A Plea to Female Gamers
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Back in my time, gaming was a guy thing, like G-I-Joes or Transformers. Females had their Barbie doll games, and males had their first person shooters, real time strategy, and roll playing games. Girls don’t fight wars, control armies, or save fantastical realms from destruction. They play with pink things and you know… accessories while making cookies or something.
Fast forward to today, and you have females transforming the norm, moving in on our turf. They play Halo Reach, Call of Duty 3, Street Fighter 4, Star Craft 2, World of Warcraft and Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. What is this world coming to?
It isn’t the single player games that bother the loud-mouthed, men-children out there; it’s when women go multiplayer and shoot machine guns just like the other guys. This causes some rather ungentlemanly responses. Take a look at the web site Fat, Ugly or Slutty and you’ll get an idea at what I’m talking about. The site was created by female gamers as a place to chronicle their ill treatment from the opposite sex. When we were kids it was harmless fun to say that girls have cuties. Now days, men-children all over the world, have diarrhea of the mouth towards woman via message chat or in-game voice chat:
These aren’t the worst of it. Every time I read through Fat, Ugly or Slutty, my skin crawls with revulsion. I can only imagine what a girl must feel when it is personally addressed to her. Why do some men think they can say such horrible things? What crosses through their tiny little minds when they use this abusive language? This isn’t the first time this has happened in human history.
Back in the 60s, the work place was a man’s world. Women were simply hot secretaries that brought you coffee and copied your memos. All the while men sat around like packs of wolves, cat-calling and making rude gestures. Just watch the Emmy award winning show Mad Men to get an idea of this. Before the 60s it was considered taboo to think of women as voters wearing pants. I think you see where this is heading.
Women have been fighting for their right to do whatever they feel like doing. It has been a long and difficult fight against the chauvinists, but there has been some real progress. We need to remember that once upon a time, there was a very real reason why women couldn’t hunt after mammoths, protect their tribe, or lead armies into conquest. They were too busy raising children and cooking mammoth meat to do anything else. Their bodies and minds were made to do this more efficiently than men.
It is wrong, however, for man to assume that this is all they are capable of. The technological advances of civilization have freed women greatly. They don’t need to spend hours and hours on a meal anymore. You can thank Percy Spencer, inventor of the microwave, for that. Daycares can handle the raising of a child so that moms can go to work. And when those moms get home… they can relax by sniping at strangers in Battlefield 3 on Xbox Live.
The world is changing too fast for the chauvinistic men-children out there. Guess it’s about time they grow up. I say they because the truth is, most men aren’t babbling morons when speaking to a lady online. It is the anonymity of the internet that causes the jerk within the men-children to bark out hate and sex mail towards their female peers. Even strapping young men like me get barked at by bullies. The best solution is to ignore them.
Game designers need to take a proactive approach in helping us ignore them. Perhaps we should all connect online with our Facebook accounts. Having real names floating above avatars could cause the men-children to shut up. Of course, it could also just make it easier for them to stalk their prey. Anonymity does have its perks you know.
Better fixes include making it easier for someone to block a person’s voice while playing a game. A one click button dedicated to this very thing would be nice. Just point at the moron and click. Boom head shot! Their sweaty voice is out of your life forever.
You should have the option on Xbox Live or the PSN Network so that you can only receive messages from friends. And if your friends are calling you slut… defriend them.
The best thing developers can do is moderate their games better, especially in the FPS genre. Any bullying and they get banned. This can be expensive I know, and may lead to monthly charges so that paid moderators can keep the servers clean. here’s a compromising model. Sell the elite membership of your game by saying it will be heavily moderated. Any none members can test their luck in all the wild servers out there. Something we already do. As the gaming community grows and more ladies join in the fun, I have no doubt services like this will be added.
The Neanderthal notion of women in the kitchen fixing mammoth meat isn’t going anywhere any time soon. The best we can do is bully the bullies back by pretending they don’t exist. Maybe their children will get it, or their children’s children.
And all of this brings me to my plea to female gamers. Don’t give up on gaming. If you are tired of being berated on a poorly moderated games, there are other options out there. Here is a list of games I’ve played that don’t have nearly as many men-children.
Team Fortress 2 (the spunky and cartoony FPS characters leave little room for boorish morons to scream at you. And its free on the PC.)
Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (A single player gem one of my female friends has fallen in love with. She isn’t the best gamer out there, but she loves playing this one.)
Minecraft (There are a lot of great, heavily moderated servers you can join. I recommend escapecraft.net.)
StarCraft II (For the war commander in you. It takes considerable concentration to control an army. This means a minimal amount of time for trash/slut talking and or bullying.)
World of Warcraft (Haven’t played it, but from what I here there are a lot of busy moderators on there.)
That’s all I can think of off the top of my head. Feel free to add other chauvinistic-free games to the list in the comments below.
