The playing itself was mostly okay, though at the Lamb of God part I didn't really watch the choir, the choir didn't really watch me, and I started out too early and the choir didn't know and I went on but the choir didn't join in and I had to abandon the whole enterprise and just start over. Didn't see the look on Fr's face and privately I'm glad I didn't have the chance to so that I won't think too much about it, lol. I do have a lot to be thankful though, the other Mass parts came out perfectly fine, though I still have to tweak the Alleluia and the 2nd half of the Lamb of God because I'm trying to play the melody all the time, which restricts my artistic freedom to do whatever I want to do on the right hand.
When I was playing the Mass parts today though, I couldn't help but be thankful to Yuezhi. When Yuezhi's group was doing their music history presentation, they discovered a method of recalling the 5 movements in the Mass which is completely invaluable for any Mass organist. Basically, it's this cute mnemonic that goes "Kids Go Crazy Singing All Day" which stands for Kyrie (Lord have mercy), Gloria (Glory to God in the Highest), Credo (The Creed), Santus (Holy, holy, holy) and lastly Agnus Dei (Lamb of God) (boy, do I love being able to read some Latin!)
--------------------------------------------------
Later on in the night, I went for Kimmy's (alright Kimberly) concert. It was... well the 1st half was rather objectionable but the 2nd half fairly rescued it, in fact, it was quite fun and you could see the musicians having fun, for some of the songs at least. You could say that they warmed up after the 1st half and did better for the 2nd. Some of the solos were pretty commendable as well, though some had a serious attack of the nerves, which is perfectly excusable because I do that ALL THE TIME in orchestra. The group, as in the band members themselves were pretty much okay. I had a real issue with the conductor though. After learning that he was from the SAF band (some of the scores that the NP band has even has 'Property of the Singapore Armed Forces band' clearly stamped on it!) I had to roll my eyes and say 'no wonder'. It's not so much that they have no talent (alright, I can't really tell because I was never part of them), but rather that they get complacent and don't practise and everything pretty much goes down from there.
But the conductor himself, really... there were so many parts when he could have accentuated this or that part, or just created more effect or otherwise kept a better hold on the tuning (the tuning! my goodness! they tune after every song but the issue isn't the instruments going out of tune, it's the people themselves, they don't know how to tune...!) by carrying out exercises that will develop their listening ability. Because the tuning of the entire group depends on the ears of each and every member in the group (when my mom played the flute in band she said that she always slid the mouthpiece completely in, she was tone deaf so she couldn't tell that she was out of tune, which I don't believe she was really tone deaf, read below), you Have to increase the listening ability of the group as a whole, or else just one renegade member can ruin the whole effect. Neither is it a waste of time to carry out such exercises in the belief that 'some people can't be helped, they are just tone deaf.'
--------------------------------------------------
Personally, after going through 11 years of some of the top choirs of the primary, secondary and jc level, plus more exposure to intonation and hearing in the conservatory and also interaction with members in the church choir with no musical background, I am firmly convinced that nobody is really tone deaf. Even the most tone deaf members in the choir, after a few months she was singing fine. It all depends on how you train your ears. This is a view that both me and Tony (my favorite teacher) hold: with enough training, nobody is truly tone deaf.
--------------------------------------------------
Umm... after the sidetrack, back to Kimmy's concert. I went for her concert because well, I Am still supposed to be mentoring her (me! mentor her! goodness me! luckily she doesn't know that Colin secretly asked me to mentor her, or else I think she would be judging me a lot more differently or even harshly, instead of seeing me as a friend) but more importantly, because she's a friend. Yep, I go for friend's concerts now though I frequently avoid them in the past... with my new-found appreciation for relationships in general, I put more effort into maintaining friendships beyond those with friends at school whom I see every day. It's definitely paying off, cos when I first talked to Kimmy about my C problem she offered me a lot of advice (okay I don't know how much of it actually was useful, lol) and honestly I was quite a wreck and she helped me so much, so we became much closer because of that incident. If there's nothing else that I'm thankful to C for, at least C has brought me closer to a friend that I was not so close to to begin with. So all's good. 塞翁失马，焉知非福. (Something that seems good at first may not actually be good, conversely, something that seems bad may not always be bad.)
Speaking of concerts, I'm going for Zongyi's hiphop dance concert too! She gave us a sneak preview the other day and gosh, does she dance well! After being satisfied with my abilities in my 'supplementary' skills of piano and voice, I've always been looking for the next skill to develop, and I seriously think that I should go into dance. ZY's recommending hiphop, of course, but also because hiphop isolates every single part of the body (I've seen it and it's true!) I'm still undecided about which type of dance to learn though.
--------------------------------------------------
C's active in their CCA... recently even set up some facebook page for their CCA, together with another person. It's always good to take the initiative in any organisation or even organising outings with friends etc, but it sometimes can get a bit unfair if the only people who become leaders are those who show enthusiasm and initiative. Of course, this IS part of what makes a good leader and every leader Should have it, but it is just as equally important to look at their other aspects.
- It is possible that they are just doing it temporarily to get the post or get attention to their leadership potential instead of a genuine wish to see the group improve. We have to look at the sincerity of their intention.
