Graduation Speech: Dru Ross

I am an active member of my school and community. At school I feel that i've gained the respect of my peers being elected as Student Council representative for the past four years. I have also been elected the treasurer of the choir, and secretary of the band. I am part of the Ross Middle School bucket drumming group and have been casted as part of the school theatre’s annual play. After school on Wednesdays I assist Ms. Rullman in helping students with homework and enhancing study methods. I am currently participating in science olympiad and have in the past. I am also an anchor on the popular Good Morning Ross Middle School weekly news show. In addition, I have been a part of National Junior Honor Society which takes part in service projects

I have the distinct pleasure of welcoming all of you into the National Honor Society, a group built off of high standards of achievement, not only in the area of academics but also in character and leadership. I congratulate each of you and your parents.

Furthermore, the only time I care to watch music videos are when I enjoy a song or because my favorite artist came out some interesting content. However, I do not readily go out

When I watched my own video I realized a lot of things that I did well. One of thing,that

Yesterday marked the ending of 4 LONG years! Through all the mistakes and hardships I've faced, I can proudly say I finally made it! I am so excited to start college in the Fall to Bethune-Cookman University on a full tuition scholarship. I am extremely proud of all my classmates and so thankful for my family and friends. Thank you God for this opportunity many don't get to enjoy. I can't wait to see all God has in store for me!

Senior year rapidly is coming to an end, I’ve had the opportunity to see many of my friends come to the exciting moment in their life when they sign that dotted line and I was still waiting on my chance. My entire life I had dreamt of the day to finally committed to a college basketball team, this was my goal and it had to be my purpose in life. January 18, 2015 at 4:41 PM I got an exciting text from Truett-Mcconnell’s head coach, Matt Sanders, stating,” Good afternoon Claudia this is Coach Sanders from Truett-Mcconnell College, and I really feel like we need to begin the recruiting process with you! Sorry to bother you on a Sunday, but I just didn’t want to let time slip away! I look forward to hearing back from you!” Here was my chance!

film music. On the one side there are the purists, who cry foul at the piecing together of

The project that I created can be thought of as an informative music video. I recreated the song “Hollaback Girl” by Gwen Stefani and transformed it into “Geometry Girl.” The beat and rhythm of the original stayed the same while the lyrics changed so that they could summarize every topic we have learned this past year. I used a popular song as the template, so that it would be catchy and stuck in people’s minds. Who does not love “Hollaback Girl?” It is my personal jam! Even though my song might get annoying after the fifth time of hearing it, I had a great time making it.

Producing such a diverse selection of musicians, Rubin is a listener before he is an engineer; refusing to work in an office setup he uses his historical L.A home to meet with musicians. Rubin believes that music isn’t made behind a work desk or over the phone; music must first be experienced before it is produced. It can therefore be assumed that Rubin’s successful career is due to underlining appreciation for the music he is producing. He doesn’t know much about music, but he knows what works and this pro-found style of engineering through listening rather than through use of techniques has built an almost instantly recognizable personal style that can be heard on each record he has worked on.

Seeing him perform myself as he cohesively engages with the audience at any given moment, I was able to observe his devotion to his craft. “I like the intimacy of it and the immediacy. I'm a fast moving sort of guy. Even in the studio, I like to have everything with me. I want to do everything really fast….At every moment, every time I play the songs, they're different. It's really nice to be able to present that to people.”

There have been multiple artists’ who have transcended and revolutionized rock n’ roll music in a social and economic phenomena. Throughout the late twentieth century, musicians’ astonished crowds and critics with their lyrical and melodic tunes: which led to a rise of prominence for rock in American culture. Many teens and adults round role models or shining examples that spoke for them, and filled their struggled lives with a sense of hope and relief. With super-stardom comes the inevitable aspects of monumental fame, extensive wealth, and pragmatic pleasures and sensations; on the other side of the spectrum, come the prolonged pressures to have a continuous amount of success and the tolls that touring take on the body. Along with that, comes

What happens when you mix an accomplished Writer/Director, a gifted Composer/Pianist, and Youtube? You get Player Piano - a sensational duo made up of Tom Grey and Sonya Belousova. Together these two artists create music videos that put a classical spin on popular songs and soundtrack themes. Their YouTube channel has over 100,000 subscribers and well over 5,000,000 views. I had the chance to talk with them about their success, music, and the production of their music videos.

Although the Beach Boys may lack the raucousness that many associate with rock music, I firmly believe that the band should be considered exponents the genre. By extension, Brian Wilson’s performance in Kent last year is also worthy of such a description. The songs Wilson performed during the concert were incredibly significant during the evolution of rock music, with artists as diverse as Bruce Springsteen, The Ramones and Fleetwood Mac having credited Wilson’s compositions as being hugely influential to the development of their own

For this post, the first video I had chosen was Jeanette MacDonald and Binnie Barnes sang “A Twinkle in Her Eye” in a 1942 musical film called I Married an Angel. By watching the clip only, I thought the style of this recording was like an operetta. It had spoken parts to tell the light story. The sounds that came out of the characters were very soft, even though the singing technique was more like the one that was commonly used in operas, and the lyrics were pretty approachable. Also, I had noticed that the acting in this piece, including dancing, was somewhat exaggerated. I considered that those theatrical facial expressions and moves were expressed to aim to please the audiences.

I’m writing a review on (Chris Botti and "rock star" violinist Lucia Micarelli perform the moving "Emmanuel" in Botti's new PBS special, premiering February 28 on PBS (YouTube). This performance is both breathe taking and spectacular. The first minute of listening to this concert made me imagine this song was in a motion picture that I’ve heard before. This song is the one playing in the background as the movie starts to come on but I can’t think of what movie, of sounds like a significant part of the eighties motion pictures that were aired back in those times. is extremely stunning and stellar it sends chills down my spine. When tuning in to this music it took me back to the eighties.