End of December



Photo by Strafford Floate. At my last school performance in December

 This is a very personal photo for me, because it was my last performance to date, and my last ever school performance. (There have been hundreds). Here I was performing Vivaldi's Winter (II and III) arranged for flute choir, which is part of the Four Seasons and is one of my favourite pieces of music. Myself and another flautist were performing solos in this arrangement, so it is a particularly special and memorable ocassion in my school and musical life.



copyright 2011

I received this rose at the end of the concert I was performing at in the above photo. Traditionally, red roses are given to the year 12 music students and musicians by their teachers at this performance which occured after our exams. I took this photo a few days before I moved out of my old house in to the place I am living now. (Chunky heels are a hassle to pack!) The rose lasted a week or so and I disposed of it on the day of moving house. Also that day I found a four leaf clover, which I consider to be a positive sign that the move was the right decision and there was hope for my future. (I had my university audition for a Bachelor of Music the day later, which was successful. I have almost finished enrolling for this year and I am so excited!)

Goodnight all, and my best wishes.

xxx Lilly

My life as a gamer

For any readers who don't know, yes I do play games. Probably, like most gamers, far more than is heathly for me, but it is something I've loved for about 15 years of my life.
If this was a social network similar to Facebook, then I'd place games way down on the list of things that are important to me after music, art, literature, history, film and possibilly philosophy. However, I consider this blog to be more honest and true than Facebook, so really games should be placed around third on my list.

My first love was Lenny's Music Toons, suprisingly a music based children's game made in 1993. So it is the same age as I am.

http://www.gameclassification.com/files/games/Lennys-Music-Toons.jpeg

This was one of the games, where you had to do a puzzle of a piece of music that ranged from beginner to advanced. (Beginner was things like Row, Row your boat, Advanced was things like Jingle Bells. The melodies are all very simple, but for a 5 year old who cannot sight read music at all, they do present a challenge.)
As each piece was placed correctly, part of the song completed so far would be played, allowing you to check.

The games that probably revolutionised my life would be the Kings Quest series by Roberta Williams.
Now, I'm not going to go into detail about all of these games, as that will take forever. Let's just say that they really do show the development of game graphics and sound over time.












So they're some of the intros to some of the games. Now, I'm also going to show you some really nerdy music thing. I prefer the DOS version because that's what I played in.



It's quite amusing to hear some of the musical cues there too.
I've tried to choose videos and pictures that don't give any plot lines away.

So basically I spent my life from age 5 to age 10 playing the Kings Quest games, all Old School Putt Putt and Fatty Bear games, Age of Empires II, Harry Potter games and other cool things I could find.

Nowadays I still use a DOS box to play all of the old games that I loved as a kid.I'm a complete sucker for nostalgia, so what did you expect. I rarely buy new released games, but I will buy Alice: Madness Returns.

Oh, and I am just going to show you one of the creepiest thing in any of the Kings Quest series. This character was SO FREAKIN SCARY as a little kid!!!!! HAHAHA The music is awesome, and this part of the game is set in Ooga Booga land!!!
Squeeeeeeeee!!!




Other games that have a considerable impact on me (in a good way, though I've never been really  scared or grossed out by a game) are Warlords Battlecry II, Fish Fillets, Laura Bow II, Zoombinis- Logical Journey, The Sims 2, Legacy of Kain- Defiance and Aladdin.

To show you how much I love you all, I'm going to provide you with some links to FREE not for profit fan remakes of some of the earlier Kings Quest games.

Kings Quest I
Kings Quest II
Kings Quest III

I encourage you all to try these games and if you like them then you should consider buying the originals by Sierra Online. I have played all of these any have finished the first two. Warning- The third game is, IMO, the hardest in the whole series and this remake is very hard too. My 12 year old brother finished it, but there were some puzzles that he needed to look up the solutions for.
There are rumours of more games being remade for VGA, but, naturally these things take time.

Has there been anything that you've ever been completely obsessed with all your life? Any game you still play from when you were a child?

xxx Lilly

How I became a Goth...

Here's a story of my own personal transformation into the dark person that I am now.

