

The novel time jumps between past and present day Peter Piper. At one point Willingham reveals events before they happened in the story. That annoyed me because he just spoiled the next couple of chapters.

There were fluff chapters that served no purpose, and the explanation over how Peter found his brother was lame. However, if you look past all those flaws, the story itself is entertaining.

I give Peter & Max: a Fables Novel a 3 out of 5.

For those of you who have read the book, feel free to tell me differently! I’d love to hear from you.

Tales of Words Arcane & RoW80 Check-in

RoW80 Check-In
It’s time for another RoW80 Check-In! Here we go.

1. Haven’t written on my WIP, but I’ve been doing some serious brainstorming. The goal is to get at least 3 chapters planned out before I write. I have Chapter 2 planned out. Now I need to focus on Chapters 1 and 3.
2. I’m almost halfway through the Grammar Devotional by Mignon Fogarty
3. I’ve started doing my daily 15 minutes of exercise almost every day. I get at least a half hour of exercise every Tuesday and Thursday during my Tae Kwon Do class.
4. I’ve started reviewing the first Taeguk pattern I was taught. It’s starting to come together. I’m glad I’m starting to review these early.
5. I’m looking forward to another week of commenting and promoting. I’ve already started.
6. I’ll be doing my grammar practices this week too.

Tales of Words Arcane: The Dream Shop

Photo Credit by Eishier

I remember it was a sunny Saturday when I found the shop that sold dreams. I was new to the town and decided to explore the downtown market, which was a maze of shops in the streets and in the alleyways.

The shop I decided to enter had a crate on it with the words The Dream Shop written on the sign.

The Dream Shop was a tall and narrow shop filled to the brim with normal looking crates, which disappointed me because I was expecting something more fantastical to contain dreams than a mere crate. The shop keeper was a little old woman wearing a glittery scarf and several strands of beads around her neck that clicked against each other every time she moved.

“Are you interested in buying a dream or trading?”

“I didn’t realize you could do buy or trade dreams until today.”

“You’d be surprised at how many of my clients want to sell the dreams they’ve had for all of their lives, and trade them in for something new.”

“It sounds like a risky business.”

“Dreams are risky but worthwhile when you find the right one.”

Do Fears Have Layers?

Fear is a curious beast. If you slay one fear, another one takes its place. For example, last week I was worried I wouldn’t have anything to say because I was blogging for 3 days a week. This week I am fighting myself about specifying on a writing topic for my blog and sticking to a schedule.

This made me think of a scene from the movie Shrek.

Shrek and Donkey are walking through a field of sunflowers on their way to Lord Farquaad. Donkey asks Shrek why he doesn’t just storm his fortress.

Shrek: For your information, there’s a lot more to ogres than people think.
Donkey: Example?
Shrek: Example… okay, um… ogres are like onions!
[holds up an onion, which Donkey sniffs]
Donkey: They stink?
Shrek: Yes… No!
Donkey: Oh, they make you cry?
Shrek: No!
Donkey: Oh, you leave ‘em out in the sun, they get all brown, start sproutin’ little white hairs…
Shrek: [peels an onion] NO! Layers. Onions have layers. Ogres have layers. Onions have layers. You get it? We both have layers.
[walks off]
Donkey: Oh, you both have LAYERS. Oh. You know, not everybody like onions.

Although the scene was describing the difficulties of being generalized into a certain category based on what you look like, the onion analogy can be used to describe fear as well. Each layer of the onion represents a fear. These layers of fear are merely a diversion attempt from what’s really bothering us. If we peel away these layers, eventually we will find the real reason what we are afraid of.

The true fear.

My true fear could be as simple as being afraid to write, or committing to a project. For you it could be something completely different.

What do you think fear really is? Is fear a many layered beast hiding a secret fear? Or is fear just a simple dragon that needs to be killed? Tell me, I’d love to know!

(And just to show how much I love you guys, here’s the clip from the movie I was using as an example. )

Would You Like To Be My Accountability Partner?

