Disgraceful RI guys act

I like to watch how RI guys react to every thing and action during mass gatherings. Just like in the Lecture Theatre. Just like in the canteen. Just like in the classrooms. Just like in the Hall.

Just two days ago during the Prefectorial Investiture, the Secondary 4s were treated to a comfortable yet fantastic view of the Hall from the Gallery situated one level above, a privilege that we all enjoy once we have endured 3 years of wearing white tight pants that occasionally grow tighter.

Sexual innuendos aside, I managed to witness one of the largest (racial?) jeering I've ever experienced in RI. Well all of us were on the top floor, and all the prefects were being 'invest'ed into the investiture, so naturally the names were read out and the photos of the prefects shown on a huge screen in front of the hall.

Last year in the campaigning I believe there's a need to mention that this guy from China - surnamed 'Wang' - had his campaign line as 'Vote for Wang, never let you down'.

Unfortunately for him I suppose his message went out the wrong way, and everyone was absolutely frenzied by his pronunciation - Vote for Whang (Wank), never [let you down]

So whenever he went on stage to give a speech, he would always be met with thunderous applause and a couple of cat-calls and wolf-whistles. Now on that day of Prefects' Investiture, his presentation was followed by an Indian who went with the prefectorial avatar of Groundbreaker - probably someone who would break new ground in whatever thing he chose to do. Unfortunately he didn't strike with the general masses, and on that day we were chose to see the ugly side of RI boys.

Anyway there was as usual much cheer and joy when Mr. Wang was 'invested'. Unfortunately after him was Groundbreaker, and it was juxtaposed with the sudden hushes, jeers, and 'boos' that rang around the Hall. It was pretty clear that the Headmaster was attempting to force out a smile on his Chinese face, but the entire event continued anyway. Well the representatives from the other schools were probably as amused as some of us, but deep inside I believe they know they've just seen a disgraceful act.

Moscow 2040

It is inevitable that one day somewhere someone would get tired of blogging and recording his thoughts. Nonetheless, there are also times where somewhere someone would find some liberated time to do so.

On Tuesday there was Dr Hecht and Mr Tiu's two-piano concert recital, and I feel a review of it would be redundant as we already have one from a distinguished reader of my blog; Dr. Chang Tou Liang!

Yeah he wrote a review in the ST on the excellent concert, which was published on Wednesday. Needless to say I read it and thought some of my friends (and even myself) can pick up lots of review writing tips from this medical doctor and music lover. The recently-formed review-writing disease has strucked some of us, but well, it's all for better music appreciation and improved English skills.

On Thursday during MEP we did our last 2 hours of composition test, of which I changed poems 3 times and finally settled with the one I started with, using 45 minutes to write melody and an accompaniment that was a mixture of Debussy-Reflection-of-the-Water and Jonathan-Shin-Crap. The melody wasn't at all good. I would feel more comfortable putting the blame first on the text though. With good text comes good music.

With bad text comes uncomfortable melodies and 3 weeks wasted.

After MEP with much abated breath my dad and I went home to catch the results of the Youth Olympic Bid. In the end, it was fortunately Moscow 2040! Singapore will host 2010. Yay...

Anyway before that my dad was attempting to convince me that it was definitely Singapore. "Prime Minister Lee, who earns hundreds of thousands of dollars a minute, surely wouldn't be there to waste his own time, would he?" And besides, they wouldn't organise such a huge event for 100 secondary schools to come down to the Padang to view the results. More importantly, Prime Minister Lee and Ng Ser Miang have visited Switzerland so many times over the past few weeks.

Well honestly speaking my dad rarely goes wrong on predicting politics, considering his wizened age and political mind. :)

If PM Lee were reading this, I'm sure he would be nodding his head too in agreement.

(Eh how he know! So clever...)

always look on the relaxed and forgetful part of life...

I'm pretty sure someone had hynotised me. And they should have awarded me a phD for most number of items lost in a day. Just yesterday I was in the Conservatory for theory lessons when I went to practise so afterwards.

