This is one of the free and clean Bach cello music I am making available, as I transcribe them. See the parent article for context.
Here is a clean sheet showing only notes. You can print it out and add your own bowing and fingering marks. Click on the image to go to the PDF file.
Sarabande from Bach Cello Suite 1 (BWV 1007)
This is one of the free and clean Bach cello music I am making available, as I transcribe them. See the parent article for context.
It is the shortest piece in the suites. Here is a clean sheet showing only notes. You can print it out and add your own bowing and fingering marks. Click on the image to go to the PDF file.
Minuet 1 from Bach Cello Suite 1 (BWV 1007)
This is one of the free and clean Bach cello music I am making available, as I transcribe them. See the parent article for context.
This is one of the shortest pieces in the suites. So I transcribed it first. Here is a clean sheet showing only notes. You can print it out and add your own bowing and fingering marks. Click on the image to go to the PDF file.
Clean and Free Sheet Music for Bach Cello Suites
I have over the years looked online for sheet music for Bach Cello Suites. It usually happened when I engaged in one of the annual holiday rituals in my household. This is where I brought my cello of out its cold storage, wiped dust off, and played it until I redevelop finger strength and rediscover the joy of growing callouses on my fingertips.
In the early days of the internet, one had to pay for this 300-year-old music. And usually lots of money got you poorly scanned copies of poorly printed scores. Nowadays the quality is better in general. In addition, good folks have been transcribing this music, and have uploaded them them for you to download, for free, such as this and this.
Some of these modern PDF files are full of transcription errors. Even with the professionally-typeset scores, most of the times bowing and fingering marks don't work for me. Normally I would white out all markings from a downloaded score. Then I would write my own, on top of the notes. This was the only way I could play this beautiful music without making unpleasant sounds, given my poor skill set.
I imagine I am not the only one to want to do this. So I am going to start making these clean, unmarked sheet music available from now on. I am transcribing them in Sibelius as I play them. At the rate I play, I may not be able to finish them all before I kick the bucket. But it's still worth a try. It may help a soul or two. I'll also post my own markings. They probably only work for myself. Use my markings if they help you. Ignore them if they annoy you.
HHAMS 2015 Field Pictures
This article shows pictures taken in 2015 at HHAMS field events. These pictures were processed after I posted 2016 field and plane pictures. Maybe I'll get to 2014 pictures after this one.
The picture of the year 2015 was not taken by me. I don't recall who sent me this picture. It is not of high-resolution, unfortunately. If you are the photographer, please send me your original. The picture shows Eugene and Paul working on a plane in front of the shed.
Unusual Oculus Roomscale Setup
I have been patiently waiting for the day the era of Snow Crash arrived. A few weeks ago I received my Oculus Touch, to complement the Oculus Rift I got in June. What a world of difference the Touch made. I now proclaim the era of virtual reality to be upon us!
But Touch doesn't work "as is" for me, sadly. It is designed primarily for people who sit on a desk against a wall, looking at the monitor. You see, the thing is, I have a non-standard room setup. My man cave looks like nothing of the sort during the day when I roll up the shades. When the lights are off, however, a projector sitting atop the bookshelf projects the entire screen onto a white wall, across the room. My game PC lives in a corner of the bookshelf alongside other equipment, behind my recliner throne.
I set out to mount the Oculus sensors on the wall and to bury cables behind the drywall. It turned out to be a challenge in many ways. But I now have what enthusiasts call a "roomscale" setup for virtual reality applications.
Hot Air Balloons in Search of a Landing Site
Flipping through pictures on my iPhone, I found a few interesting ones taken in August 2015. They were from an unexpected encounter with hot air balloons while I was visiting Lancaster, Pennsylvania. It turned out that they were from a balloon ride tour agency with a misleadingly official name, The United States Hot Air Balloon Team. Nonetheless, I found the ground crew to be professional, and the pilot to be knowledgeable and helpful. I uploaded some of these pictures to Wikimedia, as I often do with useful pictures taken in my free time.
Winter Ice Skating at Mohonk Mountain House
The Mohonk rink is comparable in size to the Winter Village rink at Bryant Park in NYC. This rink does expand greatly the variety of possible winter activities, at the mountain resort where TVs are conspicuously absent in guest rooms. A single rink alone provides three different types of activities. There is the traditional "I just want to skate" type of activity. More inspired folks try the role of chariot horses. But in this case they are more like mules than horses, and push chariots from behind. Less mobile folks may play chariot drivers, except they have little control over their destiny, and must rely on verbal signals which mules may or may not honor.
Pictures of Planes Sighted at the Aerodrome in 2016
I have highlighted some pictures of main HHAMS events in HHAMS Pictures of the Year - 2016. But I have plenty additional pictures of planes, mostly taken at the field. Here is a complete list of all of them. You can click on each one to see the image at the resolution I uploaded them which is enough for most online viewing. But the majority of these were taken at 4 times the uploaded resolution. Ask me if you want a particular picture in its full resolution for other purposes.
HHAMS Pictures of the Year – 2016
I sorted through, in the comfort of my home, pictures I've taken related to model aviation in 2016 on my iPhone. All of them were about HHAMS (Hempstead Harbor Aero Modelers Association). As "the" picture of the year, I nominate Ben's Ironman plane.
What Exactly is a Peeled Extreme Beef Tenderloin from Costco?
This short article of mine is not about butchering a whole tenderloin. It's about not having to bother with butchering a whole tenderloin. It turns out that Costco sells processed tenderloin, albeit at a much higher unit price. I found the increased price well worth paying for. This processed version is called "Peeled Extreme Beef Tenderloin".
