Music and Machining

So y’all are probably wondering what I have been up to this semester so far and what interesting classes I am taking.

I am taking a good amount of STEM classes, but on top of that I am in machine shop, orchestra, and flute lessons.

News! I officially declared my music performance minor in flute! I had to wait a semester before getting some signatures and turning in some paperwork. I feel like now that I have that officially declared I truly can say to people I meet that I am majoring in mechanical engineering and minoring in flute performance.

The pieces I am currently playing in orchestra are the first movement of Prokofieff’s Violin Concerto No. 2 in G minor. The soloist violin won the school’s concerto competition last semester, so it has been really top-notch quality. I really love the reoccurring musical themes in the lower instruments throughout the movement. The other piece is Variations on a Theme of Julia Perry and was actually composed by an undergraduate senior in the school of music. I thought this was a really cool opportunity that we get to see the music firsthand and be a part of putting something like this together. Our professor was saying that this is one of the better student-composed pieces that we’ve played. Overall, my impression on orchestra class with all the music major students is that it is a very professional environment. Everyone respects the conductor, Dr. Fountain. I enjoy orchestra, something that I had missed coming to college from high school.

The solo piece that I am working on one-on-one is Karl Stamitz Concerto No. 3 in D Major. I just started learning it, so I don’t have very many thoughts on it yet. One interesting thing about my music though is that it doesn’t have any dynamics written in, so it’s up to the players interpretation. A long-term goal I’ve been working on for music in general is to have a very precise beat and rhythms while also taking the music off the page, with gestures and dynamics that are able to tell a story. I often feel like I either have one or the other and not both in large quantities, so that is something I will be working towards this semester. I think though that this goal is one that you can always be striving for no matter how much you improve at it.

One thing I’ve been also working on with my flute is extended techniques. Specifically, what they call singing and playing. It is rather hard to explain, so I’ve attached a video. I got into it because I needed to play with a more open sound and practicing singing and playing helps me get to that.

So, I am in a machine shop class. This honestly doesn’t relate too much to aviation, but I thought that everyone would be interested in hearing my experience with it. And I guess I could say that this gives me better insight in how airplane parts are made. Anyways…my choices were CS, statics, or this, and if I took a different option I would be maxing out the amount of hours I could take. I think I would’ve taken machining anyways. The whole class is a project, which is to make a hammer. At the end of the semester we get to take the hammer we made home. The main machines we will be using are the bandsaw, lathe, and mill.

At first, I was intimidated by the class, with classmates who were mostly older than me and mostly males. I thought to myself, welcome to engineering! But, by the second class I met more people and felt slightly more comfortable even though I didn’t know what I was doing.

Now that I’ve had class a few times though, things are different. The machine shop feels like home. The bustle of students working on different projects, from building racecar parts, to hammers, to whatever one can imagine. The sudden and loud clanks and hisses of machinery. I’m fully present and focused on what I’m doing in the machine shop. I lose time there. It’s an escape from everything else in life. It’s just my classmates, the TA’s, the tools, and the machines — working together in perfect harmony. I feel safe, not only physically, but in the way that I don’t feel the need to overthink or doubt myself. Everything is so simple; cut and dry — follow a method, follow a procedure, cut once, measure twice, bring your ideas to life. It’s something to show for the things you’ve learned and the experiences you’ve gained. It’s my peace amid a busy day.

I honestly wouldn’t be able to tell you everything that I’ve done in the machine shop so far, or at least name it. I’ve used the bandsaw to cut stock to a certain length. I’ve used the lathe to face, create a shoulder, drill a hole, and used the automatic power feed with dual support for doing a long turn. I don’t know if I used all the correct terminology, but I’ve added pictures of what I’ve done so far.

Overall, I’m beyond glad that I joined the class.

-Jovie

 

 

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