Blackbird- The Stone Violin

The Blackbird, also known as the Black Stone Violin, is the only full sized, fully playable, stone violin. It was made by a Swedish artist named Lars Widenfalk who named the violin the Blackbird after blackbirds due to its coloring. Supposedly, Stradivari (a great violin making master, on whose designs this violin is based off of) often named his violins after birds.

According to his website,

"The belly of the violin is only 2.5 mm thick at its thinnest point. Such was the precision with which the belly was constructed, with its sound-holes, back and graceful scroll. The ribs were made in one piece by first sawing out a 30 mm thick plate shaped to form the external contour, and then, with infinite care, removing the inside using water-drill and hand-tools so as to create a thin rib, no more than a couple of millimetres thick at its thinnest point.
Stone may seem stable, static material, lacking in "give"; but when the work on the ribs was almost complete, they fractured at a point where the stone had a "give" of approximately 15 mm. Diabase is a very dense crystalline rock deriving from the interior of the Earth in the form of magma which solidified 1.6 billion years ago."

While working on two big diabase stones that were supposed to form part of the embellishment of the Norwegian TV building in Oslo, Norway, he discovered that the rock gave off a sound like a bronze
bell while using a hammer and chisel. After recieving his grandfather's headstone (a newer one was being built for a larger family grave), he reliezed that the stone was about the right size for a violin. And so he sought out to create the world's first and only playable stone violin.

A fascinating thought: what did primary rock - Mother Earth - sound like? Would it be possible to capture in a single instrument the sound of which we all form part?

Constructing the violin took some work. After most of the body of the violin was finished, when it came to the back piece, the headstone material had been used up. So Lars himself went out and cut a block of a porphyry resembling diabase, but that's black with pale flecks. The interior surface was finished with real gold to produce the finest possible tone and silver steel pegs were used to secure the neck to the body. The fingerboard, pegs, tailpiece, and chinrest were made from traditional black ebony. Inspired from the yellow bill of the blackbird, Lars used yellow ivory from mammoth to form the bridge.

The Blackbird is not the only stone violin, a Czech sculptor by the name of Jan Řeřicha, also made some stone violins from marble. These violins weigh in between 3.6 and 6.5 kg, while the Blackbird weighs only 2 kg.


The Swedish composer, Sven David Sandström, composed music specially for the Blackbird and in 1992 at the Seville Expo in Spain, at the Swedish Pavilion, the music debuted on the Blackbird. That same year the violin was blessed by Pope John Paul II in Rome, and since that year, the violin has traveled all over the world.

Sincerely,
Sareh


Resources
Wikipedia- Blackbird violin
Blackbird- The black stone violin

Sharing Time- 8/4/14 (P.S Writing Contest Alert!)

Music and Videos

I'm not surprised this following video is from Canada, but in any case, its pretty adorable. I wish American banks would do this! Any chance I can get help paying off my schooling? 

Janelle Monae's "Cold War" music video.

"Do your bit! Skate to work!", New York City, 1940s pic.twitter.com/RPuJZ9O6dJ

— History In Pictures (@HistoryInPics) July 5, 2014

In the News
Coffee shop with no employees. - This article is kinda old but its a neat idea. This coffee shop doesn't have an employees because it runs on the honor system. People can pay whatever they want for the coffee and serve themselves.
Fail-This article deals more with design, but I thought that it can be applied to writers too. It talks about how its okay to fail.
What would you give up for world peace?- I thought this article was share worthy because it deals with "hive mind", the idea that we could share a collective mind- some animals like bees and ants have what is called a hive mind. In Night Lies, Faith joins a team where the team's leader has them join his hive mind.
25 free apps that help make the world a better place- Its a Buzzfeed article, so I take everything with a grain of salt on this site. I don't trust it, since they've been known to plagiarize, but it is entertaining and they share some pretty cool stuff regardless.


Writing/Book Articles/News
Double Standards for Journalists- This article deals with a topic I ranted about earlier. But it basically goes on to say that journalists need to treat social media like they do traditional journalism. Which includes fact checking and acting professionally. If they don't, they risk losing their reader's trust.
Unlimited Profit: The Math behind Kindle Unlimited- I'm not good at math, so I didn't fully understand this. But for the more math inclined brains out there, this article makes out the math behind Kindle Unlimited and how authors and Amazon stands to make a profit.
YA- The Changing Face of Marketing- This discussion I found during my marketing class. It deals with how authors in 2014 are marketing themselves and their books. Its pretty interesting and worth a look.