The Nerd Hunter on Funny or Die
My best friend and fellow colleague, Jason Craft, has been hard at work on his Nerd Hunter web series. It is a documentary surrounding the nerd-seeking adventurer Nigel Cunningham.
Pictured, Nigel Cunningham staring down the sun
I’ve personally met the guy from the outback. His impassioned joy in hunting nerds is infectious! I’ve often wondered myself why nerds do the odd things that we do.
Nigel doesn’t kill our kind or course. He just harmlessly stalks after us behind house plants and bookshelves as we explore our natural habitat. Much like the late, great Steve Irwin did as the Crocodile Hunter.
My relationship with Nigel may have caused me to check every corner of the room before I perform any nerd activities, but it’s all in the name of science. He takes his study of nerds so seriously that he is currently serving jail time for breaking and entering into a nerd’s house. Thankfully the house wasn’t mine.
Producer and writer of the series Jason Craft invited me to create Star Wars influenced music for the first two episodes. What respectable composer could resist composing a parody of John Williams’ greatest hit! So I dusted off the ol’ BM Degree in Theory and Composition and went to work.
We have recently been recognized for our efforts at the prestigious scholastic web site of Funny or Die. We are in fact the first respectable documentary to be featured on that site. But enough about our laurels.
They haven’t updated the usability to feature our serious work, however, so if you find this particular show enlightening then click on the word “funny”. If you find it less so… click on “funny” anyways, you know, for the posterity of science and all that.
Nerd Hunter Episode IV: A Nerd Hope
P.S. Be sure to listen to the credits. That music doesn’t write itself you know!
Uncovering the Traditions of the Church: Love God and Love People
I have heard those two little sayings spoken so many times in church. It is found on banners and spoken amidst fiery sermons. Sunday school teachers remind you of it; Christian friends and family do the same.
Love God and love people, has had such a powerful hold over the body of Christ, yet the exact phrase can be found nowhere in the bible. It isn’t the inspired word of God, but rather the implied Word of God. Implications should not be the bases of our faith.
Muslims could say love Allah and love people. Buddhists could say love Buddha and love people. Pagans could say love gods and love people. Do these two little commandments really symbolize our relationship with God through Christ? What does God’s Word say?
Love God and people is an overly simplified version of the Old Testament law. It’s simplified in that it doesn’t, for instance, answer how deeply you must love God or how much you need to love others. God’s law is very specific in this. Love God and people weaken the brunt of the law. It steals the law’s power and replaces it with mellow indifference.
Love god could mean many things. Love him a lot! Love him a little. When you feel like it, love God, in your own way, on your own time, and in your own effort.
The same goes for love people, whenever you can… love ‘em. This causes superficial love, pretending to love on the outside when you really don’t. It’s all about keeping up appearances.
Such is the way of the world.
You may go to church smiling and lifting your hands, but inside, you are thinking of lunch. You may help your friend to move out of her house but deep inside, you’d rather be watching a movie. So you have the appearance of love… just not with all that you are, and just not all the time.
The world is fine with this mentality because they believe you can’t always love others. You have to love yourself a little, right? God understands that you can’t love him every second of every day… right?
The church encourages us to be like the world every time they state love God, love people (even while getting angry when we think of lunch instead of the sermon). But unlike the world, they make sure you feel guilty for not loving God enough! If you don’t watch it, you’ll be encouraged to work so hard at the church to love God, that you can barely love people, namely, your family and friends. Thus you fall fully into condemnation, which has nothing to do with the grace of God.
The unmerited favor of grace is a foreign concept to the justice of the law. You can’t demand someone to follow rules (even simple ones) while, at the same time, being lenient when they fail. Law demands conviction and judgment when you break it! Justice is the power of the law. Grace demands abundant love and mercy in all things and at all times. Love is the power of grace. Grace and law just don’t mix. You can’t have it both ways. Love god and love people implies that you can.
If such a phrase isn’t the complete law, what is? You can read Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, but all of that amounts to nothing if you can’t follow the greatest law of all.
A teacher of the law asked Jesus this once. Here is his response in Mark 12: 29-31.
“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”
Love God and love people, simplifies this… making it almost doable. But look at it in context… the perfection of God states that we must love him with all that we are and at all times. You can’t imply this! It must be stated as firmly as the bible states it. The second greatest law says that we must love our neighbor as ourselves. This means you cannot love yourself more than others. It also means you cannot love others less. The law is very clear. If you break it, then you are cursed.
And I ask… who can follow even these two great laws?
Only Jesus Christ!
Some have considered me a grace fanatic. They have even said that I ignore the law in all that it is. The truth is, they are the ones who ignore it. Many who view the law as doable aren’t really looking at the law. They are seeing bits and pieces of it and trying to do those. But James 2:10 states:
For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.
So you can’t be choosy. It’s all or nothing!
I don’t think the law should be preached less… I think it needs to be preached more! At the very least the two greatest laws should be firmly established (not the simplified love God love people, mind you, but instead “love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your mind, all your soul, and all your strength.” And , “Love your neighbor as yourself”).
