| the music that can't be seen, but felt |
|
oranje. |
|
hello. a bit of interesting sports news. new paper pointed to the group of death and look how wonderful fate works.. crespo in argentina, kezman in serbia&montenegro, robben in oranje and drogba in the elephants. randomness putting blues, ex-blues, and soon-to-be ex-blues players in the same group. the dangerous worlds of f1-racing see schumi going from pole to last, fate bringing him together with the other massa guy on the last row. controversies.. its been an eventful week. pretty much a hectic one. i must say i don't exactly regret trying out for the orchestra and getting into it. the experience from monday to wednesday now compared to the one 2 years ago is considerably different, mainly due to not slacking with the 3rd trumpet score anymore..haha. although i still am not fully convinced that an orchestra is for me (when my standard is even good enough for one) because sometimes it's just damn slack, the experience was still a good one. about trumpets, you know in a band a trumpet player can play a wrong note and get away with it cause everything else is just overpowering; not so for an orchestra. less of aria-like melodies, less virtuosic functions, in a way more effects-oriented. so yes, naturally more boring. but the punishing thing is counting tons of bar rests, or worse still, coming in on a high note with perfection expected of oneself especially pitching and articulation wise. it's not the easiest thing no thanks to the long rest before the note. anyhow, soaking in the strings-dominated atmosphere wasn't too bad, especially since smetana's the moldau is demanding yet just awesome. go listen to it if you haven't. the horns, okay fine there was only one horn, is damn nice. pip's tone colour is just.....perfectly for an orchestra. let's aim for that, haha. anyway, best part of the camp, as we agreed, were the "dinner" breaks. 5 mins for the food, the rest of the break for soccer. haha and ending up sweating like nobody's business and continue for reh. 5 months in acjc, me and beng didn't touch the ball. 3 days in the school painted green and white, and we touched it for two days. we're deprived mep kids. overall the camp was enjoyable. suffered from withdrawal symptoms on thursday. its painful. go figure la, haha. bbq and stayover on friday night was great. big thanks to the ones who planned, esp the barisaxman and mx. after-effects were felt during prac on saturday, i think they're still lingering somewhere within me now. trumpet lesson today got me back to the basics again. its conflicting sometimes when i can't apply what i learnt into my playing cause of consistency problems. sigh. time will tell. went shopping with my 'wife' after lesson with a tenth of the sweetener MOE kindly gave me on some music-related stuff, not surprisingly (a couple of books and cds). acjccb rawks. go for the concert! haha. band camp's gonna be a bash. to improvise means to invent your own way of intelligently using what you have in order to improve your environment; to swing means to maintain equilibrium with elegance, to be resilient; and to play the blues means that no matter how tragic a situation may be, you have the capacity to conquer it with style. cliched but true, courtesy of dear wynton marsalis. performed 14:23 ©
playing the song with your own emotions, experiences, and putting it all into the score. the other time i felt it, was with gr selections last year. both with something at the back of the mind while playing. mornings and the month. passion, love, music. game, set, match. performed 20:16 ©
i wanted to get online for the past few days but the bed always seemed more appealing. haha. guess it has been a good week so far, at least one of the better weeks of jc life. tuesday! haha. great day simply cause i had the chance to meet up with the great composer...i mean, pal, chen yi. lol. anyway that day we were at MOE for the mep interview. by the way, i just got a call a few hours ago today. i've gotten the mep scholarship! haha. i feel good; thanks everyone who helped and wished. okay back to the day. the interview, for me, was more of a reflection of how my life has been or is going to be, so it was special. besides reflecting on my experiences with music and leadership, they posed interesting questions which somehow meant smth to me. like how i coped when i was at the lowest, lowest point last year? even smth like how i would convince a kid, say of twelve yrs old, to play a trumpet instead of the violin or piano. so interview was pretty satisfying as i could, like chen yi as well, show my passion for the trumpet and music without any faking needed. anyhow, it felt good just to talk, talk about how's he and the other mep students were coping in ib, how's acjc for me, stuff like that. catching up time. oh we talked about how its so funny that now that we're in different schools, yet we both qualified to apply for the scholarship