Life

I started playing piano in 2005 (I was 6 years old at the time) and took lessons for 12 years at the Hovland Conservatory of Music.  Here are some examples of pieces I learned during those lessons, and the year I learned and performed them to an audience at a yearly summer recital.

• Invention No. 1 in C major, Johann Sebastian Bach (2006)

• The Firefly, Anton Bilotti (2009)

• Valse No. 1, Op. 83, Auguste Durand (2011)

• Fantasia No. 3 in D minor, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (2012)

• Golliwog's Cakewalk, Claude Debussy (2014)

• Clair de Lune, Claude Debussy (2015)

• Suite, Op. 14, Béla Bartók (2016)

• Suggestion Diabolique, Sergei Prokofiev (2017)

While pursuing my undergraduate degree, I continued to play piano, learning pieces on my own.  During this time, I was primarily inspired by George Winston.  Here are some examples of pieces by George Winston that I learned to play, which I casually performed in the Coffman Memorial Union at the University of Minnesota:

• From the Autumn album: Colors/Dance, Woods, Longing/Love, Road, Moon, Sea, Stars.

• From the Winter into Spring album: January Stars, February Sea, Rain.

• From the December album: Thanksgiving, Night, The Holly and the Ivy.

• From the Forest album: Tamarack Pines, Troubadour, Walking in the Air.

• From the Plains album: Cloudburst.

Additionally, I learned a couple of pieces by Ludovico Einaudi, namely, Oltremare and Nuvole Bianche.

I also frequently composed and improvised piano pieces during this time.  My improvisational pieces mainly consist of jazz and impressionism, taking inspiration from George Winston.  I have not written sheet music for most of my compositions, but here are the ones that I do have:

• Morning Sunlight (2017) [PDF]

• Evening (2017) [PDF]

I do not play piano quite as much these days, but when I do, I typically play in the Psychology Atrium in East Hall.

Since 2020, I have been casually recording song lyrics and melodies whenever I think of them, taking inspiration from Bill Wurtz and his songwriting style.  On occasion I finish the full lyrics to a song, and then take a day to compose an instrumental backing for it using MuseScore.  I record and arrange vocals for that song when I get a chance.

I have been writing original songs and composing instrumentals since 2021.  The genre of my songs is not well-defined, as my musical style often differs between each song.  Overall, I try to write songs that are catchy, quirky, fun, and say something about life (however silly or exaggerated).

Currently I post my songs, along with the instrumentals, on SoundCloud.  My SoundCloud profile is DrCherryZ.

I have never had formal vocal training, and the microphone that I record with is not advanced, so my singing might not be the best quality, but it is important to me that there is a record of what these songs are supposed to sound like.  On the other hand, I am quite proud of the instrumentals for my songs, and would definitely recommend listening to those.

Below is a list of songs that I have released so far, cover art for them, and the days when I finished them.

In 2011, I started coding using Scratch, a block-based programming language and online community that encourages creativity and constructive feedback.  Scratch is designed, developed, and moderated by the Scratch Foundation, a nonprofit organization.  It was originally developed by the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab.  My primary motivation for learning Scratch was to make my own games.  Since then, I have been an active part of the Scratch community.  These days I typically answer questions and offer feedback for others on the Scratch forums.  I post my songs on Scratch, too, and on occasion I make podcasts as well.

From May 2019 to October 2021, I worked on the Scratch Team part-time as a Community Moderator.  I was responsible for reviewing comments and projects shared on the Scratch website to ensure that they fit the Scratch Community Guidelines, while also promoting computer programming, inclusiveness, creative collaboration, and constructive feedback.

My Scratch profile is Za-Chary (pronounced "Za-Cherry").  The Scratch projects that I have shared can be found on this page.  There are too many to describe all of them here, but here are the ones that are based on mathematical ideas:

• "Regular Polygon Generator" (March 18th 2013).  This is a tool that generates a regular polygon with a given number of sides and describes some properties of exterior and interior angles. [link]

• "Polar Platformer" (December 12th 2018).  This is a platformer game that takes place on a circle and uses polar coordinates for the physics. [link]

• "The Heat Equation" (June 4th 2019).  This is a tool that displays solutions to the heat equation over time for given initial-boundary conditions. [link]

• "Topological Space" (October 31st 2020).  This is a platformer game that takes place on fundamental polygons: the torus, the Klein bottle, and the real projective plane. [link]