Contest Alert
Do you have a finished MG, YA, NA, or Adult manuscript? Looking to be published? Well Pitch Wars is going on and I thought I'd share. You can find the rules and mentors listed here Pitch Wars Mentors 2014.

Story Time
So I've had this story idea for a while now. But I thought I'd share it with you because its been going pretty well.

Beautiful Manipulation

Being against evil doesn’t make you good.

Rhielle Medley knew three rules. 1) When you got into trouble you called in your local superhero. 2) Superheroes can only be killed by their nemeses. 3) Don’t tell anyone you’re not perfect.

Since she was young, Rhielle, a fraternal triplet, knew she and her sisters, Sian and Ilvione were different. They always knew how to be perfect in public. Physically, socially, and personally graceful and flawless, the triplets could get away with anything and even a complete stranger would feel like they had known them forever. But on the inside, they are far from perfect.

When their parents' rocky marriage comes to light , suddenly everything seems to spiral out of control. Someone is killing the superheros, Sian is taking advantage of their power, manipulating everyone in her path, Ilvione keeps disappearing, and Rhielle just wants to finish her homework, and go to work.

But when their local superhero, Nest, asks her to help him find out who’s killing his colleagues, Rhielle will have to ask what’s the difference between good and evil? Can you still be good if you just stand by and do nothing? And if she, herself, is even worth saving before it becomes too late.

I'm not quite sure where I got the general idea from, but its a really fun story to write. I'm basing their power though off a Superpower Wiki entry though- Supernatural Beauty- and giving a new look to the power.

For more Beautiful Manipulation, you can check out the story at my Wattpad page or on my Pinterest Board. Also, here's a semi-depressing, but interesting article that I know Sian would use to her advantage- Being Attractive Pays Off.

Also, check out my friends' stories on Wattpad- Drunk on Love by natmarie, Clever Devils by EDcarrol, and The Dawn- The Aleron Chronicles Book 1 by Evelynn Grace.

Sincerely,
Sareh

Expierence Your Book with Mozart: Booktrack

Ever thought that reading would be more interesting if you had some kind of music to go along with it? No? Well maybe you've thought that you know a particular song goes just well with this passage and only if you could share it with the world. 

There's website, Booktrack, that allows users to listen to books and texts with synchronized movie-style soundtracks and sounds. Apparently you can buy books with soundtracks already loaded (for example, the Power of Six comes with over 70 different musical scores and sounds, according to The Atlantic), create your own for books, or even add music and sounds to books and documents you originally create. 

According to The Atlantic:

It takes about six weeks to produce the nine hour-long track for a typical book. Booktrack has a small in-house team, but the bulk of the labor is done at outside production companies like Park Road Post, which has won Academy Awards for sound mixing. Creative designers read each book and determine what music and sounds should be used, and where. It all comes together with a composer, an audio technician, and sometimes, a sound producer. Cameron said it was only natural to seek out sound experts from the film industry, and they try to work with writers when they can. 

But how exactly does it work? According to the Smithsonian:

How does the book know when to fire the gun? It reads your mind. Almost. By calculating your reading speed from when you turn the page, it gauges when you'll reach the word or group of words that trips a sound effect. For slow readers, the background music plays on a loop, idling euphoniously, until you get to one of the trigger words. 

Booktrack tries to help improve literacy
According to Forbes.com, it reports that the National Endowment for the Arts reports that 33% of high school and 42% of college students never read a book after graduation. And with these numbers, educators are looking for more ways to engage students with reading (with reading showing not only increased test scores, but other benefits as well).

So in comes Booktrack, hoping to help educations tackle the non-reading trends among young adults. Booktrack Classroom gives students free access to ebooks with soundtracks for reading or creating their own. 

The thinking goes that with videos, radio, TV, video games, and interactive media, students have a hard time engaging in silent reading with a book that requires longer attention spans and less interactive parts to keep them engaged. So Booktrack figures that by adding music and sound, it'll help keep their attention.