and ended up right before or after each other in the interview list. haha the world's a funny thing. i think we've stayed pretty much the same even after these five months living in the territory of school with the inclusion of a totally new species who can't do anything but...nevermind. the guitar god's done something i'd really like to do as well. going to china, and connecting with the kids there who sang along with his jay chou songs on the guitar. that's how we spread our love for music, really. inspiring. i wish a chance like this comes beckoning in the future. the morning was just great. wednesday was the band interview. seemed daunting with everyone recounting their experiences, but i guessed it went alright. no other comments. haha. today ended pretty well. besides the call i received from MOE minutes before meeting greg, enoch, and ip later on. my dear acsi mates. how times have passed since the day we collected our o level certs, but everyone's still the same old persons. sharing about changes in acsi, acjc and many other things over dinner, basically catching up. about how life's been a ball of stress, assignment deadlines, project deadlines, money, certain figures etc etc. about a certain tcher in tight clothing and how she shows them off. haha horrendous. about how's everything gonna be like after 1.5 years. learning about how two wonderful people who've done so much for the school have met with misfortune; mr tan, the estate manager who worked his socks off and helped the band too, collapsing suddenly and to his death, and dr lee li eng, one with so much for the band, but troubled by a serious illness now. i hope she recovers. they say that the end is just a new beginning. sounds like it for the end of this term, which is next wk. the holidays just look totally packed, as in, really totally. hopefully it'll be a good chance to strengthen friendships, catch up with people, especially those stuck overseas..haha. not to forget, studies. damn. performed 22:07 ©
MI:III was nicely done. time to get my life back on track, out of the deep, dark hole i dug for myself. time to step up to the occasion 'cause there really isn't sufficient time. wake-up call's here. sometimes i wonder why the cycle's like that. no, its not about schoolwork. that feeling is building up inside again. as mr pat soo waves his index finger, gives that wry smile, and says it, "no good ah..." how i miss him, haha. but no, i don't miss the agony of finishing up tys questions after questions. performed 21:38 ©
prokofiev and ravel, the two neoclassicists we've gone through in class, are both 62 yrs old. so random. but they're geniuses. performed 20:49 ©
we should play barber of seville even faster than before. then the euphos will die! haha.. trumpets too. performed 01:33 ©
been away for a long, long while. i'm trying not to sleep tonight. just back from sa concert. interesting walk there seeing people preparing for a rally speech in the hot little town of potong pasir, seeing reactions as we swept past macs' then into it, and yes, interesting lightsticks. haha. oh, interesting comments on stage too. anyway this week's been filled up with music, music, and more music. not that i'd complain at the fact that there's so much to do, mep lessons almost every single day and such, since i have to get used to it if i'm even thinking of going further in anything. it's been an eye-opener actually, which is making my senior isaac's words about these 2 years in that corner hidden away from the school being really rewarding increasingly true. we had a recording session which was pretty improvisatory and just damn funny la. then a trip down to the organ of the esplanade. behind the organ which faces the audience, a glimpse at the thousands of pipes. just for one single organ. ahhhh.. a trip to the backstage of the theatre in the durian. building an organ takes a couple of years or so, tuning an organ takes days, but being amazed at it takes a glimpse or a full chord with all the instruments/directions etc. damn classy. a cool three million bucks gets you the organ. hahaha.. i wish. more lessons, more music, more band, and cabbing down to the moe building from school. 2.4km today wasn't too bad. great to pace with zhong, and the weather was great to begin with. yeah, it was raining. haha. i've a couple of essays to complete by 7 hours or so. excluding sleep time. yawn. i wonder whether i've been neglecting many other stuff. well yeah, stuff more important than econs and maths. and gp and chinese. talking on the train, we talked about who each of us are closer to, friends or family? answer's pretty obvious to most of us, i guess. more effort for a compromise? surely.. some random day, i'd want to sit down at some kopitiam, sip some kopi-o, not sit in a corner to relack, but to just look at people. and observe. how much more does life have in store for those passing by. life's in need of a brake, terribly. performed 00:53 ©
|