After this is firmly established… ask the question: “who can follow it”.
The only answer is Jesus!
“…but so that the world may know that I love the Father, I do exactly as the Father commanded Me.” John 14: 31
The law is God’s perfect desire. It points out how we don’t measure up. It convicts us of our failings. Every time we fix one thing, another fault pops up. Then we fix that, and the previous issue comes right on back. It proves that we are imperfect, that we are in need of a savior!
There is another law of the spirit written upon the tablets of the heart. Receive the pure grace of Jesus. Follow the new law of the Spirit and be free from the old!
Jesus’ commandment is only this:
…love one another, just as I have loved you. John 15: 12
Preceding this, he states that he kept God’s laws… we must only keep his.
If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. John 15: 10
The old law causes man to fear the Lord’s judgment. The new covenant of grace is all about receiving, through Jesus, God’s love, and then abiding in that love… and then loving others.
Not one religion of the world can top this truth. It is the power of God unto our salvation! It is the good news of the gospel of peace!
Because of Christ, we have free reign to be blessed and highly favored as children of God. This means we need no longer fear God’s wrath!
There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us. 1 John 4:18-19
A better statement to put on the banners and preach on, one that is exclusively Christian, would be:
Jesus loves us, therefore we love!
Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your mind, all your soul, and all your strength, and love your neighbor as yourself—puts it all on us. Jesus said this before he fulfilled the law. Trying to fulfill it yourself leads to a frustrating life of condemnation.
Love god and people—simplifies the law making his perfection doable by our effort. This leads to self-righteousness.
Jesus loves us, therefore we love—puts it on Christ, leading us towards his righteousness, which Paul calls a gift in Romans 5:17.
For if, by the trespass of one man [Adam], death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ!
Whom do you wish to follow?
I choose Jesus, the one who loves me!
At Long Last, Void Voyage 1 is Here!
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Prelude
The dark-haired spacer opened his mind to the musical instrument. Black and white patterns came alive at his bidding, dancing off the dark gray jumpsuit and forming a long, thin piano-board. Two pedals unwrapped around his legs and hovered near his feet. Long fingers expertly touched the bendable keys. A melody of haunting loss entered the small cabin of the large space vessel. Rian opened his mouth and sang a song to match.
The star was distant, colored red
Up close, it’s rusted sands instead.
The lands were desert, cold as ice,
But in the canyons, warm and nice.
It’s said that those first few who came,
They never had the will to tame
That brutal warrior god of ours.
No man has conquered brooding Mars.
The swirling sandstorms covered all,
An angry god’s abrasive brawl,
Turning scientific men,
To wide-eyed corpses buried in.
But then came Earth-born companies,
Backed with stock-exchanging fees;
They built their mining ore machines,
That dug beneath those warm ravines.
They planted gene-spliced aqua trees,
To terraform the gritty breeze.
They built grand cityscapes and trains,
That brightened nights with flashing lights,
Glimmering across those rocky plains.
The star was distant, colored red
Up close it’s magnet roads instead.
The terra air was cool and nice,
Within the ground was ore’s sweet vice.
It’s said that many spacers came
To test their wills and stake their claim.
Across the Martian rocky scars;
Humanity once conquered Mars!
The mighty sandstorms lessened then.
As generations lived and died,
The weaker gravity affected them,
Growing them so tall and wide.
A different storm came,
The soul was weighed.
To trade or to fight over ore,
What’s right was soon ignored.
Those giant Martian Men,
In their overgrown bodies of sin.
How their science fell, to the gods of the old.
Thus, ending tyranny’s hold.
The star was distant, colored red
Up close, it’s broken lands instead.
The Martian ways were hardly nice,
Trapped in hearts of hardened ice.
It seems that far too many came,
Daring as they must to tame.
That brutal warrior god of ours.
Will man ever conquer Mars?
A swirling virus covered all,
From Ares’ tribe whose children fall,
Burning scientific men
To wide-eyed corpses, in the sand.
And, oh, the day the giants fled
Old Mars wasn’t much the same.
The followers of gods they came
Killing all of Ares’ children,
Judgment for their greatest shame.
The star is distant, colored red.
Up close, it’s holy lands instead.
The new, red men have blinded eyes,
Within a heart of hardened lies.
The swirling sandstorms cover all
An angry god’s abrasive brawl
Neglect has changed this land of ours,
Humanity is conquered,
By the holy gods, of brooding, angry Mars.
Rian struck the final synthetic key. Focused thoughts transformed the frequency of the sound waves. Gently, his left foot tapped the floating volume pedal, sinking toes into it until the sorrowful chord melted away. Only distant harmonics were heard; distant harmonics and Rian’s voice that died with it.
Silence as still as the void of space.
The musician exhaled. His audience of two clapped with energetic hands. The 11-year-old girl was loudest of all. A plastic cat floated on her shoulders in the zero gravity of the ship, doing its best to mimic her with robotic paws.