After 3 hours of practice and a 1 hour recital by Hannah and a few chocolates provided by Hannah, I was off to head home from NUS. So I went across the road to catch bus 96 (I missed the first one because I was eating Pocky and thinking I was definitely waiting for bus 76). Well after 5 seconds of wondering I made up my mind that bus 96 was flying off to Clementi MRT and not the non-existent 76, I took off from my seat and took just one small step towards the bus.

Well, there's a twist to every story; the bus driver moved off!

So I figured I was going to wait for say, 20 minutes.

I was wrong - the next bus 76 was there in a mere 20 seconds. The nice thing about it was that it reached Clementi MRT faster than the one I missed previously. Heehee.

Anyway I believe you all had this gut feeling that 'something' is missing from your bag but you can't think of what it is. And sometimes they are the most obvious things. I realised I was missing two things. One was on the MRT, and the other was today. This morning!

I forgot to bring out with me a file which contained all my theory work (thankfully I've retrieved it back because Qin Ying passed it to Tarin, who would subsequently pass it to me tomorrow). And the thing I realised I had forgotten to take out from the practice room was the PENCILBOX.










PENCILBOX!!!

Yeah I didn't get into big shit but that's one life lesson learnt -

Always bring two pencilboxes and two files!


In any case my pop music idols are the Beatles, and I think I've found my literary idols! Well they are Monty Python (a group), and I bet some of you readers have never heard of them. Well they're from the 1960s, *groans from the public* and yes they're witty and clever! Your idols have to be smart somehow anyway.

I watched a couple of their sketches and skits, and also some of their movies! Two of which I shall put here for all you guys to watch and laugh.






Song for today was 'Always look on the Bright Side of Life!'

Which was interesting how I used it to deal with my seething mad mood during Mathematics Tuition. Tomorrow we're going to sit for a Math test, and we were going to be tested on Circular Measure and Probability! So there was this RI guy who was also in the class, sitting beside me.

I started on Question 1 at home, and started doing Question 2. He started from another worksheet, and in half-an-hour's time switched to my paper from Question 1. My Mathematical Orang-Utan mind was no match for his, and very soon he was on par with me! (At Question 6)

In any case I resolved to beat him by finishing Question 6 faster than him by 7pm, but failed to do so because my watch was 10 minutes early. He was mumbling a thousand numerics out of his mouth, and I hardly could concentrate! Some mantra he had there...

"sinetwopointzeroeighttimeshmm...timescosineninepointfourfourthreeseventwo.hmmmmshithowtodothisineedtogotothetoiletandshit dividedbytwotimesfourteencosinesixty hambugerturkeychickencrapwithcheeseandfrenchfriesbaboonflyflytwentypointeight"

Anyway so I decided to breathe in and breathe out and count to ten. Something you guys must actually try and concentrate when you'll are pissed! And then I started to sing "Always look on the Bright Side of Life", which calmed and relaxed me. And so I gave up trying to beat him, but in the end he left early at seven. I realised I should try doing things at my own pace.

Well, it may sound crappy, but after all one should take concentrate and do things naturally so he can do it at his best! Just like before any performance, I breathe in and breathe out, and run through all the details, and be responsible for my performance!

Maybe they should give me a phD for relaxation also...

Happy Valentine's Day (one day late)

Before I type out this post - here's to everyone everywhere in the name of love. A favourite pop number of mine that's definitely one of my top love songs. Now this song must be good...here it is.



Love Is All Around - Wet Wet Wet

Anyway I rarely celebrate Valentine's Day partly because...yes you've probably heard this a THOUSAND times over so I'm not going to elaborate any further. Lest you die of shock and the police start looking for me. Now for those of you who are wondering what creative answers I could have put as my reasons for not celebrating Valentine's Day, you're in for nothing!

That's because I'm too busy to celebrate.

(General Audience to go 'Aww...')

Yeah I heard the song when I was about ten and was very intrigued by it. Well at that time with a lack of vocabulary and bad grammar AND bad sense of music I guess all I could do (I bet you guys did that too) was to mouth some random words that sounded like it.

"Love is all around me...and so the feeling grows" (Actual)

(Mouthed) "Love is (mouthed) or around me...and so the (mouthed)goes"

In any case I hope all of you will enjoy the song that I enjoyed very much.


