Topic 2 Daily Practice

Daily Practice:

Try to play 水调歌头（Prelude to Water Melody)  with ~6 different instruments.

Prelude to Water Melody is an ancient Chinese poem. It has been set to music, and the song is popular in different generations of China

The wiki link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuidiao_Getou

Day 2: Kazoo

The kazoo is an American musical instrument that adds a “buzzing” timbral quality to a player’s voice when the player vocalizes into it. It is a type of mirliton (which itself is a membranophone), one of a class of instruments which modifies its player’s voice by way of a vibrating membrane of goldbeater’s skin or material with similar characteristics.

The Record:

I’ve tried several different playing styles and tones and this is my favorite version. Also, this piece of music is a continuation of the piece from yesterday. I hope I can get the full version of this song on the last day of practice.

I’m still thinking about my pin-point topic, about olfactory or diabetes, or other medical topics. I do agree that thinking via desktop is different from thinking through making things.

So choosing a form first, I hope it can lead me to a clearer plan.

I’m going to make a “booklet”. Maybe because the medical items are always related to a “manual”/”handbook”(手册) in my mind. However, I don’t want it to be something full of texts. Let me try.

The first question came to my mind was, What size is it?

Take A4 as a beginning, it seemed too large. So I folded the paper in half.

Then the second question, Who uses this booklet, and how?

There are many possibilities, patients? Or anyone who wants to get medical information.

When I put the paper on the desk, I felt it was hard to decide on the cover now. So I skipped it.

I asked a smaller question instead: What should be seen when the reader opens it?

I was not very creative here, a catalog.

After that, I had other thoughts: Is it for patients only? It can also be a record collection tool.

So I created a rough form which was like daily instruction and a blank box to fill.

So far that’s it. I thought there was nothing meaningful I would get since the idea was vague. But the physical material gave me a different environment to think differently.

Explanation: For my daily practice, I will do some image research on one specific buddha figure which is Avalokitesvara. From wikipedia, Avalokitesvara is a bodhisattva who embodies the compassion of all Buddhas. He has 108 avatars. He is variably depicted, described and portrayed in various cultures as either male or female. 

The reason I choose this buddha is in China, each year has an animal assigned to it. There are totally 12 animals(Chinese zodiac) and each year is in a repeating twelve-year cycle. Different Chinese zodiac also has one buddha assigned to it. The animal assigned to me is mouse, and the buddha associated with it is Avalokitesvara. Therefore, I want to do more research on this figure.

The origin of buddhism is from ancient India, but the religion was spread across all around the world. Different cultures borrow the ideology and art of buddhism and combine them with their own cultures. Therefore, the figure of buddha is various. For the daily practice, I will show some  images of Avalokitesvara from different countries or regions. 

Day 1: 

Avalokitesvara figure from Tibet, China: 

In Tibet, Avalokitesvara usually has for arms and the gender is male. He sits on a lotus. He represent the “大悲”(great sorrow) which means he has the heart of helping people leave suffering. Usually the painting art named “唐卡”(thangka) is drew on cotton and silk appliqué in Tibet.

Daily Practice:

Try to play 水调歌头（Prelude to Water Melody)  with ~6 different instruments.

Prelude to Water Melody is an ancient Chinese poem. It has been set to music, and the song is popular in different generations of China

The wiki link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuidiao_Getou

Day 1: Kalimba

The kalimba is an African musical instrument with a wooden soundboard and metal keys. In the classification of musical instruments, the kalimba is in the category of lamellophones or plucked idiophones (Hornbostel-Sachs system).

The Record:

Audio Player

Origin of robot animation-Astro Boy

January 1, 1963 marks the birth of serialized TV anime in Japan. That is the day when the first thirty-minute episode of Osamu Tezuka’s “Tetsuwan Atom” (literally “Mighty Atom,” aka “Astro Boy”) was broadcast. An instant hit, it kicked off the era of mass-produced televised animation in Japan, with a great many production companies both new and old jumping into the fray. At this point, shows generally centered on human-sized heroes that were actually more like hybrids of man and machine than true robots. This trend came to play a major role in shaping the development of Japanese anime culture.

Animators designed robot characters with sleek, gleaming bodies, evoking the clean new roadways, the speeding bullet trains, and shining skyscrapers that were rising up all around them.

Early robot shows were deeply influenced by a “modern-day folklore” of limitless scientific potential. The televised anime of this era was a perfect fit for this moment in Japanese history, portraying a future where science would make life better for everyone. Unlike manga, printed in black and white on rough paper, anime was painted on plastic sheets called cels, giving it a bright luster. When projected on the sheet of glass used as the display for a cathode-ray tube, it accentuated the robotic gleam of the characters all
the more.

For the largely still impoverished children of Japan, this “clean look” glimmered like an arrow pointing to the future. Among the generation who grew up watching the shows in realtime, the first thing that inevitably comes to mind isn’t the actual storylines but rather the merchandise. Specifically, the “magic” rub-off transfers packaged with Marble Chocolates. The shiny, smooth transfers perfectly mimicked the texture of the images on the television screen, and their “robotic” appeal kicked off a fad among
children. In other words, among children of the era, these broader qualities in and of themselves were perceived as “robotic,” and connected to the changes in the cityscape around them.