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MIT student blogger Snively '11

Intense Procrastination by Snively '11

There's a difference between procrastination and INTENSE PROCRASTINATION!

Today I had a ton of work to do. To be fair, I did accomplish some of it. I finished half of my 2.671 homework, half of 2.008, and half of 2.004. Left is 7.012 studying, the second halves to all of those other things, and poetry. These are things I could have worked on tonight. Instead?

Instead I listened to the new Muse album (go buy it now) and found a solo in one of the songs (“I Belong to You”) that I really liked, so I sat down with some paper, a pen, and my clarinet. A while later I had transcribed it. Technically it’s a bass clarinet solo, but with an octave shift and some creativity when notes dip below my playable range, I got it to sound pretty good. I printed some staff paper and actually wrote it out with ties, accents, and other notation so it’d be easier to read and play. Then, Mason ’10 busted out the Sibelius and wrote it all out “officially,” resulting in a nice piece of sheet music.

I looked around on YouTube to see if anybody else had covered this on clarinet and, sure enough, somebody had.

Eh, decent, but I knew I could do better, so after some misadventures with my Macbook’s built-in mic (note, don’t use for instrument recording) I made a video of myself playing my little transcription. Now, for your enjoyment, a video of me playing the clarinet solo from Muse’s new song “I Belong to You,” along with the sheet music.

21 responses to “Intense Procrastination”

  1. bluewolf482 says:

    Excellent, I didn’t know it had come out! 1st…

  2. Anonymous says:

    Very cool… Great song!

  3. Anonymous says:

    Yeah! Muse is awesome

  4. makesense says:

    “Resistance”= an amazing song. I should sit down and play it on the piano one of these days…

  5. Piper '12 says:

    Wow, you play well smile

    As far as I can tell, anyway. I want to learn an instrument one of these days.

  6. Albert '13 says:

    That album is great. I got distracted listening to that (among other music) while doing 7.012 pset, which made it take much longer than it should have.

  7. Anonymous says:

    I’m deeply impressed with how multi-talented American college students can be.

  8. Michael says:

    Absolutely beautiful! I have been listening to it all day as I write my articles for school.

  9. Mikey says:

    I demand a followup video of you playing that solo with your feet…while shooting a pistol and writing with a livescribe pen! (Just kidding about that second part, that might get a little dangerous.) Nice playing, btw.

  10. Steph says:

    Haha, nice. Hopefully you finished your work on time.

  11. Anonymous says:

    Hi!
    I am in second year of Computer Engineering and I just wanted to know what all things do I need to do (I know all about the transfer application)so that I can enroll myself as a transfer student given that I have got 800 in each of my SAT subject tests.I mean what other activities should I be good at?

  12. ak says:

    Hi!
    I am in second year of Computer Engineering and I just wanted to know what all things do I need to do (I know all about the transfer application)so that I can enroll myself as a transfer student given that I have got 800 in each of my SAT subject tests.I mean what other activities should I be good at?

  13. Luka ('14?) says:

    Awesome song!

    BTW I took the TOEFL on August 1st and I listed MIT for score reporting, but the scores haven’t yet appeared in MyMIT. Is that normal?

  14. Clariwhat says:

    Piece of cake. I heard in Caltech there’s a guy who plays the clarinet with his feet. Can you do that?

  15. Snively says:

    @Clariwhat
    yes.

  16. Didn’t know you played clarinet, Sniv!

    Guy clarinets are where it is at? Did you ever do marching band in high school? What about like opportunities to continue music at MIT?

    -Cody

  17. Shiv says:

    @ak: I think only those can apply as transfer who have completed freshman year, not after sophomore, and since u r in second year already… i’m not sure you can transfer, but you might want to contact the admissions staff through e-mail.

  18. oasis '11 says:

    since you posted this, i’ve listened to muse’s album straight through ~6 or so times while writing my 21h.466 paper last night (11.30 pm -> 6 am) and the 9.01 pset tonight. it is really good study music.

    btw good job on the clarinet! didn’t know you were so musical. wink

  19. Lydia AK says:

    That was awesome!
    That was awesome!
    <3 Muse. =D

  20. Lauren says:

    Snively that was so amazing!