Is it just me, or does that headline sound like an advertisement for an online dating site? Hi, my name is Kristy! I love to read, play Star Wars: The Old Republic, and imagine terrible things happening to the characters in my stories.

Back to the point of my post. I’d dearly love to kick my bad habit of procrastination, which might hinder my RoW80 goals even with the check in posts.

I’m looking for an accountability partner/mentor. Preferably someone who has done row80 before and succeeded in meeting their goals, and wouldn’t mind giving me a pep talk/kick in the pants if I haven’t met mine.

I’d be more than willing to return the favor!

This week I have met one of my row80 goals, and gone beyond it! I’ve commented on more than 10 blogs and promoted them. I didn’t want to when I first started, but as I kept doing more I realized I was having fun! It was hard to stop.

I haven’t written for my WIP at all this week. I have written down on an index card what I want to write in short form. I don’t like starting out with just typing at a blank page because I find blank pages intimidating. Having some sort of a plan helps to break through that blank page.

I’d like to develop what I have a bit more. Generate some more conflict for it. I’ve got a few ideas, I just need to apply them and write.

Still need to do my 15 minutes of exercise and grammar practice, but the night is still young.

Tales of Words Arcane: The Puppet

Photo Credit: Ojimbo

The first time I stayed at my grandmother’s house was during the summer of when I was 7.

The puppet was in my room and its unfriendly features put me off from going near it. I hated going to sleep in the room that night knowing it was staring at me with its blank eyes. I told my grandmother the puppet scared me, and to move it, but she just smiled.

“That puppet looks unfriendly because it’s a protector. It’s job is to ward away danger, and it can’t do that by being friendly.”

I didn’t believe her until the second night I saw a shadow creep from my closet, and make its way towards the bedside table.

The shadow crept its way up the table heading towards me, which proved to be its undoing because it had to pass the puppet. The puppet scooped up the shadow with its hands and ate it before settling back into place with a sigh of content.

I decided to like that puppet after that night.

Damsels In Distress Getting You Down? Read Hush Money by Susan Bischoff

Do you know what the hardest thing to find in young adult books is? Strong female characters.

I’ve read so many young adult books featuring heroines who were rendered incapable of fighting for themselves because of the forces they oppose, or were content to observe their champion fight for them.

Susan Bischoff’s debut novel Hush Money is a wonderful exception to that.

They call their abilities Talents, and that’s what they call themselves as well. Talents are people born with supernatural powers, feared by the population at large. Possession of an “unregistered ability” has become illegal, and those who are discovered are forcibly removed to government-run research facilities. They do not return. And so the Talents try, as best they can, to keep their abilities secret-some more successfully than others. For some, keeping that secret begins to define who they are. That’s where Hush Money begins… Be normal, invisible. Don’t get close to anyone. Those are the rules to live by for seventeen-year-old Joss. She spent years as an outsider, hoping to hide what she is, until the new girl, Kat, decides she’s friend material. Kat doesn’t realize her mistake when she stands up for Joss against Marco, a guy who’s been giving Joss a hard time since freshman year. Joss is horrified when these heroics lead to the reveal of Kat’s Talent. Now she has an unasked-for best friend, who is the victim of an extortion plot by the school bully, who used to like Joss. And if that wasn’t all complicated enough, Dylan, Joss’s long-time crush, is finally starting to talk to her. But as Marco’s best friend, can Dylan be trusted at all? Can Joss keep her secret and still save her friend? And what’s more important, staying safe or doing what’s right? Hush Money is recommended for readers 13 and over due to strong language.

Joss is a flawed, snarky heroine who wears combat boots and is not afraid to get her hands dirty in a fight. The feminist in me cheered. Hush Money is a fantastic example of what a strong female heroine should be like.

Another thing I love about Bichoff is she does not hold her punches in a fight scene.

I’ve already bought the sequel Heroes Til Curfew, and it promises to be just as good as the first.

What books are you reading right now? I’d love to know!