Bullet Journal

 Bullet Journal is the note taking system by Ryder Carroll. Check this out!

Also, the website is beautifully organized. 
http://www.bulletjournal.com/

#6 Melody Loveless

 

Who is Melody? : Composer, Percussionist

Preference : 

Writing tool ; pencil, pen, etc.

Paper; Ruled, or any. Using Moleskine music notebook

A normal notebook that filled with her lovely scribbles.

Melody's Moleskine music notebook. She keeps her musical ideas and class notes there.


What's up? :
Melody is an active composer and percussionist. She is also tech savvy, involve with multimedia arts and many other technical stuff, such as web designing.
For more information, visit Melody Loveless.com

----------------------- -- -- ------------------------- -- -- ---------------------------- -- -- ----------------------------

After the long break, finally I came back to what I started! Although I'd like to have a variety in this project, I decided to focus on composers for a while.

Forgive me, it was a while ago I interviewed her. Melody Loveless, what a great name she posess! (and it's her real name!!) This lovely lady also performed my two film music pieces for my concert on May 21, the music I composed for Martina Milova's film. 

By the way, I love her compositions. Her ensemble piece "Eat you up(love you so)" is one of my favorite. 

Check it, Listen it, Embrace it!

#5 Leaha Maria Villarreal

Leaha Maria Villarreal

Who is Leaha? : Composer, Co-Founder of Hotel Elephant

Preference;

Pen: Gel ink pens
Notebook: Moleskine Plain/Blank

Digital Devices/Software ;

Hard: laptop computer, keyboad(music)
Soft: Sibelius 7, Logic 9

Leaha uses one notebook for everything. Her notebook is Moleskine, Classic Hardcover Plain Notebook. Taking advantage of plain notebooks, the direction of her writing shifts freely.


Why Moleskine? ;
She likes the smoothness of the paper in Moleskine. Also from her undergraduate teacher Steve Takasuki's advice; Use the items you like and create welcoming environment for yourself to achieve better performance.

Why gel ink pens over ball pens?
Gel ink pen can write smooth, and much less likely to be scratchy.


Whats up?

Her company Hotel Elephant has a concert this weekend at The DiMenna Center for Classical Music, Mary Flagler Cary Hall. This concert is a critic's pick on New Yorker. This is the rescheduled concert from 2012 November due to the Hurricane Sandy effects.

Tickets at the door: $15

January 12, 2013  at 8pm. Tickets at the door.

The DiMenna Center for Classical Music

Mary Flagler Cary Hall

450 West 37th Street @ 10th Avenue

New York, NY

----------------------------- ---- ---- ---------------------- -- -- ------------------------ --- --- --------------------

Since I pursuit concert music, why not I focus on composers?

For the compositional process, Leaha told me she goes straight into Sibelius. Although her notation is all done by Sibelius, her idea and phrase comes from her improvisation on keyboad. Leaha said the starting is hard, and everything about you reflects into your piece.

For more about her;

Leaha Maria Villarreal

Hotel Elephant

Why notebook is essential?

Francis Bacon said, “Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.”

More people should write

 

Writing needn’t be a formal enterprise to have this effect. You don’t have to write well. You don’t even have to “write,” exactly — you can just talk onto the page. - James Somers, September 27, 2012

I am not an organized note taker. I have a terrible sense of writing. Basically, my notebook is... a mess. I have a good excuse; in the note taking moment, the speed is the most important. I am not creating a note to publish. 

 

Also, he writes about the book Field Notes on Science & Nature, describes the field notebook is "the site of a collision between a mind and a world". As Bacon said, writing will not only keep your outflow, but also changes the way you live.

“Reading maketh a full man; and writing an axact man. And, therefore, if a man write little, he need have a present wit; and if he read little, he need have much cunning to seem to know which he doth not.” - Francis Bacon

#4 Martina Milova

Martina Milova


















Who is Martina? :  Film Maker, Bartender

Preference

- Pen; Sailor, extra fine nib
- Paper; Moleskine and others

*this picture is overexposed for reason. not so perfect!

1.  Small leather pocket book
    - Her income and expence
    - to do
 Recently she bought a old BMW motorcycle. The sticker on the pocket book is from Motor Grrl.

2. Pink Notebook from Vienna
    - Daily planner she uses as everyday to do list








3. Small notebook that has bird on the cover
    - for everything
She writes everything there. She writes names of the people she appreciates.



4. Large leather covered notebook
    - for writing everything
At the first page of the notebook, she welcomed this notebook writing "welcome to new family", she greets.

  
5. Cork skin notebook
    - For her ideas and spiritual use
When she was confused, she wrote there.
First, her writing was in German, and from one page, it switched to English. Martina explained  that one day she watched Super Bowl and her mind language switched.





6.  Black Sketchbook
    - for her ideas








7. School notebooks from Slovakia - Large
    - morning notebook
She writes three pages when she woke up to keep her outflow of the mind.