The other patron, a stocky, copper-haired spacer, spoke with a wide grin, “Wonderfully played, Rian!”
“I can always count on Patrik for flattery,” Rian replied while fitting his feet into the handles of the wall. He gave a half-hazard bow, releasing tiny droplets of perspiration in the weightless air. A swoosh of dark hair followed his head back up, exaggerating the movement. He focused brown eyes on Patrik’s oldest daughter.
“And what did you think?”
Talora wrinkled the tip of her freckle-crested nose and said, “Your voice cracks too much.”
Rian laughed at this, instructing the thin piano pedals with his mind. They dutifully folded onto his pant legs. “I fear your daughter is more honest, Patrik. I can write and play a song; I just can’t sing it.”
Patrik pushed off the wall and flew towards the floating piano-board, touching one of its keys. His face held a mischievous glint, “My daughter’s a bit stuffy. You sing it fine.”
Talora lunged at her dad then, lavender hair trailing behind in wavy strands like Halley’s comet. He caught her in mid-flight, moving backwards from the momentum, hitting the piano keys in an off-chord embrace.
Rian escaped to the far wall and watched in mild amusement. Patrik lost the wrestling match and was stuck in zero G, at the mercy of his daughter. She wedged herself against the wall and gave her dad a shove. The copper-haired spacer flew into Rian, and all three fell into a fit of laughter.
Rian had met Patrik’s family at one of Jupiter’s Lagrange point stations. He had traveled far in their ship since then, working as an art and music tutor for Talora and her sisters Saran and Ferna. Little boy Jun was still too young to learn anything other than how to use a simple computer.
Talora had grown much since then. She would soon be reaching her Jupiter Year of 11.8 Earth years old. This meant that she would become a woman. Her long, lavender strands of hair would have to be cut. It will be a shame, thought Rian. Though the length was impractical for space travel, it reminded him of Old Earth.
She did not notice his scrutiny of her hair. Her eyes were already closed to the outside world. She had turned on the iNode attached to her hair braid, losing herself to a lucid dream.
~end of sample~
Intrigued?
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5 Minute Piano Lessons: The Emotion of Chords
The expression of feeling and story is an important part of music in movies and life. Watch a breathtaking scene in a movie and odds are there’s a glorious soundtrack playing in the background. In a ritzy restaurant, the owners play smooth jazz, creating an atmosphere of delight and charm. How do composers achieve these emotions? It all stems from the type of chords being used.
A triad is a three-note chord. The C Major chord spoken of in an earlier lesson is one such triad. There are four types of triads in all: Major, minor, diminished, and Augmented. Each triad or chord has its own emotion: Major= happy, minor= sad, diminished= depressing, Augmented= dreamy or heavenly. We will be discussing the three easiest chords to play: Major, minor, and diminished triads (or chords).
The Major triad_:)
Major chords are happy. Play them high on the keyboard and they’re delightful like a cheery blue jay greeting the morning of Christmas. In fact why don’t we do this? Place your R. H. (right hand) towards the high end of the keyboard (far right section) and play the notes C-E-G at the same time (using 1-3-5 fingering). This is a C Major chord with a high sound.
Play a C Major chord in the middle of the keyboard and you have a hungry tomcat that has seen the blue jay from afar. Play it with your L. H. (left hand using 5-3-1 fingering) down low, and it’s like an old dog wagging his tail for the first time in many years… he caught the scent of the tomcat of course.
The minor triad_:(
Minor chords are sad. Play the notes d-f-a with your R. H. (fingering 1-3-5). This would put your thumb on the d (for the R.H.). This is called a d minor chord. Play it high and it’s a dirge sung by a mourning blue Jay, while being chased by a tomcat. In the middle it’s a frisky tomcat who has suddenly realized he is being chased by a dog. Down low (left side with L.H. using 5-3-1) it’s a droopy-eared bloodhound that lost the tomcat’s scent.
The diminished triad_X(
I don’t mean to be such a downer. But this is the triad of no hope. Not only have you lost your job, but you ran over your dog on the way home. This one is even sadder than the minor one.
Play b-d-f at the same time (again using the R.H. 1-3-5 fingering) for a diminished triad. This is a b diminished chord. Up high it sounds like a drowning bird (who ran into the pond to escape the cat), in the middle a drowning cat (who ran in after the bird), and down low (played with L.H. 5-3-1) an old dog dying after being run over by a car.
Any sort of image or story may come to mind when playing these various chords. Try and make up some of your own, if you can.
If you can’t
There are styles of music that do not evoke images or stories. This is because some musicians do not see images or stories in music. Fredric Chopin was a famous composer in the Romantic Era. He was called the poet of the piano because his pieces did not evoke any images or stories to them (very different from Mozart who had drama behind everything that he wrote). Chopin did, however, use the same triads we are talking about here. Which means Chopin’s music created a depth of emotion. It was pure music for music’s sake… which can be very powerful in its own way. Instrumental smooth jazz at a ritzy restaurant comes to mind… as long as you don’t know or hear the lyrics to the songs they are parroting.