I'm planning to join Lorian Hemingway Short Story Competition! Well at least I can think up of one story and submit it for fun. If it wins I'll be pretty surprised though, because the stories I write are usually used to pick up animal crap upon completion or otherwise placed in the toilet for beauty wiping. If you hardly know what that means, to put it in a harsher way, toilet paper.

But I guess I can still give it a shot, after all the free time I have when I finish practising my piano and during breaks.

You know my life doesn't have much interesting things nowadays when I talk extremely random things like what I'm doing now...

Our National Day Song Project is still ongoing! Did some editing today and listening.

What else?

Brain Blank

All of you must have heard of the concert on Tuesday. Well, it was pretty good, but personally I thought there were definitely things that could be improved on... So to artistic perfection, still a lifetime more to go!

Which was clearly underlined on Wednesday's lesson, where Aidi and I did Haydn and Mozart respectively. A lesson filled with well over 100 details (literally) that can be applied over our constant daily practice. I believe all of us at YST have worked pretty hard over the past what, 10 years, to deserve such an education.

In any case I don't think it's easy to get a piano teacher like Dr Hecht or Mr Tiu.

Anyway, I've been plagued with major headaches these few days and they usually happen before I sleep! It's a clear sign that I'm exhausted, with all the work and the music what-not.

My mind's currently blank now because of the 20-minutes-a-line treatment I gave to my Mozart. Man, piano practising and learning at a completely new level.

On a brighter note, Mrs Tan wouldn't be coming tomorrow and my timetable goes like this - Chemistry, Physics, Math, History.

After Chemistry and Physics would be recess, and since there would be no Math and I don't take History...something special is happening. If there weren't any CCA tomorrow, I could go home at 10! And reach home at 12 and sleep till music theory in the morning the next day.

But that would be too dumb and lazy. Anyway I promise all of you readers that I would post more after I get my mind clear from all the work.

Promise!

Why I Would Not Be Able To Go Out And Yet Still Feel Very Happy Thanks To My Music

How delightful it is to read Theophilus's latest post: Why I Love My Music (dated Febuary 8, 2008)

Well frankly I've never thought anyone would post about their relationship with music over the years, but since someone has done it, I think I'll give it a shot.

Mine started at Yamaha where I was placed in Gifted Class - if I can remember correctly - at Clementi. Seems like I have came a full circle now that I realized my music journey started at Clementi! Well anyway the connection is that now I go to Clementi MRT and then take the bus to the Conservatory.

Back to Yamaha, my faintest inny-winny memory of it was in this huge room that was carpetted blue and lots of children around me sitting with Electones. And beside all of us were our parents. They gave us manuscript charts and magnets, where I learnt my C, D, E, F, G, A, B. At home I would practise placing the magnets on the different lines and in between.

This all happened at Bukit Batok. And I was 4 at that time. And then one day my parents spotted a newspaper ad, obviously by NAFA, that asked if you wanted "your child to be a Mozart?" And my parents thought that there was no harm for me to sign up for such a programme. I auditioned with Mdm Yan, and I was asked to do some auditory exercises and singing. I made it, and very soon I was having lessons with her very near Bishan and RI.

See! It's all coming into a full circle! The connection now is that I study in RI.-.-

Meanwhile after a few years I went to Miss Elizabeth Tan, still at NAFA, where my first performance came in a form of 4 hands with my partner, and we played some piece called Collecting Tea Leaves. After much sweat (a ha ha pun not intended) I got to shake hands with the President His Excellency S.R Nathan. Just in case he reads my blog I have to put all these courtesies in!

Holy crap! I realised another thing -.- I shaked hands with him in my last performance with NAFA, and that was Yellow River Concerto Mvt 4 for the President's Challenge. Now things are starting to get creepier. Boo.

After 4 years in NAFA, I finally got taught by the head of SYT (School of Young Talents), and that was Mdm Fang - a name I believe many of you should know. Or many in the music circle. Under her I won a couple of awards and performed in several countries, and this in turned gained me lots and lots of experience. After 7-8 years in NAFA, I auditioned for the Conservatory last year in March, and I've not looked back since.

