— Composer, Conductor, Collaborator, Filmmaker, Writer, Artist

Considering that my last post was in April, I feel I have a bit of explaining to do. The composition of my graduate thesis at the University of Oregon, a large work for orchestra entitled Suite of Roads, absolutely consumed all of my time until about May 25th. Since then I have been working at a local garden nursery in Eugene and preparing for my family’s move to Ann Arbor, Michigan so that I can attend the University of Michigan in pursuit of my DMA (Doctor of Musical Arts).

In other words, my life has been ridiculously busy over the course of the past few months, but very productive. I have quite a bit of new music and projects that I have completed in the interim and I will be spreading the resulting posts out over the course of the next week and a half. For now, I thought I would share some joy from a game I used to play with my family as a child, and recently played just for kicks and giggles.

The game goes like this:

1. Get a group of people, and sit in a circle. Each person needs a piece of paper and a pencil or pen.
2. Fold each sheet of paper into four equally sized rows. Each section of the page will correspond to a portion of the bodies that will be drawn: head, arms and torso, legs, and feet.
3. Everybody begins by drawing a head on the top row of the sheet. (In order to ensure the most hilarity it is best for each participant to cover their work). When everybody is finished with their heads, they proceed to draw two lines which extend from the body part that they have drawn (in this case it’s probably the top of the neck: two short lines) into the row beneath.
4. The portion of the drawing that has just been completed is then folded back (so the next artist can’t see what your portion of the drawing looks like) and then passed to the next person in the circle. The only portion that they see is the two lines extending downward from the top of the page, and they can then proceed to connect the torso and draw their torso as they please.
5. Proceed similarly until every portion of the body has been completed by a different person (with each artist not having a clue what the rest of the body looks like).
6. Open up the folded sheets for riotous laughter to ensue.

Some examples from my own family’s recent efforts can be seen below. Click on them to see larger images. Zippideedoodahhh!