According to their press release:

The announcement follows findings from a research project conducted by a team of experts from the University of Auckland that shows how reading with Booktrack increases reading comprehension and engagement. Of the 260 students in the randomized study, those who read the syllabus text incorporating Booktrack’s synchronized soundtrack spent 30% more time reading and registered up to 17% higher comprehension in comparison with the control group.

A second study was conducted with students with reading difficulties, with an even greater impact. This group had up to 18% higher comprehension and 35% higher satisfaction. The studies were led by Dave Hithersay, head of Biology at Auckland’s Mt Roskill Grammar School.

  From my own experience, I know when reading a book, my English teachers have often played corresponding movies and soundtracks (usually not while we were actually reading) or would find some way to make it more interesting (because apparently just reading on its own can't be entertaining). In any case, its a nice idea. 

Creating your own Booktrack?
Going on from education, we've now come to the what if I actually want to do this and create my own Booktrack? part. 

Booktrack’s expansion into education builds on the company’s recent successful fundraising round where it secured US$3million from global investors, led by Sparkbox Ventures. It allows the company to build on its recent growth with Booktrack Studio, which provides self-published writers with the ability to add soundtracks to their ebooks. In just over five months since its launch, over 300,000 users have created more than 3,600 Booktracks in 30 different languages and have spent more than 2.5 years reading.

 Anyways, according to the website, its fairly simple. "1. Copy your existing work, type an original story, or use a royalty free text to get started. 2. Add music, ambient sounds, and effects from our free library of 1,000s of tracks to create an immersive soundtrack for your text. 3. Publish your story for our community of readers to enjoy and share."  But of course, we all know that it is never as simple as they say. So if you really want to create your own booktrack, there's this handy-dandy little guide on how to make yours nice  or you can check out their author's blog.

Booktrack isn't such a new idea
Even though this is totally relevant, but I feel I must mention audiobooks. If you've ever listened to an audiobook, you'll probably notice that there's usually a little bit of music and sound involved. Usually in between the reader actually reading, sometimes to indicate a break or to introduce a chapter or whatever.

Authors in the past have also made use of creating soundtracks to go along with their books. Author Glen Duncan collarbated with Stephen Coates to create soundtracks to go with the novels I, Lucifer and The Last Werewolf. Jeff VanderMeer has also created soundtracks to go with his books.

And besides that, is a habit for writers now days to seek out music that goes along with their books. For Those Crazy Years, I found some wonderful playlists on Spotify (I think under a genre called electro swing) that works perfectly with my 1920s steam/deco punk story. Many of my writing friends have also created playlists on 8tracks that go along with their books. And this Amazon post lists some other books that have soundtracks created with the story in mind.

Other tibits
You can watch this Tedtalk by Booktrack's co-founder Paul Cameron.

And although I think this is a pretty neat idea, and I could see how it could be appealing to some, I would think that overall, it would just be too distracting. Unless maybe you're already in a situation that is distracting and you want something to listen to. Besides that, if you're looking to buy a book with a Booktrack, it costs extra (obviously, but would you really want to spend a couple extra dollars on it?). In any case, the app for it is available for both Apple and Androids so you can download it for yourself and check it out. And I might have to as well just to see if it really does work nicely or not.

So what do you think? Would you like to add music and sounds to your own book or read a book with a soundtrack ebbed in it? Do you think it says something about society went we're using soundtracks to help engage readers, or do you think its a smart or stupid idea?

Sincerely,
Sareh

Sharing Fridays! 5/16/14

So I kinda forgot yesterday was Thursday (I blame summer break), so I'm sharing things today.

Book Contests

• Lori. M. Lee is having a cover reveal and an international book giveaway! Check it out here.
• Beth Revis is having a huge giveaway and you have to check it out here.
• Jay Kristoff is having a cover reveal and a giveaway too! You can check it out here.

Media and Music

• Ted Talks to Inspire and Learn
• 10 Talks on Graduation and What's Next
• Unlock the intelligence, passion, and greatness of girls
• Why Domestic Violence Victims Don't Leave
• What We Learned from Five Million Books
• How Photography Connects Us
• Check out Peter Hollen's rendition of Brave by Josh Groban. 