In all honesty, I cannot remember the first time I actually laid eyes on a Goth. It was probably sometime between the ages of four and seven. Considering that I am only recently eighteen, it's obvious that Goth has been around and thriving well before I was born, let alone at an age to appreciate and be a part of it.
I have always had three strong passions in life. The first one, although it is not the biggest one at the moment, was art. My mother is an artist (along with a botanist) and this meant that I was always exposed to art materials and was encouraged to experiment and express myself through art. Subsequently I developed a skill that probably wouldn't be as fine tuned without my mother's help.
The second thing is my love for monsters and magic. In particular, darker sides of magic such as witches (not as in any Pagan or Neo- Pagan religion. I'm talking about the curse casting witch with a familiar and all the assorted trimmings), wraiths and vampires, along with fey, celestial, mythological and historical elements of magic, mystery and the supernatural. I have drawings that I did when I was five or six of evil witches with black blood pouring out of their eyes... It was probably a very extreme thing for a young child, but if I am going to be completely honest with myself and all of you, I would have to say that my mental health has never been fantastic... being bullied as a young child, as well as a teenager, (pretty much my whole life) with no obvious reason, does not help a young developing mind...
The third thing, which really began to blossom when I was eight, was my intense passion for music. Of course, music has been around me my whole life. I especially loved classical music in minor keys (C# minor is my favourite) and this has not changed. When I was eight I began playing the violin, playing celtic music mainly, and although this instrument did not naturally sit with me, it lead me to play other instruments, most particularly the piano and the flute.
I have also loved dressing up with fantastic costumes and elaborate hairstyles. This lead to me having an inkling to wearing my hair, as I wear it now, long and down my face where it naturally parts. The only difference now is that more often than not my hair is dyed black instead of it's natural brown. Anyway, this lead my god mother to say, off hand and rather jokingly, you look like a Goth like that. I was only awear that the Goths were a tribe that had sacked Rome, so I was a tiny bit confused. Soon after, my mother explained, rather vaguely, that Goths were people who wore a lot of black and dark makeup. It was soon afterwards that I discovered that my father hated Goths and black lipstick, but let's not go into that.
Now, there was, and still is, a large part of me that was attracted to the bohemian gypsy style and lifestyle of the 1900's, and for about a year or so I wore brown, black, bronze and other lucious colours. However, I found myself wearing more black, and by the time I was 14, I was wearing all black, almost all of the time.
Then came the fateful day while I was wandering aimlessly around the Albury City Library. Now, in the hallowed  halls I came across a particularly interesting book. (For those of you who have been to Victoria, Australia, you will know that Albury and it's surroundings is probably the most Anti Goth place I have been too. It does have a thriving Emo and Metal scene, which is a bit odd)
Anyway, the book was enitiled Paint It Black, and was by none other than Voltaire. Naturally, I devoured the book, and was left with an odd feeling that I had uncovered a very strong part of myself.
Anyway, things had happened, and a few years later I moved down to Melbourne, where I actually had reasonable internet access and was able to listen to all sorts of music that was unavailable to me before. This, and YouTube in particular, revolutionised the music I listened to.
And one late night I sat by my old laptop with ear phones in, listening to some music when I came accross Voltaire's song Land of the Dead. I was transfixed. Here, in my ears was an exact representation of what I had been trying to acheive and find within myself and my creative endevours. Something that not only possessed a healthy amount of the spooky, but had a sense of humour and light heartedness. Naturally, the song, and many others that I discovered became some of my all time favourite songs. I spent some time Googling (that's a really hard word to spell...) Voltaire, like I do with all the musicians I like, and I discovered that Voltaire had indeed written the book I had read many years ago. This I think is the reason why Voltaire remains to be my favourite Goth musician to this day.
Throughout the years I discovered more music that resonated with me, and began to dress more creatively with the positive impact from my peers. I feel comfortable to wear creative eye makeup and Gothic jewellery to school, and, quite frankly, I've never been happier or more comfortable with myself. This, ladies and gentlemen, is here to stay... XD


xxx Lilly