Exercise 1
Play all the triads in the C Major scale.
If you haven’t figured it out by now, triads are named after the first note in the chord. Thus far we have learned and played the C Major triad or chord, the d minor triad or chord, and the b diminished triad or chord. This leaves out four more notes in the C Major scale: e, F, G, and a.
Let’s start again with the C Major triad. Play it in the middle of the keyboard with your R.H. (1-3-5 fingering). Now play the d minor triad (d-f-a). Next we have a few new ones. Play the e minor triad (e-g-b), F major triad (F-A-C), a minor triad (a-c-e), and finally, that old depressing b diminished triad (b-d-f). Might as well play the very next C Major triad to end it all on a good note (the bird got away, the cat was saved by a little girl, and the dog you ran over wasn’t yours).
Once you got the idea, play the chords in order twice with your R.H. The first time play it fast. The second time play it slow, listening to each emotion of the chord.
To make it easier, here are the same chords in order one after the other:
C-E-G, C Major
d-f-a, d minor
e-g-b, e minor
F-A-C, F Major
G-B-D, G Major
a-c-e, a minor
b-d-f, b diminished
C-E-G, C Major
Exercise 2
Play the chords in order and down low with your L.H. This will mean you will use the fingering 5-3-1. Don’t play it too low… or it will sound groggy.
For fun
Play the chords in any order you like, and in a counting rhythm (I recommend one chord for every two counts). Try and listen for what chords play and sound good with each other.
This is sort of like reinventing the wheel now. Next lesson I will tell you the various chord structures composers have used for hundreds of years… and song-writers have used in every popular song for the past hundred.
Happy piano playing!
Other piano lessons to peruse at your leisure
Gamification of Piano Lessons: How World of Warcraft Helps me Teach Music
I never planned on teaching piano. Such a joy fell into my lap three years ago, two years after graduation with a BM in Music Theory and Composition. It was my old high school piano teacher that gave me the opportunity. She set me up with enough students to begin my private lesson adventures. I am a changed man; one who has apparently picked the wrong music degree. Turns out I love to teach.
I should have majored in child psychology as well as music education though, for each child I teach is different than the next. Half of my job is figuring out how to motivate a student towards practice. You cannot grow as a musician without practice. This means playing the piano while the teacher isn’t in the room. I’ve done a number of things to help in this, everything short of bribery.
Then I came across a curious case… two boys from different families who had a natural love for music… but were not practicing it. I would get on to them, their parents would get on to him, and still they wouldn’t budge! I would expound upon their inherent love for music… they would sincerely agree with me, yet no changes occurred to support that agreement. There are other kids of mine who have a minor case of this bug, loving music but not practice it.
At last a solution has presented itself! Oddly enough, it has come from the video game industry. I’m rather fascinated with games, debating on many forums concerning their future. While perusing the web for some gaming news, a single recurring theme kept popping up. This is the idea of gamification, which is, implementing video game mechanics into the real world.
New ideas can be scary; this one needn’t be. We aren’t talking about changing the apple here… just how we experience that apple. Gamification gives us a fresh view on life, or in my case, piano lessons.
Extra Credits, an internet show that focuses on the development of games, recently spoke about such a use in education. I highly recommend you watch the five-minute movie, especially if you are a teacher. They covered three elements that any teacher can learn from. Being a private teacher gives me leeway to test this new line of thinking.
For the past few months, I have been using the same motivational tricks found in World of Warcraft to motivate my students towards better practicing habits.
Grading scale vs experience points
Since I teach kids in private lessons, far from the school environment, I have been reluctant in using their grading system. My main strike against it is how its motivation is based on a fear of failure. In America, every student begins with an A+. In order to maintain that grade, they must do everything perfectly. One or two mistakes, and the perfect score become unreachable. Average students cannot escape their mediocrity. No matter how much work they do, they’ll receive a B at best.
My students should practice out of a joy and love for music. The grading system should complement this mentality. It should hone their skills through encouragement in learning a new piece. Extra Credits recommends that you grade from the opposite direction. Instead of starting with an A+, give them a zero and let them earn points as they go.
Playing through a new piece for the first time is an important part of the learning process. If the student is not focusing on learning the music while I’m there, he or she will not be able to practice it when I leave. My job in seeing them once a week, is to teach them how to teach themselves. The leveling point system reflects this, rewarding students for the amount of focus they give in playing a song.
Leveling up
The video game World of Warcraft is designed in levels. Every monster your character defeats give you a experience points. After a certain number of points, you level up. You grow stronger and stronger with each level earned. The next level will take more points to reach than the last. This will make you move on to find monsters more worthy of your skill. Instead of killing smaller animals in level 1 (which give you a few experience points) you have to start going after larger creatures (harder to kill but more experience points earned). This encourages the player to explore the world as he or she grows to meet its challenges.
