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Standing L2Ork Only

This weekend has been epically awesome to the max, in a word, epiwesomax.

Friday night’s preview went amazingly well. As the title of the post suggests the house was packed with attendees some of which had to stand in the back. It was a resounding success.

It was odd being back on a stage in front of people; it was a good odd at least, a comfortable odd.

Probably the best aspect of the night came with an invitation by Ico to the audience to join us on stage after the show. In less than 30 seconds it seemed as though half of the audience had come onto the stage and were clamoring about and around the computers, the speakers and the performers. Some were curious about the Wiimotes, the computers, how it all worked but they were all genuinely interested in the Orchestra as a whole.

Additionally we recorded in the Burruss Hall entry way on Saturday afternoon and I wish I could convey the awesomeness of the sound in that space in words… but I’m failing at that currently.

With the recent local and foreign press (I’m sure Ico will update about that soon enough) and the hope of travelling to perform it appears as though L2Ork has began its shaky first steps into fame.

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So tonight is the final l2ork rehearsal before our showcase tomorrow (at noon) and our sneak preview performance tomorrow night.

Word of mouth is that we’re apparently kind of a big deal.

When I first joined the laptop orchestra on a whim, I had no idea it would generate this much interest.  However, after an impromptu demonstration in my living room during a party, I alone have roped 15+ people into coming to our performance, including two professors (although secretly I think they just want to see the result of what I’ve been whining about having 4 hour rehearsals every night this week…on top of having homework sets, vector calculus exams, oral presentation, and computer music projects on which to work…let me tell you…I’ve gotten about 5 hours of sleep this week o_O;). In fact, everywhere I go, people tell me they’re coming to our performance on Friday.  It’s actually a little nerve-wracking, but I think it’s going to turn out awesome, so no worries.

L2Ork has been an interesting experience, that’s for sure.  It really is like swimming upstream…but in this case the current we’re up against is hundreds of years of musical tradition.  There’s a lot of skepticism about what we do, but if you think about it, all music has to fend for itself on the proving grounds before it becomes widely accepted.  When we started at the beginning of the semester I don’t think any of us knew into what direction we’d take it; in fact, that only seems like yesterday.  It’s actually kind of a weird feeling to simultaneously feel like you’ve just taken your first steps AND being well beyond the event horizon.

This is all very fun for me because I’m not a music student like a lot of the other L2Orkists (I study biology/entomology/math).  I do play piano, so it’s not like I have zero musical experience whatsoever, but I’ve never really performed as part of a real ensemble before.  I did some choir accompaniment in high school as well as a few “keyboard orchestra” performances for the piano program in high school…but most of my musical performance experience has been solo.

Also, apparently we’ve found our way onto Slashdot.  All my friends on IRC knew about this way before we found out (when I geekily chimed in, “My class is on Slashdot!”, I was told, “Welcome to a few hours ago.”)  Well then…I suppose there’s not much else to say but…..Hello, out there internets! ;)

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TOTAL L2ORKDOWN!!!!!

Not, really… I wanted to title it “Final L2Orkdown” but someone had already taken a title close to it… sneaky Ico. ANYWAY: It is Tuesday night before Friday’s big Sneak Preview and on top of the billion of other things to do this week, I couldn’t be more excited and I’m sure my fellow L2Orkists agree (even if for entirely different reasons). I’m excited to finally bring this to the public, even if it winds up being a select few, but I think more than anything I’m ready to take this thing to the next level.

I know, it seems as though I’m rushing ahead of myself, and other things, but I honestly feel like L2Ork is ready for the next step: fresher pieces, community involvement and fresher faces. I believe that after a month off some L2Orkists will begin to miss their time with the tiny netbooks and hemispherical speakers and want to return to making music. I believe that the L2Ork as we know it will be completely different than the L2Ork of the future and that will be made possible by fresh faces, new ideas and the innocence of children… wait what? You’ll see…

Well, it is time to go back to work; hopefully, we’ll see you on Friday!

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The Final Countdown

We are now barely a week away from L2Ork debut, or what we now call a “sneak preview” performance. And even though we are now officially on Thanksgiving break, there is an unmistakeable sense of mounting pressure, so much so it appears neither the break nor precious time spent with family will let me forget its presence…

Posters have been printed and they look really cool, as in over 9000 cool :-) (thanks David!). We also have a facebook event page up, which reminds me, we need to update the “events” page asap…

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Following our first public rehearsal footage showing at TEDxMidAtlantic, we’ve decided to share the same video with the World via YouTube:

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