Rehearsal at my house

Yeah, we can open a Philharmonic orchestra here. Why not call it Jonathan Philharmonic Hall!

For the first time in eight years I have opened my house to musicians. Congratulations to Kwek and John Lee. Unfortunately I haven't prepared any prizes.

So I thought I called all of them to come at 10am, but unfortunately Theo didn't, and he came at 9am. I woke up at 8.56am though, thinking about what I needed to prepare, and I decided to read this book I borrowed yesterday.



It's really a collection of stories or dialogues that are 1-2 pages long, and are really hilarious. Like, interviewing a cow, a chicken and a pig on animal cruelty after creating a translating machine.

Here's a small part:
"-You've been incarcerated in this slaughterhouse your entire life. How has it affected you emotionally?
-I am cow. I eat grass. Grass on ground. Me move mouth down to grass. Chew up grass.
-Do you think animal slavery will end in your lifetime?
-Eat grass, rest. Eat grass, rest. Sleep.
-Do you feel that animals deserve the same rights as human beings?
-Grass on ground. Eat it all up."

Alright so after I woke up I received a handphone ring from Kwek, who asked me to open the door because he was outside. I opened the door, and he was , indeed, outside.

And he proceeded to sit at the sofa while I cleared up the living room space to make room for the trio that was going to play later. While he read Ant Farm, I proceeded to play the NAXOS Griffes CD. I'm addicted to it - Hansel and Gretel, Symphonie Phantastique - really fantastic pieces.

Proceeded to play Lalo's Spanish Symphony with Theo, and then sat down to talk about music matters and future plans. And of course a possible collaboration and the Lounge.

We waited till 10am for John Lee to arrive, because that was the planned time. (Ryan Kwan and Haotian didn't come, because Ryan didn't have his scores, and Haotian was MIA). Interesting fact: Theophilus took Ryan's scores for Violin II, and Theophilus didn't bring his scores.

But we did rehearse it in the end. I only had the second, third and fourth page, and we did a run-through of the piece, rickety-rackety run-through. For about 45 minutes.

And then we did improvistory trios that were worthy enough to be placed on scores and then published and then to be shipped around the world. We got from Romantic style to really Modern works that went to Dada-ism and Abstract. Which Theophilus Kwek wasn't able to join in on - which made him felt left-out.

After that John and I sight-read Mozart's four-hand works, which promptly made Kwek feel isolated. Lol, we didn't even meant it that way! So of course I got around to showing them some of my works I've kept for over the past few months, and my recent inclination to finding new SOUNDS and TIMBRES that I can use.

Some of the works have kitsch melodies, so they aren't really nice.

Played 10 secs of RISK, and then spaghetti.

Really fun day.