The same concept applies in learning the piano. You’re not killing monsters though, you’re playing songs. A beginner starts with songs that are rather simple. As they progress and grow, the songs become harder. I am using a leveling system to reflect this growth. Over the long run, students can earn thousands of points that will earn them many levels. Thus they will have two numbers to show their progress: the total number of experience points earned and the level they have reached.
Right now, I have set the first level bench mark to 1,000 points. Once it is reached, they receive a prize and move on to the next level. The parents are more than willing to take care of this part for me. This means I don’t have to agonize over finding the right prize since: I don’t have kids and don’t know what they would want, the prize can be more personal coming from parents who know what they would want, and it gives the parents something to motivate their kids with while I’m not there.
In retrospect 1,000 points may be too high for a beginning student. I’ll have to work this out as it comes up.
Putting this concept into practice
Every new piece begins with zero points. The grand total of points they can earn for a piece will depend on the skill of music they are playing (in WoW terms, the difficulty of the monster they face). Right now I have set the lowest level, beginning music to 25 and 50 points. Any mid-level, single page songs are 100 points. Higher skilled, two-pagers are worth 200 points. A masterpiece, like a Beethoven Sonata, could be worth more than 1,000 or more points (though I don’t have any students at that level yet).
All of this is variable, a simple tool used to encourage students in practice. You have to find the golden mean here. Give them too many or too few points, and they won’t even try. They must feel challenged but not discouraged in their venture through World of Piano.
For example, let’s say I am teaching a piano song worth 100 points. My student has never seen this piece in his life. He must use what I have taught him to overcome it. After a brief look-through, he then sight reads it to the best of his ability. I will be grading him on how much focus he gives the piece. Mistakes are to be expected, but he will earn more points on how well he confronts them. If the first play-through is poor in comparison to the skill I know that he has, I’ll give him 7 points. If it is a wonderful play-through (not perfect, mind you, this is his first time) then I’ll give him 15 points. If it’s tremendous, he will earn 20.
On the second play-through I’ll give him a chance to earn another 10 or 15 points. By the end of both play-throughs, he has the chance to achieve up to 35 points, all of it counting towards the total score of 100.
I have tried this over the past few months and it has shown immediate results! One of my trouble students earned about 32 points with 3 play-throughs (he begged to play the song a fourth time!).
When I come to our lesson next week, the real test begins! If he has practiced enough to play the whole song with minimal problems, I’ll add to the 35 points so that it reaches 95 or more points. Exceptional playing of notes and rhythms will earn him the full 100. Any effort beyond that, paying attention to dynamic markings and the like, will earn him bonus points beyond the 100.
In closing
I am still working this system out. It isn’t perfect but it is effective. The competitive students are out to beat everyone else (comparable to the player verses player section in the game of WoW); the more introspective ones are earning points to see themselves grow better (just like the player verses environment sections in the game of WoW); and the parents are seeing their kids practicing and enjoying music!
This single change has revolutionized the way I place value on my students. Before I could only pat them on the back or give them a high five. Now I can let them know exactly how well they are doing.
This gives my students a sense of agency, that is, a since of control over their destiny. The more agency they feel, the more resilient they become when facing the harder pieces. The more they practice, the more points they earn, the more pieces they play, the more music they learn, and the more piano they enjoy!
To Compose an eBook Cover
An egregious example of how one must not compose a book cover
The evolution of my cover has been a rocky path. This is, after all, the first thing readers will see before diving head long into the thrilling story. All of it can be undone by a poorly drawn picture. In traditional publishing, writers have little to no say with this. This would leave me powerless to the whims of other people, a gamble I’m not willing to take.
Self-publishing gives me full responsibility over a cover’s look and feel. This means I own the final product, which allows me to transform my vision directly to the reader.
At first I thought it would be nice to do it myself. I have dabbled into art now and then, but I have no proficiency in it. The perfectionist in me would thus demand that I invest a lot of time, effort, and money to work up my skill so that it could bear some fruit. This would mean many years before a finished book even came out. Thankfully I scratched that idea and prayed for an artist willing to put up with my perfectionism. God answered it with another perfectionist!
Danya (or Danyasaur, as she’s lovingly referred to on deviant art) is a rather recent friend of mine. We met at a Christian home group, talking about Jesus and good sci-fi over home-cooked, potluck dinners.
She is double majoring in Multimedia and Webmastering. Danya has a lot of great work on her Deviant Art account, but nothing in the realm of sci-fi. She was an untested artist, full of talent and an eagerness to learn. This is exactly what I was looking for.
I gave her a copy of the novella to see what she could come up with. She came back with the concept of the large city-sized ship in the story, called the Celestial City, flying in front of Mars. Oddly enough, this was the same concept I had as well. Needles to say, she was hired!
Thus began our collaborative adventures, lasting from November 2010 until July 2011.