Oxtail Steak a la Sous Vide
I was talking to a friend about my oxtail steak I once plugged at r/sousvide. I was telling him how I got mostly negative feedback along the lines of "an oxtail is an oxtail is an oxtail - you stew it". Retelling this story reminded me of pictures I took while undertaking that 24-hour endeavor.
Battlefield 1 Soldier Uniforms from all Factions
To avoid committing friendly fires, players now need to learn to tell friends from foes, based on mere fleeting glimpses. This is a herculean task, as most soldiers look alike on the screen, in tiny images and mostly shown in suboptimal lighting conditions. It does not help that online resources showing soldiers from all combat classes and all countries are nowhere to be found. I've been waiting for more than a week now, but no such resources have spontaneously spawned. So I decided to take matters into my own hands.
HHAMS Field Calendar for Smartphones
In my time between two jobs, I wrote a calendar app for HHAMS. Or, at least, members see it as an "app", since the calendar runs on smartphones, and can be set up as an icon on the home screen. It is really just a webpage served up by a Flask server.
Custom RealFlight Airfields – Bethpage RC Model Airplane Field
This is another follow-up to the HHAMS airfields I made for RealFlight 7.5. This time I modeled the Bethpage state park on Long Island. The polo field at the state park serves as RC model airfield for various AMA clubs including Whitman Flyers and Cobra.
Secret Recipe for Making Gigantic Bubbles
I heard about this big bubble thing people do, from a Radiolab podcast episode, "Bigger than Bacon" (jump to the section Bigger Better Bubbles at 23:13). On a whim I bought the Bubble Thing (bubble-making wand) and the Big Bubble mix from David Stein featured in the podcast. This Bubble Thing became the highlight of a pool party. One thing led to another, and more big bubble demonstrations were demanded on other occasions. But it turned out that "bubble juice", as the solution is affectionately called by bubble fanatics, was quite expensive to buy, and one could easily go through a gallon of juice in less than an hour. I did some research online for better and cheaper bubble juice. Then I experimented with a few different recipes. And after only a few iterations I hit the jackpot. Thus this article.
Salvage and Reprogram the AR636A Receiver from Eflite Planes with SAFE®
It turns out that most of these planes actually come with an extremely capable $80 Spektrum AR636A Sport receiver, and it can be reprogrammed using just a smartphone and a special programming cable. You can change gyro rate gains, as well as heading gains. You can completely turn off AS3X stabilization in any of the three receiver-side flight modes, if you want to fly your plane without gyro stabilization.
Learn to Skate the Two-foot Grapevine Analytically
Here is my account of how I (almost) learned to skate a two-foot move such as the Grapevine. I am going to describe the learning process in a new language of moment of balance, falling and recovery, unlike how most tutorials explain the move. Perhaps I can provide fresh ideas on learning this move, on two-foot skating and on skating in general, from the perspective of a newbie. I have watched and re-watched countless number of tutorial videos, and have bought and read great books on ice skating written at the turn of the last century. And in analyzing skating and the Grapevine move for this article, I found that I now understand what I was doing wrong, and perhaps can finally learn to Grapevine gracefully.
Ice Skating as a Sequence of Falling and Recovery Steps
This article captures the insight I acquired in this process. Perhaps I can provide fresh ideas on learning to skate, from the perspective of a former outsider. The main thesis of this article is that unlike traditional narratives that describes skating moves in terms of strokes, I think skating can be equally and maybe even better explained as a sequence of falling steps and recovery steps.
(Summary) Flying at Virtual HHAMS Aerodrome in RealFlight and Phoenix RC
Those of you who train using RC flight simulators may have asked yourselves whether it was possible to create, modeled on the HHAMS Aerodrome, an airfield for RealFlight or a flying site for Phoenix RC. I'd been thinking about this same thing for over two years. At last, I gave it a try a few …
Continue reading "(Summary) Flying at Virtual HHAMS Aerodrome in RealFlight and Phoenix RC"
(Summary) Corner of the Lost Planes
There is a “Corner of the Lost Planes” at the HHAMS Aerodrome. This section of the flying field is just a bunch of tall trees, seemingly indistinguishable from other thousand tall trees that surround the aerodrome. But almost every member recalls running into difficulties flying in this corner, if not losing a plane or two …
Corner of the Lost Planes at the HHAMS Aerodrome
There is a "Corner of the Lost Planes" at the HHAMS Aerodrome. This section of the flying field is just a bunch of tall trees, seemingly indistinguishable from other thousand tall trees that surround the aerodrome. It is probably safe to say that almost every member had lost a plane or two to this particular Corner of the Lost Planes, before they learned, from the sages of the HHAMS, secret incantations that free them from the curse of this corner.
Custom Phoenix RC Flying Sites based on the HHAMS Aerodrome
This is a follow-up to the custom airfields I made for RealFlight. This time I modeled the HHAMS Aerodrome on Long Island for Phoenix RC. One of the flying sites has been accepted by Phoenix RC as an official flying site.
Custom RealFlight Airfields based on the HHAMS Aerodrome
I had been thinking about modeling real RC flight fields in RealFlight for a year or two. It seemed like an impossible task. But it turned out that with modern cameras capable of taking panoramic pictures, plus a simple photo stitching app, this can be done in a few hours. I am using this page going forward, to post updates as I model the HHAMS Aerodrome on Long Island in different seasons under different weather conditions and times of the day.
Doodling on iPad
More of my doodling on the iPad.
Watercolor paintings of Chinese zodiac animals in Auryn Ink
In 2013 I discovered an watercolor painting app called Auryn Ink. It's a great app for the iPad. It allows near-realistic watercolor paintings on a tablet. It has good simulations of interactions between pigment and water. I've painted a few simple zodiac animals with it in 2013 and 2014. Here are some of them, plus a few other paintings.