8. School notebook from Slovakia - Small
    - Diary
   

9. Three Moleskine Cahier Large plain notebook
    - Collection of her favorite things











10. Large daily planner
      - used as a diary
She wrote quotes from books, stapled movie tickets and receipts, and wrote what she did that day.
It's exactly like her log.

11. Moleskine Classic Extra Large soft cover plain notebook
      - Started for Film ideas, and scripts, then she starts using for everything.
She describes this large-plain notebook as "diary substitute", as she writing her favorite music, films, books, etc...


--------------------  ---  --- ------------------------- --- --- ------------------------- --- --- ----------------------

At her favorite coffee shop Grounded, Martina showed me many MANY notebooks...how wonderful!! Writing is her therapy. " I write, write, and continue writing...and at the end of the day, I feel okay". I'm happy to participate her film "It Feels Good To Be Better"

Does Moleskine became an icon of Dickheads!?

Recently, Gizmood posted an article following.

This Is Not Your F*cking Office, Dickheads.

--- I ordered but I couldn't find a place to sit. Why? Because the place—which can fit about 40 people—was full of these dickheads and their computers and Moleskines.  - Jesus Diaz


 Personally I have a record of staying in the Starbucks for 13 hours when I was in high school. That day, I purchased more than 3 drinks, 2 sandwiches,  and many other small bites half from the reason above, but also I was just hungry...

From the same reason, some Starbucks like 39th street and 8th Avenue one, started the tryout of covering the power plugs. Places like Starbucks Coffee are invariable for start-ups. But often times these places get overclouded with people who finished their coffee 2 hours ago.  Now many cafe with WiFi service encounter the similar situations.You know, it is serious damage to their revenue.

Funny, it link my mind to the issue of people don't want to pay for music.


see also;

Using Starbucks As Your Office? Here Are Some Tips

#003 Alexandra

Alexandra 




























This picture is not from the interview, but she looks awesome with skates.
Location; Central Park, Bandshell

 

 

Who is Alexandra? : Writer, Photographer, and Traveler.

                                   She goes only by first name.

Paper ; Moleskine

Pen ; Gel pens

She has many many notebooks, and each of them are filled with words. A lot of words.

Digital Devices; None
Preference; She uses many notebooks, and each one has it's own purpose. Writing with gel pens that has fine tips.

From left,

1. Left two blue notebooks; Moleskine, Volant Notebook Large
2. Up Center memo pad; (maker unknown), Trust your Crazy Ideas
3. Down Center; (maker unknown), designer's notebook
4. 2nd from Right; Moleskine, Reporter Notebook
5. Right; Moleskine, Soft Cover



1. Moleskine, Volant Notebook Large / Diary / Dictionary
   Both blue notebooks are Alexandra's daily personal writing. One has her own dictionary at the end, and the other one has extension function to the reporter notebook (4). She uses post it to expand pages.

2.Trust your Crazy Ideas / Starting point notebook
   Perhaps this is the most important one for Alexandra. When she decided to return New York, she wrote everything what she needs in this little notebook. This is her starting point.

3. Designer's notebook / multi-functional to do list?
   This notebook has multiple colors at the edge of the pages. Alexandra uses that point, she organizes the information and to do list by color. In the pages of red edge, she had a long list of books she has to read or movies she has to watch... under the green, she listed the title of articles she wants to write about, and her to do list. There are pages she wrote down all her blessing there. All her blessing were listed in that page with one sentence each with date of when it happened.

4. Moleskine, Reporter Ruled Notebook / Journal
   When she interviews someone, she prepare questions on one page, and following page has answers and what she heard in the interview. Each interview is marked under the interviewee's name. Reporter notebook suit perfect for her active journalism writing for magazines. 

5. Moleskine, Classic Soft Cover Plain Notebook / For everything
    It's like her primary outer brain field. Whatever she finds interesting or funny. Actually, looks like she is not missing any small thing she finds. The topics are vary, but each pages are filled with her words under the tags of simple information that she put very top of the page; date, title of the book she read, etc... For this notebook, she does not have definite system of how she will use the notebook. It's written by many colors of pens, and the notebook is also used from the last page, upside down.

---------------  --  ------------------  --  ------------------

   I've been thinking about this notebook project for over a year, since I wanted to bring this out with clear purpose, took a while to initiate whole thing. Through talking with Alexandra at Bandshell, she encouraged me to launch. It's always great to know someone who has similar philosophy :)

   Alexandra uses many Moleskine notebooks, both plain and ruled. She uses the plain notebook(5) very intuitive way. I heard it's better not to categorize the information you write down. It might look messy sometimes but that field will let the mind flows better to come up with a new creative idea.

  Like me, she is definitely a Moleskine user, but her two important notebooks are the other kind. About the notebook (3), she waited for 9 months to get this.