My header image of Piano Trek (Piano Keys and Raindrops) is more than anything supposed to convey my emotional and musical preference towards the piano. I feel like this image, gives my website certain kind of mood when you click on it, letting the visitor know that the music I focus on is sadder, rainy-day type music. With my image I also tried to work with the saturation, tint, vibrance, etc..etc to match the raindrops to the piano keys below them. I found these images through a creative commons search engine, where I could find images and then their source. I knew that I was allowed to use them because of the CC licensing I was able to check. One thing Manovich touched on his writing is the ability to control a ‘tool’ to have your “desired effect” (Manovich). I did this within my header image by adjusting the colors on my images, as well as the layering of the images itself. My image is different than the bitmap Davidson describes as it has layers, and ‘enhancing’ effects which I can constantly adjust and change at the scroll of a mouse. My image is similar also though, just within the notion that I CAN customize the picture although it may be much more advance than the generic ‘Bitmap’, which Davidson best explained as almost being ‘technologically stagnant,’ “since its initial incarnation” (276).

https://ccsearch.creativecommons.org/photos/323e1209-a34e-4764-b5d7-bd68af4d6d6b

https://ccsearch.creativecommons.org/photos/70d4f1a2-9b37-4f5f-8711-7871265075c2

The piano is one of the most beautiful, delicate and versatile instruments, and with this being said, it has always fascinated me, even from a young age. The goal of this site is to reinvigorate the energy I still have to re-learn the Piano. When I was a Junior in High School I started playing Piano, my Senior year I was playing Honors Piano, and with this came a great deal of personal dedication, mental stamina and persistence in my attempt to break the ice of what I ultimately wanted to do with my Piano skills.I had learned at least a dozen new pieces, all the way from Chopin to John Denver (Take me homeeeeeee, country roooooads ) but by the start of my Freshman year in college I had stopped practicing Piano, and hence only played songs I knew from memory on rare occasions, and never practiced new…or old material, I just stopped playing. Since my Freshman year, to my Junior year in college, I proceeded to forget almost everything I had learned in Piano three years prior in High School. Even the songs I had once played flawlessly from memory I forgot, I could hardly read music and felt hopeless and disappointed in myself for letting go of the thing I had always sought to pursue. Although sad, it is also motivational; I know what I once could do and there’s no doubt in me that I could do it again. This site is going to account my experience re-learning the instrument that I once played so passionately, it’s going to go over new songs that I’m learning, the most effective ways to practice (at least for me) and all the other bumps and bruises i’m sure i’ll be collecting along the way. This website can be for anybody interested in picking up an instrument (although Piano is obviously preferred)  for the first time ever, or in a while, but the website can also be used for those just interested in music/piano, including how ‘hard’ it is, how long it takes to learn, and what practicing actually looks like. It should be a fun and interesting ride for everybody aboard. The two images I included below are of piano sheet music and a grand piano. I chose to use these two images because I believe they are the backbone of any great piano player, and that anybody can learn to play the piano magnificently with just these two things (although lessons couldn’t hurt).

Both images employed are creative commons licensed images, as this is a way to “give the public permission to share and use your creative work” (Creative Commons) for people who would like their work to be available for use by the public. Both images were found using a creative commons search engine, but then further checked by going to the source of the pictures. The grand piano is from Flickr  https://www.flickr.com/photos/68156501@N05/39233817021 while the Piano sheet music is also from Flickr https://www.flickr.com/photos/34879918@N04/32361382197 , and both are legally available for use in my blog.