- Or they may simply not be suited for leadership. I know more than one student leader who always took the initiative and was full of enthusiasm and drive, but unfortunately they were just unable to lead. There were also others who simply couldn't cope academically after becoming a student leader and they had to be stripped of the post (highly unpalatable for all parties involved).
- Others just want to help other people without true leadership ambition but they just get saddled with the post when other people say 'oh you're so involved and you are so capable, you should run for the leadership post etc etc' and to be honest, this happens in more than one instance. Like me with the organ thing. Everyone tells me 'oh you learnt music for so many years and you're from yong siew toh so you should go be the organist!'. It gets me all tied up in a knot because the position of organist is essentially a position of power and leadership as they are probably the most vital people in the choir. As for myself though, I'm not sure I'll even be a good organist because I'm worried that I won't have the time necessary to devote to organ playing, plus I am intending to stay 7 days a week at the hostel in my 4th year (to simulate a real overseas situation when one can't come back home at all) which means that I will only end up playing 1 year and then disappearing for another 1 year and possibly then even 2 more years if I do my masters. Then they spend so much time training me and I just poof off to somewhere, I don't think it's quite fair, somehow... :S (alright, if you think two lessons are a lot of time, lol...)
--------------------------------------------------
Blah. My potential harp student wrote me a long email again. I wrote him a long email yesterday night and he replies emails so quickly! And it seems to take forever for me to write him back and I feel bad about it which makes me end up wanting to delay it further and oh gosh... sometimes I really have to force myself to do the things that I don't like. Sometimes it helps if I think of every problem as a new piece... Every piece when starting, doesn't sound good because you are learning the notes and going at a slow pace, but at that point you just have to suck it up and work on it, and then enjoy the fruits later.
This prospective student is really an interesting person though. As he is a pianist (took LTCL a few years ago) I told him that playing the harp would improve on his technique. He wrote back and asked how it would improve piano technique. Lol. Testing me on my knowledge! I wrote him back in this manner:
"To understand how harp playing can help piano technique, we have to first understand that technique is about the finger muscles.
- In gym equipment parlance, the harp has a much greater 'resistance' than the piano with the heaviest touch so it forces the fingers to work harder and lift heavier 'weights', which strengthens them.
- Also, the way in which pianists and harpists produce sound with our fingers is similar, in that when we press a key on the piano we are essentially bending our finger, going towards our palm. On the harp, we produce sounds by making the similar movement of bending of the finger towards the palm, but we go further and our fingers end up hitting the palm instead of the movement being stopped by the piano keys, i.e. the movement is greater and you develop more finger strength by making the entire movement instead of the halfway movement on the piano."
He wrote back and said, "Your scientific analysis of harp versus piano playing makes good sense!" Ha, well duh :P After learning more about harp technique from Gulia and that finger muscles are much like any other muscle in the body, I started going into forums for athletes and such to investigate how they increase strength, as well as some of their other routines like how they deal with pain and fatigue, avoid injury, etc.
In this aspect, a musician is just like any athlete: we are constantly dependent on our muscles to create music, and we even get musician specific injuries (for example my wrist is hurting now, argh!) with percussion players getting the most injuries (for the rest of us, we use each finger in turn, but for percussionists, they only have 2 wrists to work with, and they keep on using that joint all the time!). Others would be violin and piano players because they spend so much time in that contorted position. Personally, I think, 'so other instruments don't have that problem meh?' You mean that it's a natural, uncontorted position when harpists lift up their arms completely horizontal to play? When horn players hold up that heavy horn for the duration of their practice? Thus, I think, actually, that the reason why violinists and pianists have the most problems is because they practise the most: the competition is the most fierce, plus, the nature of their instrument means that they can indeed practise for hours on end without feeling any immediate and strong ill effects, and only feel the consequences later on. It's different for wind/brass players because they use their entire body to play and they get tired more easily, especially brass players who must rest their lip muscles.
Wow, you know really, it's really not easy to be a wind/brass player. They can't even smile while enjoying the music they play, because smiling would hugely modify their embouchure, becoming detrimental to their playing. I think that must be one of the greatest sacrifices. I think of myself and oh, how can I possibly play and not smile? That would take away so much of the enjoyment, not to mention that the very act of making the facial expression in turn intensifies the emotion that created the facial expression in the first place! It's like me laughing... often, after a while, I'm not actually laughing because of the funny thing any more, but because I was just laughing and it just goes on and on... :)
--------------------------------------------------
Hmm... oops. While I was writing this post, I didn't realise that one person whom I was talking to had gone offline and the other conversation I was in (which was a group conversation with 3 people including me) the other two were just talking to each other without really knowing that I wasn't looking, haha oops. Gosh, I guess that's my problem when I concentrate... I end up blocking out everything else. Not that I'm complaining though. It's a useful skill... most of the time that is. I get to practise harp as much as I want before I even notice the time passing! Specifically for writing though, I block out everything else so that the ideas that I have don't get lost, because most of the time when I'm typing in my idea, more ideas form and I have to get them down as fast as I can. Sometimes they are more elusive than catching dreams or butterflies...
No comments:
Post a Comment