Articles to Look at

• Snapchat isn't protecting your privacy
• (To make you smile) 100 Best Dog Photos
• Young People want Equality but Struggle to Discuss Bias
• Worst Ways to Begin Your Novel According to Literary Agents
• 31 Confessions Any Book Lover will Understand
• Why We Need to Care more about Library Funding
• My post on how to help show you care to the families of the kidnapped girls in Nigeria and websites to check out about ending human trafficking. 
• A high school student not only graduated from high school at 15, but he also did it with four college degrees. You can check out the story here.
• How Writers can Make Money on Etsy
• 11 Ways to Write Authentic Historical Fiction
• 7 tips on How To Writer Historical Fiction
• 8 1/2 Character Archtypes you Should Be Writing

Websites to Look at

• The Brits have established a website chock full of literature and other documents from the British Library's collection on Romantic and Victorian writers. You can check it out here.
• There's an awesome website you can buy books from for REALLY cheap. You can check out Book Outlet here. 

Sincerely,
Sareh

In the News- Doggies, and music!

Outrage over Christmas Carol

Christmas carols help us get in the mood to celebrate the holidays. But would they have the same meaning if we changed a few words? 

Apparently a music teacher at Cherry Knoll Elementary School in Traverse City decided to change the word "gay" to "bright" in "Deck the Halls" for thier children's Christmas concert. Why? Because the first and second graders wouldn't stop giggling at the word, "gay". Severel parents went to facebook saying:

"By taking the word 'gay' out of 'Deck the Halls,' you are making it a big deal. One word can have different meanings." Another parent voiced, "Can one word in a 150-year-old classic Christmas carol really offend someone?"  

The negative comments have since been deleted from the school's Facebook page, and wall posts have been disabled. Cherry Knoll Principal Chris Parker is on the parents' side, saying, "This would have been a great opportunity to teach that 'gay' has more than one meaning and is not a bad word." In response to the controversy over the word change, the original lyrics have now been restored.

Puppies go to College.
Students at George Mason Law School, located just a few miles from downtown Washington, D.C., are discovering new and cute ways to get through finals. GMU has teamed up with an animal rescue organization  A Forever Home to bring puppies to campus as a form of realeasing stress.

According to the Washington Post, studies show that the legal profession has above-average rates of depression and problems with substance abuse. So now, many law schools are not only teaching students about the course material, they're also showing students how to balance their school and life and preparing them for the legal profession. 

Their teachers agree that law school is hard and that its important to find outlets for stress. The dogs help relieve their stress and the ones brought in from Chantilly, West Virgina, were recently spared from euthanization.

Read this one and the one above here.

Airport worker fired after refusing to let a dog to on a plane. 

Lynn Jones who handled airport baggage, saw a sad, emactiated dog in a pet carrier one day and knew something was not right. Then she spotted that it was covered with sores and its paws were worn raw. Realizing that if the dog got onto the plane it'd die, she refused her supervisor's order to load it onto the plane bound for Texas. Afterwards, she was fired.

Now, a month after the incident at Reno-Tahoe International Airport, the dog has recovered. And Jones, while her former employer and airport officials have praised her for her actions, remains without her old job.

The 56-year-old loves animals. She once owned a dog gromming shop and has three dogs, three cats, and a bird- all who were rescued. After telling her supervisor about the dog, she told her to load it anyways, reportedly not even looking at the poor thing. The airport police called the animal welfare agency which took the dog into custody.

The dog belongs to a hunter who ships it to wherever he's hunting. His dog was returned to him in Texas after it was nursed back to health. Jones is disgusted that the animal was sent back to its owner. Saying that it's obviously abused. She doesn't know if she'll accept an offer to return to her job.

Read the article here.

So what do you think?

Sincerely,
Sareh

Classes that might be fun.

So I meant to post yesterday but I got caught up in packing for my trip today. Well since I'm all settled in pretty much, I'll try to find something interesting to make up for yesterday.