~//~
The seed of an idea
This is one of many basic concepts I sent to her, testament to my mad skills on Microsoft Paint.
I emailed this particular one to Danya about halfway through the process, giving her a rough estimate of the basic cover layout I was going for. It contained a ship, a planet, and a face. We would tackle it all one step at a time.
This is what she had to work with. Brilliance incarnate I know. It’s a good thing for all our sakes, she was blessed with a vivid imagination.
~//~
Mars and the Celestial City
In working on a futuristic Mars, the best place to start is with a picture of the original.
Danya used Photoshop to take a real picture of Mars, like the one above, and turn it into something rather amazing to behold.
This is her version of a terraformed Mars. Notice the clouds. Void Voyage 1 is set 500 years from now. By that time, scientist have changed the climate of Mars so that it has white clouds, water in liquid form, a strong magnetic field to protect the atmosphere from the sun, and breathable air.
The humble beginnings of Celestial City.
This was her first attempt at creating my vision of a two-kilometer-long flying city in space. She had the basics right: a long cylinder (as seen at its circular end) with skyscrapers built inside. She didn’t quite have the correct perspective though. So I sent her a Microsoft paint file showing the vanishing point.
She took this and sent me back a better version.
That eventually became something rather amazing to behold!
Danya’s basic work up of the wraparound city left me in awe. It took her more layers then I can count along with the detailed architecture of various skyscrapers, showing off a rather busy metropolis in space.
By the end of this first collaborative season, we had a basic idea of what the finished product would look like.
Minus the coloring of the ship of course
~//~
Dynamic lighting and shadow
Doing a great book cover means borrowing from what others have done before. I sent Danya two great science fiction films she could learn from: Bladerunner, for all of its detailed set pieces, and 2001: Space Odyssey, for how it depicted ships and planets in space.
She was quite a youngling in the ways of the nerd and hadn’t even seen them! Thus I felt it was my duty, as a master geek, to assign these two gems, for the sake of my book cover of course. The bonus side-effect was forever upping her nerd cred.
Blade Runner
This picture of Blade Runner is a large set piece made completely by hand. There was no CGI used in the film. What you are seeing is a miniature. A man would look like Godzilla walking through the set, yet it takes on the shape of a dystopian metropolis extending for miles around.
2001 Space Odyssey
This is the opening scene in the ground breaking sci-fi epic. It gave her an idea of what I was looking for concerning how Mars and the city-sized ship would look with the sun shimmering behind.
Last but not least I sent her pictures of the real thing.
This was to show her how city lights look in space
Notice the dynamic shadows seen on asteroids in space
Here’s a wonderful pic of Jupiter and Io, one of its many moons
To this day not one sci-fi film (save 2001: Space Odyssey) has reached the beauty and awe I see in the photo above.
This sun dial is a great example of how the sun can lengthen the shadow
The basic shape I wanted Celestial City to take, based on an airplane engine
I’m a stickler for realism. Even though my story is fiction, I’d like it to be believable. All of these photos grounded Danya’s vision of my cover until she too became well-versed in realism. By the end of our adventures, she was pointing things out to me that I had not noticed myself. It was a collaborative effort of give and take here. I was always open to her ideas. This kept my flaws in check and gave her ownership and passion over the final product.
Our vision of the cover was improving!
Notice the two forms of light here, the sun on the right and the artificial sun near the middle of the ship.
The picture was half-way done! And it was looking quite good, for a random sci-fi poster. It was time to give the picture meaning.
~//~
An epic title for an epic story
Danya loosely based her title ideas on hand-drawn one’s that I had sent to her. I was all about lettering that looked cool… but couldn’t be read. She moved me towards clarity with a subtle artistic bend, simplifying what I had done.
Here are the various Void Voyages she came up with.
My first pick was a see-through title, edged around with some cool effects.
This title only lasted a few months before we changed it for something easier to read.
For a while we went with the doughnut-shaped Celestial City in front of the terraformed Mars. The critic in me was screaming for something else though… something to spice things up!
~//~
Adding fins to the ship
It was near Christmas when I came up with this novel idea (not the novella idea for my story now). I had just traveled 8 hours from Shreveport to San Antonio to spend the holiday with my family. This gave me plenty of time to think about that missing elements to my picture. The moment I had a chance, I created this lovely MS Paint file for Danya, describing the addition of a single fin to the Celestial City.
I liked the idea so much that followed it up with one that had more fins.
Needless to say she wasn’t too hot on the idea (Too many words I guess).
It took a haphazard photoshop painting from my cousin James to calm her fears.
A simple picture spoke louder than a detailed one with words. She was with me then and went to work out some of her own ideas.
This is an early concept of the cover. Now the ship had fins and we had a pretty good looking title and layout.
