Morta, Morta, Morta

^My status as of the second week of winter quarter.  Here's my schedule so far:

I haven't had this much class/lab/section since...never.  5 classes for a grand total of 17 units.  That's Electrical Engineering at it's finest, folks.  

At any rate, I've been able to get a little recording / musical nonsense down in the first week before the madness really begins.  I recorded Desdemona on the first night that I got back, spending about 5 hours in the studio.  I would have spent more time if only my thumb didn't start profusely bleeding :/  Rockstar status, eh? heh..  Anyways, here's the live version of the song on youtube:

I wrote this song during my fall quarter of Freshman year.  I was taking an IHUM (Intro to the HUManities) class looking at music + operas.  I was studying the different character dynamics in the play Othello, written by Shakespeare.  For those of you that have never read / heard of Othello, the story goes something like this:  

It is the 17th century in Europe.  Othello, the captain of the Venetian army and surprisingly a Moor (think racial tension between black vs white), is married to the beautiful (and coincidentally white) Desdemona.  Iago, a soldier in Othello's army and the antagonist of the story, hates Othello with a passion, especially since he[Iago] is madly in love with Desdemona.  Iago hatches a plan to ruin both Othello and Desdemona by pitting Othello against his own emotions of jealousy / hatred.  Iago gets his chance by using Cassio, a good friend of Othello's and fellow soldier.  Iago gets Cassio drunk and violent, eventually causing him to get into a fight.  Othello, finding Cassio in a wrecked state, strips Cassio of his high position in the army.  Iago then tells Cassio to try to gain Othello's favor by becoming good friends with Desdemona.  Iago then goes around and tells Othello that Cassio and Desdemona are having an affair.  Throw in a sneaky wife, an innocent mistress, and a love handkerchief, and Othello eventually kills Desdemona out of his rage.  However, right after he kills her, he realizes his mistake; he has just killed the love of his life.  Eventually, everyone dies, like a good Shakespearean tragedy.

In addition to reading Shakespeare's play, I also watched Verdi's opera Otello, which is based on Othello.  The song that Othello sang to Desdemona in the moments right after he murdered her were so moving, that I was literally crying as I watched this 50+ year old sing in Italian (mind you, I know close to no Italian).  These words were burned in my mind as I watched, and I also incorporate them in my song:

Desdemona, Desdemona,

Ay, Morta, Morta, Morta

And there's the origins of my song Desdemona.  Oh, I just found out that Desdemona is Greek for unfortunate.  How fortunate!