I've decided that since school is coming up or some of you may have already started school, I'm going to talk about some cool classes. At my school, you can take a bunch of neat ones but really only once you're an upperclassman. Some of ours include:

• Creative Writing- Yep, I'm sure most if not all of us, would really enjoy this class. I really want to do this class this year but I got put into British Literature. 
• Law and Justice- Here the teachers makes you watch Criminal Minds the whole time and then stops the show have way through and you have to guess what will happen. Afterwards you talk about the outcome.
• Comparative Religions- Here we learn about a whole bunch of different religions besides the different kinds of Christians (Lutherans, Catholics, Baptists, etc). Religions like Wicca, satanists, paganism, and voodoo are some of the examples. 
• Digital Photography- Here we learn about all the different stuff you can do with a camera and kinds of photo editing programs you can use. 
• Ceramics I and II: Pottery! Whoo! I really wanted to take the first class this year but instead they put me into Foundations of Art. 
• Pseo Classes- These are online classes you can take. The homework is stuff you have to do on your own and not only do you earn a high school credit for this but you earn a college one too. There's a bunch of stuff like American Sign Language and psychology (which my school also offers). 
• Christian Family and Life- From what I've heard this class is where we learn about how to raise families and live ours lives in a good Christian way. 
• Earth and Space science- Here we learn about space and where we have stargazing sessions too. We also study rocks and learn how to identify them.

Well that's all I can really think off the top of my head, but I know that this year my school is going to try something new. We're trying something called the J-turn. Here after Christmas break, instead of cramming finals and extra lessons in before the quarter ends, for a whole week, our teachers will be able to teach something special. Like one teacher might have a cooking class or another might have us carve a boat out of a tree. 

Plus then the seniors and juniors get first pick. So if you're a freshman and one of the special classes you want to take are full, you'll have to suck it up and take something else. Also, we'll only be able to take one or two classes the whole week. I hope it'll be fun! 

And apparently this year, my school is also making all of the freshmen take a new semester class called Freshmen Ordination, where they'll learn stuff like organizational skills.  We'll also have this new program every other Wednesdays where we'll get out of school an extra twenty minutes. But if you get a pass to a teacher's, you have to go in and work on that stuff until either the bell rings or you get your stuff done. 

So I think this year will turn out interesting. I think most of my classes are okay, although I want to switch out of Foundations of Art and British Literature. What cool classes does your school offer? Have you ever gotten to do any of them? What are the worst classes in your opinion? Does your school have any interesting programs? 

Sincerely,

Peony

Book Review- The Last Days

Strange things are happening: old friends disappearing, angels (or devils) clambering on the fire escapes of New York City. But for Pearl, Moz, and Zahler, all that matters is the band. As the city reels under a mysterious epidemic, the three combine their talents with a vampire lead singer and a drummer whose fractured mind can glimpse the coming darkness. Will their music stave off the end? Or summon it?

Set against the gritty apocalypse that began in Peeps, The Last Days is about five teenagers who find themselves creating the soundtrack for the end of the world.

In the next book after Peeps, we meet five kids who want to start a band. Pearl and Moz meet when they save a rare guitar and then Moz introduces her to his best friend. The two boys have been playing guitars together for six years and considered themselves a too person band.

Pearl then brings her friend, Minerva, to their band practices as the singer. Min has been getting over the sickness that turns you into a vampire. That's one of the things I liked about this book, while they turn into vampires through getting bitten, I enjoyed this book partly because vampires isn't actually said. Plus they still eat people, hate light, love meat, and are pretty much normal vampires. They don't sparkle.

I thought that all of the characters were relateable to in somehow shape and form. Plus since this was written in first person and there was five different point of views, I thought that Mr. Westerfeld did a very good job keeping them straight and moving the story along. I loved learning about the characters and seeing the sickness that was affecting New York through many different eyes. Minerva was probably my favorite character. 

While I didn't think much happened in this book, it was still interesting to see how Moz and his new friends turned into vampires and into a great band. I loved the way the music was described when the played and how everything went good. I loved the part where they were trying to come up with a name for their band and how Minerva talked to her cat and how the cat acted. 

My favorite part was probably when the characters from the last book, Peeps, appeared. I was happy to see them show up and explain to Moz's band what was happening. Plus I love how vampires are good things in these stories rather than dark evil creatures. 

Overall, it was a good book although at times it was boring, so more could have happened. Some of the characters were funny and amusing and so I enjoyed the book. Would I recommend it? Maybe, if you like this kind of stuff.

On Goodreads: The Last Days
Website: Scott Westerfeld

So, have you ever read a book that take a new meaning or look at an old species or an idea? Did you like this new apporch or not? 

Sincerely,

Peony

In The News- Random Gossip and Why Teachers are Hypocrites.