Theophilus examines the factors that contributed to his love of music over the years, and puts forth his views about the importance of technical training versus musical enjoyment when a musician is in his learning phase. (Thanks Theo for addressing yourself in third person...)

Admist all the history of this first part, I have to admit that my literal skills are nowhere as close to Theophilus's, or maybe I just don't have the time :O just kidding. But anyway, I believe taking up music for some is a path of continuous discovery, where at some point of time one discovers something special that one has never realised.

I would have to agree from my POV about his assumption that 'no child likes practise' but I believe however there are some kids in this world who are gluttons for mundane practise and punishment. However, I disagree with him that this spills into a distaste for classical music. For me, I don't think I've ever had a distaste for classical music, and the awe of such complex yet at the same time simple music has never been absent from me. Maybe it's just the way my ears are tuned, or the over-the-top exposure I had, but it has never left me.

But I'm pretty sure that parental guidance is one of the basic key things that is needed in the beginning stages of learning anything, be it music, math, languages, art, computer. At Yamaha my mum would sit beside me and point out the notes that were on the score. She would also make me pay attention while I clicked buttons like there was no tomorrow on the Electone. Surprisingly they never billed me for the tons of Electones I jammed.

At NAFA, when there were times Miss Tan had to demonstrate how to play a certain part and I had to stand up and make way for her to sit, my mum would pinch my ass so hard that I winced and would try my best to hold back tears while playing a phrase.

The 2 hours reserved for my practise time were often torturous, for I constantly looked at the clock, but I knew I still loved the music and everything around it. There was the abacus to count how many times I had practised the Hanon exercises, and I know I've done a hundred of them before.

See, practice makes perfect.

And then comes the self-interest, whether the child is interested in it or not. I believe that if you want to do something you might as well put in your best. Here's a quote from Mr Raymond Lee - "Do your best, in whatever good you chose to do"

So there goes.

And then lastly, maybe a little talent would be needed. As what Benjamin Saver mentioned in his 2003 letter for the 2nd World Piano Conference that I attended in 2003, that '99% would be hard work, and 1% would be talent'.

All these little things along my music journey have made me into what I am today - it has affected my life in a huge way, particularly the constant practising from 8pm-10pm when I was in primary school and the need to study for PSLE. Very recently was the integration of my another life of entirely music into my present study life, which was such a huge change that I buckled several times along the way.

Of course, several new ideas and concepts that were introduced to me have changed the way I viewed music, one of them which I'll share with you here later. I've met significant music teachers around the globe, and one of them would be Mr Mark Ray, whom I had a masterclass with in Manchester. Sadly he passed away in a drowning incident in America, and it was extremely sudden.

And then last semester I had lessons with Miss Hahn for 6 months, and I was introduced to the Taubmann technique, one which requires full body mapping and understanding. With this knowledge in mind, I'm able to understand the physical part of piano playing. She also implemented Eastern methods into piano playing, such as the use of chi, something that is hardly mentioned in the piano performing world.

Try this at home. (If this sounds corny to you, at least try it!) Call a friend or parent, and ask that both of you should approach each other with the right arm stretched out, palms facing each other. Both of you should close your eyes. With palms facing each other, each of you should experience/feel a tingling sensation. If there isn't any of such feeling, don't panic! However, if there is, that would be the feeling of 'chi'.

And I believe this simply because of the fact that after every performance that requires lots of effort, energy, and emotion, I can feel this tingling sensation in my palms, and sometimes it would be very hot!

Well, believe it or not, I'm simply sharing my ideas and experiences in my life with music. There is still one more phrase that I feel would be necessary to copy from Theophilus - However, it is thanks to devoted parents, caring friends and experienced teachers that we are able to play, enjoy and create music!

Thus ends my thoughts and feelings on my life with music.

Chinese New Year (no photos included)

The usual Chinese New Year thing at Malaysia...unavoidable. But it was fun!

I spend 2 days and 1 night at Malaysia, and basically spent the first day doing nothing. We arrived in Malaysia at 6, particularly because I had a piano lesson at 3pm till 4pm (and then after that I left not being able to hear Aidi's lesson) because I had to rush to Malaysia for gathering. You know, one has to try to avoid the jam.

