My name is Terris Roberts and I am a Freshman Undergraduate student here at the University of the North Carolina School of the Arts studying the violin.  I have been a student here in the High School Program for 3 years and am continuing my studies here in college.  I have been playing the violin for about 14 years now.  Like you, I wasn't born in America.  I was born in Monte-Carlo, Monaco and lived there for the first few years of my life.  I then moved back to the United States and since being here I have lived in Kentucky, Florida, South Carolina and North Carolina so I know a little bit of what it means to be a stranger in a new country, although not quite to the extent as any of your people.    In terms of traveling I have been to many countries mainly in Western Europe including France, Spain, Germany, England, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, to name a few.  In all my travels, I have always been curious about the orient and traveling to and throughout Asia.  My home life includes a Mother, Father, Sister, and Dog.   My parents are both artists as well.  My mother is a former Ballerina.  She went to school here and has danced as a principal dancer with NCDT, PNB, Frankfurter Oper Ballet, and was Ballet Mistress of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo.
  My father is a French Horn player and former solo horn player of the Deutsche Oper am Rhein and the Monte Carlo Philharmonique.

Terry Roberts: My Father

Monte Carlo:  The Country of my Birth

In terms of personality, I consider myself to be pretty laid back guy you likes to joke around a lot and have a good time.  I'm always looking to learn and invest myself in new, interesting, and exciting things and the Dega people's rich culture is something that I hope to learn more about.

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Week Two: Framing-
What is framing?  George Lakoff defines it as such: "Language always comes with what is called "framing." Every word is defined relative to a conceptual framework. If you have something like "revolt," that implies a population that is being ruled unfairly, or assumes it is being ruled unfairly, and that they are throwing off their rulers, which would be considered a good thing. That's a frame."

Framing to me is how I sit back and look at a situation.  Its how I make decisions, Its figure outcomes, Its how I determine consequences, Its my own personal technique to keep myself sane.  When watching the video documentary trilogy, The Persuaders, specifically in the video entitled, "The Times They Are-a-Changin"  I found that we see framing in advertising everyday.  Especially in terms of the viewer.  People literally become enraged when they see too much of a certain add or adds at all.  So certain advertising companies have started incorporate a sort of framing technique in attempts to make advertising and adds themselves more subtle and less noticeable, but just as, if not more effective.  For instance, instead of having a group of friends in a sitcom meet in the 'local coffee shop,' they could meet in a Starbucks instead.  Upon seeing this, the viewer's natural instinct is to go purchase  coffee from a Starbucks because that's where his/her favorite TV characters are drinking their java.  Voila!  The advertisement has worked exactly as it was designed to.  With the evolution of the advertiser comes the evolution of the advertisee.  For instance, systems like Tivo allows a viewer to literally skip commercials entirely.  Also, a large portion of audiences rely on the internet and watching their favorite shows online where there are ways of navigating and avoiding advertisements entirely.  So everyone is doing a framing of their own in this respect in the sense that the viewers are coming up with a means of keeping themselves happy and less frustrated with the add world by finding ways of coping with, and/or bypassing them all together.  And add company's are framing just as much with their ability to find ways of advertising and making viewers more inclined to buy things through subtle hints throughout the show whether it be in the form of a shirt, building, or can logo.  


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Week Three: In Studio Project Brief-

Montegnard Music

• Its form
• How is it written
• Does there music have as many, if any, rules and/or regulations that can be found in Classical music?
• Is it considered art in their culture?
• Is it spiritual? 

In recent studies and research on the Montegnard people in North Carolina.  I have specifically taken an interest in their music and the process in which it is made.  Classical music has its own strict form in terms of Scales structure and note configuration, harmonies, counterpoint, etc. and so forth.  I am interested in the Dega people's music and to see how it is composed, played, and deciphered and if there is any strict form at all.  Now in my studies I've found that a lot of their music sounds a lot like the pop music of our 80's culture.

But although they have this westernized sudo-pop music, they also have the traditional music of their culture and society.  From what I've observed thus far, their music consists of a lot of percussion in the form of 2 sided drums that sits horizantally and beaten on both sides.  Also, they often use a series of gongs in their music that seem to vary in size and shape to create different tones and pitches.  But this is all merely speculation.  I would like to go deeper and meet personally with perhaps a specialist in traditional music of the Montagnard people to learn more.  As a musician, I'm sure I could relate in some form or another.


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Week Four: Creativity, Influence, Ownership, and Art in the Digital Age-
 What is Digital Media and why study it?  There is a deep defining and taking apart of Digital Media on a technical level in terms of the distinction of digital and analog, how frames and film works, how they are all continuous links, how sound works.  We see the evolution of media technology as Louis Dergare has first success with photographs.  This brings us to the history of mechanical operations being performed on numbers in the form of the first calculating devices and then computers acting as a sort of numeric medium.  So what does all this technological jargon mean to the artist?   If we look into what the artists here at UNCSA are dealing with, one might be surprised.  Film students, Technical Directors, Sound Editors, Music Theory students with Finale software, Composers with playback and notation editing software, etc.  I.E. everyone.  Art is very much alive amongst the Digital Age and vice versa.

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Video Remix-

Final Video Documentary: The Montagnard's Music by Terris Roberts-