Right. Haven't posted much in here for some time because I was basically, busy. But this blog will not be able to fulfill its initial purpose if I do not post in here (kinda) regularly and record down my thoughts. Yes, I am currently posting here at 4 am (I plead jetlag from my trip to Germany, plus the 水研社 coffee milk tea that I guzzled down before, during and after OMM rehearsal just now (I wasn't drinking 3 cups, just one large one...)) but I am also waiting for my CDs I bought on the Germany trip to be copied into the computer, so here I am. Apologies if the following has a seriously disjointed train of thought, because I am multi-tasking and also trying to get my thoughts here as quickly as possible before they disappear.
What else am I doing other than writing this post? I am sorting out my email, which is a major headache for me because there are many unread mails,as well as mails that I need to sort into different folders. Normally I wouldn't really care about the unread mails, but today for some reason I decided to clean up as much as I can (I again plead jetlag). As of now, I have 3424 non-advertisements to read :S
It's interesting that after many years, Blogger has finally changed its layout.
Oops, stomach rumbling. I believe I am disrupting my circadian rhythms in my stomach. Today I woke up late in the afternoon. I didn't set any alarm because I wanted to 'wake up naturally' as Ziqiao would put it, and so I just slept as much as I wanted to. When I finally felt rested, I looked at the clock, and oh gosh, it was already 4 pm! I was almost late for the OMM rehearsal.
Yes. That's the other thing that has been going on. I have been having OMM rehearsals every single day since I came back. Alright, that's a lot more dramatic than I meant it to be, since it's only 3 days in a row (I've had worse). Today when I smsed my dad telling him that I would be back home late again tonight as I was having rehearsal, he replied me with one word: "Again?" :p
In case you haven't heard it yet, I am a MAJOR fan of 水研社 and I love to drink it at least once a week. I try to minimise health risk by asking for 0% sugar, but I know that there is still some hidden in the pearls, which I love and is a big reason why I buying from 水研社.
Jon is finally back!! :D Had a good conversation with him last night, though I did not manage to bring him the miniature viola that I brought back (it's a viola, not a violin, because I didn't buy the smallest model they had xD xD).
Here I have to admit to a certain guilty pleasure. I enjoy listening to medieval and renaissance music. I just love listening to the different instruments, which sound so different from the 'refined' ones that we have today. They have this ability to sound so joyous, especially the recorder (which Bach used beautifully, even though its use was already dying out in his time). I am sure that the current period we are going through is a revival of interest in the medieval and renaissance, not least exhibited by the Sims Medieval :P. I bought that game some time ago and I am having great fun listening to it! The game soundtrack is great too, heh :P
I had a great time in Hungary, where things were surprisingly cheap. It's sad, because I later read in the newspaper that Hungarians are one of the best educated, but one of the worst-paid. That's why things are cheap: otherwise most people would not be able to afford anything. On a happier note though, I enjoyed touring in Budapest because it was beautiful, and having a good-looking guide (who was, incidentally, also good at getting his point across) certainly helped things :P I also had some good experiences with a few shopkeepers (since I of course did not have lots of time to interact with a lot of shopkeepers), who were honest in using the official exchange rate used by banks, since Hungary does not use the euro, and most of the time we wanted to pay in euros. Contrast that to Czech Republic, where buying things was often quite trying, as the shopkeepers not only used unfavorable exchange rates to the euro but also priced their goods much higher than even in Germany, and in general just tried to rip us off. :(
Erm, right. Stomach growling quite bad now, and in any case, I really really should sleep before 5 am...?
Monday, June 11, 2012
Monday, April 16, 2012
The most important things are people
Today I read an article about the current education given to children in America, as well as the attempts to reform it.
“It is not hyperbole to say that the state of education in our country is a challenge to our national security. Human capital has never been more important for success in our increasingly competitive world economy. Yet, although the United States invests more in education than almost any other developed nation, its students rank in the middle of the pack in reading and toward the bottom in math and science. On average, U.S. students have fallen behind peers in Korea and China, Poland and Germany, Canada and New Zealand. This puts us on a trajectory toward massive failure.
“Our schools simply must do better. It is essential too that we provide a base of knowledge for our students in order to produce citizens who can serve in the Foreign Service, the intelligence community, and the armed forces. Today, the State Department is struggling to recruit enough foreign language speakers, U.S. generals are cautioning that enlistees cannot read training manuals for sophisticated equipment, and an after action report from the XVIII Airborne Corps in Iraq found that out of 250 intelligence personnel, less than 5 had the “aptitude to put pieces together to form a conclusion.” For the United States to maintain its role of military and diplomatic leadership, it needs highly qualified and capable men and women to conduct its foreign affairs. Knowledge of the world and of foreign languages is essential.”