Unfortunately we did not manage to avoid the jam, and we spent nearly 45 minutes from Woodlands Checkpoint all the way to Malaysia Checkpoint (generic), and I saw a
couple of ang-mohs walking along the Causeway, some backpackers I guess.

As usual, no pictures available, simply because I do not know how to take pictures with my phone and transfer them to my computer. I'm very SDRAWKCAB!

Now that's one more reason why you can call me dumb and lame.

Anyway I got bitten by the usual mosquitoes at night, and when I came back to Singapore, I realised I suffered 26 mosquito bites, to my legs and to my arms. This goes to show that I'm tasty.

I'm proud to say then that the next day I spent 2 hours without a keyboard working on the first 30 bars of my planned sonata in F major! I can still remember what Tianyi said about composition - that usually we start by imitating other composers before we developed our own styles. I once sent her an mp3 of my 'MEP composition 1' and she thought it was a Bach prelude or fugue. Unfortunately it wasn't, and I wasn't very surprised nor annoyed when I heard that, but I understood a very important principle.

Searching for an own style is a process that I guess all composers would have to go through the moment they move to more original works. So I'm going through the process now. Should it be more modern (note: not contemporary)? Or should it lean to the more 'classical' styles? Or should it even be the much more original fusion? We'll see in a few years.

Back to the Chinese New Year celebrations, there was the usual offering of hongbaos from the elders to the younger children. It's no longer the queuing up, but now they approach us! What a move from old Chinese tradition...Ate the black sunflower seeds (lots of them) and of course some roasted Chestnuts. Probably one of my favourite food.

A scare happened somewhere at 8pm when everyone was watching TV and the aunties were chatting. And so it happened that my cousin's son Bryan was climbing on top of the sofa. Just a few minutes ago though, he was playing with me and everyone was commenting how he liked me so much (yay plus points). Now he was STANDING on top of the sofa, and no one noticed him, including me. I was sitting on the sofa too with my grandmother, and Bryan was standing in between.

And then it obviously happened - the inbalance hit him and there was a terrible sound of bone against tile. Obviously bone was harder and the tile shattered. Just kidding.

It was a face-plant and he landed on the floor with a loud thud. We flipped him over after 3 seconds, and he started crying like there was no chicken in the backyard. And there really wasn't, so he kept crying. They did the usual superstitious things, for example taking the metal knife and pressing the flat part (duh)on the bruise on his forehead. Another aunty took a hard-boiled egg and pressed it against his bruise. Anyway after all the sweat and crying he was ok (luckily) and we all were relieved.

Several superstitious things again, and I learnt some new stuff. Like the babies shouldn't kiss - in case one couldn't talk in the future and it 'passed' on like a disease. Trust me, it sounds reasonable considering we think like super superstious people.

Card games were the usual, we participated in blackjack (with money), but unfortunately no mahjong at all. I guess it was still alright.

I returned to Singapore at about 3am, bringing my grandma and aunt into our house! Welcome better organizational skills, goodbye dust and mess. They told us that our house was very big, which was something I didn't think about. But it's no wonder the first day I saw my flat with my cousins we played hide-and-seek. That was 8 years ago!

What are you guys doing on Valentine's Day?

After a 3 day hiatus that have left many readers disappointed about the lack of updates and pictures, I've decided that there's got to be a day where I do my blogpost, and that day was today.

So it's one day before Chinese New Year! Nothing much, but I'm looking forward to my CNY celebrations - that's because I go across the Causeway and we play mah-jong, daidi, eat peanuts and delicacies, tons of ba-gua, and of course, write a couple of short stories! (At least that's what I've been doing every time I go across)The last time I went there I wrote 3 chapters of a story I was planning to read for myself (about 2000 words - handwritten!). This time, I'm going to try writing a short skit. But a concept must be done up first.

The past few days have been spent doing the same old things - attending Saturday classes with Dr. Edwards, where we studied Liszt's Liebestraum 3 in terms of harmony, compositional techniques, and music theory. So we came about thinking out aloud how Liszt managed to bring us from Ab major to B major so comfortably. He mentioned that composers usually add just one more sharp or flat in order to prevent the event that we modulate too suddenly and all of us die in shock.