The fins still needed some work but it was a start. I was pretty much fine with the tittle until a friend of ours found it hard to read. so…
~//~
Changing the title… again
As you have probably noted (though I didn’t at the time), the outlined retro look was difficult to discern in passing. The main point of the title is for it to be eye-catching and readable. Thus we decided, or rather Danya convinced me, that it should be a solid color. This gave way to another question… what color?
For a while we chose the first one in tan. Then I thought it would be neat, since the first episode takes place on Mars, to have it in red.
But this ended up looking pink! Both of us ignored this fact (though it would haunt our dreams for months until we changed it later). We just moved right along, leaving the fickle title alone for a time.
~//~
The Human Element
So far we had everything you would expect on a sci-fi cover, a planet and a ship. The only thing missing was a human face.
The main theme of my story is to present a thrilling epic adventure and the commoners that surround it. In every sci-fi epic I’ve seen, the common folk are used as the background noise in a wider story of galactic proportions; they aren’t given much of a story in their own right. Luke Skywalker may have started as a member of the common folk, but once his uncle and aunt died in Star Wars Episode IV, he never looked back.
I understand the reasoning behind this. Tales of a scrappy rebellion overcoming a galactic empire make for better fare then random workers at a spice factory on planet who-the-heck-cares.
The recent sci-fi series Battlestar Galactica broke through this barrier (the rule of camp as I call it). Sometimes whole episodes would be centered around the other people in the fleet, mere back ground noise brought to the fore. All of this added a sense of humanity and depth to the story. It helped us see how an everyday person might fit in that universe. Lost was another great show that did this.
Here’s my beef with ignoring it, my readers and I have normal, unexciting jobs. Mine is to write stories that allow others to escape those jobs for a while. The obvious part of this escapism is to help them live out their fantasies as Hon Solo, Luke Skywalker, or Princess Leia. There is a second part of immersion though, a nagging question begging to be answered. What would normal people be doing five-hundred years from now?
Thus I open Void Voyage 1 with a farmer, his twelve-year-old daughter, and a musician discussing the extraordinary events that surround them.
It is the daughter I focus on for the front cover. I didn’t know any professional models, though, so I went for the daughter of a friend (who also attended the Christian home group where I met Danya).
My friends Pat and Sandra are actual farmers in the real world, with three daughters and two sons. It was the oldest daughter, Taylor, I was after since she fit the age of the girl in my book.
So my story opens with a merchant farmer named Patrik and his oldest daughter named Talora (see what I did there).
Back in the real world now, Pat’s middle child, Sarah, is a piano student of mine. After a lesson at their house, Pat lent me his camera and I went on to take some pictures of Taylor. She was a good sport, giving me many different looks. The first batch of pics were in a room with too much light.
Then I remembered that Danya had asked me to take the picture in the dark, with no flash and a single light shinning on the side of her face. So Taylor, Pat, and I went in the closet. He held a lamp to her face and I started shooting away. Out of that, two pictures really struck pat and I as awe-inspiring.
She had a playful look here, sort of like saying “This story’s going to be a fun ride.”
She looked mesmerized at something here, telling the reader to expect the unexpected
Pat and I liked the first pic. Sandra liked the second. I gave Danya the final say. After looking at ten of the pics, she agreed with Sandra. The women won out here.
My story isn’t a mischievous tale of fun and adventure. It’s a serious tale, set in a time with great technological advancements, and yet the people still fall back on their baser instincts of anger, jealousy, and war.
I did the easy part. Danya spent many hours converting the picture to something that would fit the art style of my cover. All that was needed was a space-plane going towards Mars, some changes to Celestial City’s fins (the subtle hint of a peace symbol), some deeper shadows, and there you have it!
This was the near finished product shown first in my post To Compose an eBook.
Danya and I still had nightmares about that pink title though! We didn’t want to say anything because we feared the other might be married to the idea. Eventually it came out, so we both agreed to go back and change it… yet again!
~//~
Finishing the title
Danya added a third dimension to the letters (her idea) and changing the color to a sort of bluish silver (I just wanted blue she added the silver). Her thoughts were to make it look good with anything we put it in.
Now we have, at last, the final cover art for my book Void Voyage 1: I Shall not Rest in Peace.
It is a little taller to fit the eReader format. The title is also easier to read. Clarity and elegance come to mind when viewing it. The silver letters change the tone of the picture. Taylor looks a bit older and wiser now, which fits the tragic story I wish to convey.
~//~
One last thing
I’m no veteran when it comes to cover art design. And there are still many things Danya and I can learn. This isn’t a perfect picture. It could still use some of this and some of that…
…But!
The same can be said about my novella. It isn’t prefect and I can always add some stuff to it. I’ve just finished the story’s final read-through, cramming everything I can inside the focused tale about sacrifice and peace. I’ve read through my novella more than 30 times, growing a short story of 7,000 words to a novella of 33,333 words. You read it right… after I reached that word count I figured there was nothing more to say! One word more and the symmetry would be gone!
Wish me luck and prayers… and perhaps your future purchase?
Sad cat is sad until you click here.