Later on in the article, it states:
There were very interesting dissents from the task force members, chiefly Randi Weingarten of the United Federation of Teachers, and Harvard University’s Stephen Walt, who says the report “exaggerates the national security rationale for reforming US K-12 education.” No country is likely to match America’s overall military power and technological supremacy for decades, he says, adding: “There are good reasons to improve K-12 education, but an imminent threat to our national security is not high among them.”
Obviously Mr. Weingarten and Mr. Walt have never heard of the Chinese saying,
十年树木，百年树人
Which is about a ruler of ancient China who asked one of his advisors what he should do if he wanted his kingdom to be able to last into the future. The advisor replied, "If you want to survive for another 10 years, cultivate trees (as a natural defense against invaders). If you want to survive for another 100 years, cultivate people of calibre.
Yes, the US is powerful right now, building on the foundation of their forefathers. But what about the future? If you wait for your "supremacy" to last you through a few more decades, by the time you Really need to have an advantage in weapons technology, you can't because your human capital is not there. This is a serious problem of complacency, and lack of planning for the future. And so if you are going to be a sitting duck in the future waiting to be annexed, why even bother defending now what you will soon lose within a century? The key here is to be always ready, before everyone else. Otherwise, you lose when you meet competition, because that's what almost everyone else is trying to do!
I can't help but think about the founder of the great car company, Toyota. He, as the founder, not only made 5 and 10-year plans as is common in the industry, but went so far as to have a 500-year plan for his company! Call that forward planning.
Perhaps I'm a little melodramatic today because I watched Ip Man 2. Christopher told me that it was really good so I went to watch. It was indeed good, but it was obviously also very patriotism-based like the first film, so some parts were intentionally tear-jerkerish (also like the first film). I ended up being a little bit like wanting to achieve justice in the world (or something like that), and when I read that there are still some children in America, especially the blacks and hispanics, who are inherently disadvantaged because of the education system, I just felt really sad and also angry at the nature of the American system. But any kind of system must surely be imperfect, so what can we do? I guess, we can either try to politically tweak the system to try make it better, or we can go out there and individually make a difference.
I found myself wanting to teach music to disadvantaged children, and possibly even gather some music friends playing various instruments, with a 'meet-and-greet' style presentation giving a general introduction to each instrument so that the children could choose what kind of instrument they wanted to learn. Yeah, strange ideas I know, but I just want to record my current feelings right now.
“It is not hyperbole to say that the state of education in our country is a challenge to our national security. Human capital has never been more important for success in our increasingly competitive world economy. Yet, although the United States invests more in education than almost any other developed nation, its students rank in the middle of the pack in reading and toward the bottom in math and science. On average, U.S. students have fallen behind peers in Korea and China, Poland and Germany, Canada and New Zealand. This puts us on a trajectory toward massive failure.
“Our schools simply must do better. It is essential too that we provide a base of knowledge for our students in order to produce citizens who can serve in the Foreign Service, the intelligence community, and the armed forces. Today, the State Department is struggling to recruit enough foreign language speakers, U.S. generals are cautioning that enlistees cannot read training manuals for sophisticated equipment, and an after action report from the XVIII Airborne Corps in Iraq found that out of 250 intelligence personnel, less than 5 had the “aptitude to put pieces together to form a conclusion.” For the United States to maintain its role of military and diplomatic leadership, it needs highly qualified and capable men and women to conduct its foreign affairs. Knowledge of the world and of foreign languages is essential.”
Later on in the article, it states:
There were very interesting dissents from the task force members, chiefly Randi Weingarten of the United Federation of Teachers, and Harvard University’s Stephen Walt, who says the report “exaggerates the national security rationale for reforming US K-12 education.” No country is likely to match America’s overall military power and technological supremacy for decades, he says, adding: “There are good reasons to improve K-12 education, but an imminent threat to our national security is not high among them.”
Obviously Mr. Weingarten and Mr. Walt have never heard of the Chinese saying,
十年树木，百年树人
Which is about a ruler of ancient China who asked one of his advisors what he should do if he wanted his kingdom to be able to last into the future. The advisor replied, "If you want to survive for another 10 years, cultivate trees (as a natural defense against invaders). If you want to survive for another 100 years, cultivate people of calibre.
Yes, the US is powerful right now, building on the foundation of their forefathers. But what about the future? If you wait for your "supremacy" to last you through a few more decades, by the time you Really need to have an advantage in weapons technology, you can't because your human capital is not there. This is a serious problem of complacency, and lack of planning for the future. And so if you are going to be a sitting duck in the future waiting to be annexed, why even bother defending now what you will soon lose within a century? The key here is to be always ready, before everyone else. Otherwise, you lose when you meet competition, because that's what almost everyone else is trying to do!
I can't help but think about the founder of the great car company, Toyota. He, as the founder, not only made 5 and 10-year plans as is common in the industry, but went so far as to have a 500-year plan for his company! Call that forward planning.