So we were all thinking - from A FLAT, how did we go to B major? (which is a 'sharp' key). And then I realised...that the flats of Db major (Bb, Eb, Ab, Db, Gb) correspond to the sharps of B major (F#, C#, G#, D#, A#)! And that proved altogether that Dr Edward's 'theory' was right - that composers usually add just one more sharp or flat. In this case, Liszt added one more flat (Gb) from Ab major to form Db major, and Db major's flats corresponded exactly to all of B major's sharps.

Now if you don't know what I have been talking, it's ok, because I'm quite sure musicians reading my blog would understand what I'm talking about. It's quite simple and elegant actually.

Sunday was Math Tuition day, and I did circular measure to prepare for the quiz on Monday. This time, I'm pretty confident that I would score very good marks for the quiz. Yumyum.

Remember last week when I said that I was going to perform for the concert next week? (12 Feb) Here's just a reminder that I'm still performing, and all of you can go. It's free by the way. This is the URL to the list of performers and items that day - http://scmapp.nus.edu.sg/events/details.asp?e_id=519

Meanwhile, yesterday was the studio class, and I played Faure in it. It was good, and of course we learnt lots and lots of things that simply can't be typed in here - the things we learn are found far and few outside of the Conservatory. However, we had a perfect analogy from Dr. Hecht that I could suggest to other musicians to think about.

That as musicians we control the vibrations we make, and like Harry Potter, while he controls 'magic', we control sound. So that means all of us have this craft, and that we are to refine this craft and produce wonderful music to give to the audience. As a pianist, we make use of the pedals and produce organic music, vibrations that can evolve and devolve, can rejuvenate and can sadden. We collect and send out different qualities of sounds in different forms - waves of sounds across the hall, rings of sound, thousands of different colours and shapes.

So hard to describe here...

What are you guys doing on Valentine's Day?

Crazed people and Concert

Well guess what. RISE was released 45 mins earlier! Story goes like this - we were rehearsing Britten's Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, and the score was recreated, rearranged, and repasted by our conductor Mr Sze. He challenged us to find any errors in the scores (in total - full orchestra). If we should find at least 5, we would get an hour's break.

And lo and behold, all of us were busily scrambling to find mistakes, for an hour's break is so rare that your neighbour's pig would fly. "Pizzicato missing here," said some of the violinsts. And cries of "Theme A is bolded while the rest of the theme titles aren't!" started filling the air.

In the end, Gil Seob spotted two, and the rest of the orchestra filled it in. Our rehearsal started at 4.00, and very soon we were off at 5.45, and we went for our 1 hour long break. Till the end of the rehearsal.

That meant tons and tons of extra soccer, and of course the usual dirty used-to-be white tights long pants that is everywhere. Before the rehearsal, (the 45 minutes we missed at the start) some of RISE were playing Twister TM, and the spinners rigged some of the results in order to watch some fun.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, here's the game explanation:

Two items are needed - a Game Mat of 20 circles, 5 rows of 4 different colours: Red, Blue, Green, Yellow. And a Spinner, which looks like a clock, except that it has 16 circles around its face. They are Right Hand [Red, Blue, Green, Yellow], Left Hand {R,B,G,Y] Right Foot {RBGY], and Left Foot [rbgy].

So when you spin the needle, it points to, let's say Left Foot Yellow, the participant of the game would have to put his Left Foot on a Yellow Circle. So we keep spinning and spinning, and the person who has his butt come into contact with the ground loses and is out of the game.

Some of RISE decided to rig the spinning (Some is unnamed due to fear of revenge) and called out awkward out-of-place circles, and we managed to get some of them tangled up so much that they had to concede defeat. Of course, we got in multiple contestants and had some guy fun, but it's out of print. It's no wonder girls don't play this game...

I'm most likely performing on Febuary 12 at YST, two days before Valentine's, so if any of you are interested, please do come with your girlfriends or boyfriends or spouses! Any children are to be left behind at home. Aww.