First of all, we'll start with the random gossip that really isn't news but I thought that some of you may like to hear.

Rebecca Black, the infamous teenage singer who's Friday video gained fame across the world for being...the world's worst singing ever? Now, I'll admit I do not like her singing but I think that a lot of people went out of line by giving her death threats and other nasty things. Eventually, the video was taken off of youtube and we thought that we had seen the last of the teen. 

Apparently not. According to Yahoo! The singer has release a new music video called My Moment. While her voice is still awfully auto tuned and the music video isn't all that exciting, I'll give her some points for not giving up. And with this new music video, it has been announced that a new 5 song EP has been released onto Itunes today called Yes There's More!. 

Link to the Yahoo! Article: Rebecca Black New Music Video
Edit: The Music Video was taken off because it didn't work. If you'd like to see it, click the link to the Yahoo! Article.

In other subjects that is video related and I'm not considering news at all, Jerusha Hess (who apparently has cowritten things (Napoleon Dynamite, Nacho Libre and Gentlemen Broncos) with her husband, and the famous Twilight author, Stephanie Meyer, are co-producing a movie called Austenland. 

The Hollywood Reporter broke the news of this film and described it in a bit more detail as follows:

[Austenland] centers on a single, thirtysomething woman with a secret obsession with Mr. Darcy — as played by Colin Firth in the BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. The obsession is ruining her love life because no real man can compare. When she decides to spend her life savings on a trip to an English resort catering to Jane Austen-crazed women, the woman’s fantasy of meeting the perfect Regency-era gentleman becomes more real than she could have imagined.

Link to the aritcle: Twilight Author to Co-Produce a Movie....

In the News
According to several reports 178 teachers and principals in Alabama have been caught in one of America's largest teaching scandals ever. For years everyone thought that everything was going great for the school districts grades kept on rising. But due to abnormal scores, investigators found that on standardized tests (yes this is why we shouldn't have them!) teachers would change their student's answers so that they would get better grades.

This, mind you, was not to help the students in any way, it was to save their own jobs. By getting higher test scores the Broad Foundation and the Gates Foundation would give them more funding. 
According to the Yahoo! Article:

One of the most troubling aspects of the Atlanta cheating scandal, says the report, is that the district repeatedly refused to properly investigate or take responsibility for the cheating. Moreover, the central office told some principals not to cooperate with investigators. In one case, an administrator instructed employees to tell investigators to "go to hell." When teachers tried to alert authorities, they were labeled "disgruntled." One principal opened an ethics investigation against a whistle-blower.

Because of the high stakes placed on these tests for teachers, these "educators" have resorted to cheating. Hypocrites! They tell us "don't cheat or you'll get a zero" yet they think it's perfectly okay to cheat themselves? How can we possibly trust them if they show us that we can't trust them.

Some of these high stakes include:

Ten states now use test scores as the main criterion in teacher evaluations. Other states reward high-scoring teachers with up to $25,000 bonuses – while low scores could result in principals losing their jobs or entire schools closing. Even as the number of scandals grows, experts say it remains fairly easy for teachers and principals to get away with ethical lapses.

In one report I read, teachers would get together on weekends or after school at each other's houses, drink coffee and eat while they would erase their students answers.  Much like some kinda of party. Why is this okay with you teachers? Why!

I think that this lady has a very good point:

"And that’s what ought to alarm us," adds Ms. Downey, "that these professionals ultimately felt their students could not even pass basic competency tests, despite targeted school improvement plans, proven reforms, and state-of-the-art teacher training."

True true. I find not only what the teachers did alarming, but insulting too. Kids are smarter than what you think. Just because there are those few who don't care, alot of us do care. And we'll do the best we can without your helping us cheat. And how did these teachers expect to get away with this? How I don't know, but something will have to be done about this so that this can never happen again.

In a recent report, the teachers and officials caught up in this scandal will be forced to resign this week or this will be forced to. So, yes teachers, there are punishments for cheating even with you too. I hope that every one of you feels ashamed of yourselves. And just think, you have now destroyed any hopes of getting another teaching job in this already bad economy.

You can read both news articles here and here.

So, what do you think about Rebecca Black's new songs, or Stephanie Meyer's new producer job? What about this teaching scandal?

Sincerely,
Peony