Perhaps I'm a little melodramatic today because I watched Ip Man 2. Christopher told me that it was really good so I went to watch. It was indeed good, but it was obviously also very patriotism-based like the first film, so some parts were intentionally tear-jerkerish (also like the first film). I ended up being a little bit like wanting to achieve justice in the world (or something like that), and when I read that there are still some children in America, especially the blacks and hispanics, who are inherently disadvantaged because of the education system, I just felt really sad and also angry at the nature of the American system. But any kind of system must surely be imperfect, so what can we do? I guess, we can either try to politically tweak the system to try make it better, or we can go out there and individually make a difference.
I found myself wanting to teach music to disadvantaged children, and possibly even gather some music friends playing various instruments, with a 'meet-and-greet' style presentation giving a general introduction to each instrument so that the children could choose what kind of instrument they wanted to learn. Yeah, strange ideas I know, but I just want to record my current feelings right now.
Monday, February 27, 2012
Quantum physics
My 80th post. And it's going to be a short one: a paragraph taken from a story I was reading. I've thought about over the years, in the same way the writer did, but could never express it as well as this person could.
"Lance, there are six billion people on this planet. What are the odds that if two people are actually going to be a perfect match for each other, that they will actually find each other?" She didn't wait for me to answer. "It doesn't happen. There are millions of people that we would be happy with. Love is a game of musical chairs where who we end up with is determined by whoever we happen to be dating when the music stops. It's blind luck. It's quantum physics."
"Lance, there are six billion people on this planet. What are the odds that if two people are actually going to be a perfect match for each other, that they will actually find each other?" She didn't wait for me to answer. "It doesn't happen. There are millions of people that we would be happy with. Love is a game of musical chairs where who we end up with is determined by whoever we happen to be dating when the music stops. It's blind luck. It's quantum physics."
Monday, February 13, 2012
Music and this guy called 'McGurk'
The McGurk effect. That's what it's called.
You may not have heard of it, but if you have good use of both your sight and your hearing, you will be affected by it. Was sitting in the 'Introduction to Psychology' tutorial today and we discussed the McGurk effect. The tutor first let us watch a video where there was a man who started repeating a sound over and over again. The man was mouthing 'ga' but the sound that was played to us was 'ba' and the result we were supposed to get was 'da' as the brain tries to resolve how someone can say 'ba' while mouthing 'ga'.
The tutor explained that most of the time, as a time-saving measure, the brain tries to shortcut by picking up cues from multiple senses simultaneously. The McGurk effect is simply an illustration of how the brain, receiving audio input but at the same time receiving conflicting visual cues, can be misled into thinking a sound is different from what it really is.
That got me thinking about performing and live performances. As any good musician knows, the performance is not just about the sound, but also the gestures. That expression on your face just before you start, or the contortion of the face while you try to express the pain in the music... It all adds up. Musicianship isn't only about sound. A large component is also about being an actor, of sorts, at least. The music itself cannot always speak, but with these additional visual cues, can send a message more powerful than just with the sound itself.
Why is a live performance almost always better than a CD recording? Other than the general atmosphere, the better acoustics... I think this is definitely a contributing factor. One of my teachers, once talked about a percussionist from the MPO. He said that for this percussionist, when he is about to play, his body language when he is about to hit the timpani, or simply his expression... You can just know that the sound is going to be big, or small, as the case may be. Maybe it's like someone telling you that a sound should be big, that when you actually hear the sound, even though it's not really big, you think it is.
Obviously it's not just percussionists which make use of this, because many other instruments use it too. For harpists, we definitely use it. The other time when Marie-Pierre Langlamet gave a masterclass she talked a lot about the whole sound concept, since we have so much trouble with it. Harps have so much sustain that we are not always able to stop when we want it to. On the other hand, when we do want to sustain something, like a chord, we can't sustain it for as along as the string, wind and brass instruments. So, we cheat. It's not just the expression on our face, but the way in which we extend out our arm in an arc after playing a note... These are all gestures which all add up, leading audiences to think that a certain sound is different from what they actually hear. Harpsichordists probably rely most on the McGurk effect, since they have the toughest life of all. Their instrument is mostly incapable of sustain, and the range of their dynamics is severely limited. However, their performances are anything but unmusical. You see, they have so many thousand tricks up their sleeve that it would be too much to list them all down here. Anyway I think you get the point by now.
You may not have heard of it, but if you have good use of both your sight and your hearing, you will be affected by it. Was sitting in the 'Introduction to Psychology' tutorial today and we discussed the McGurk effect. The tutor first let us watch a video where there was a man who started repeating a sound over and over again. The man was mouthing 'ga' but the sound that was played to us was 'ba' and the result we were supposed to get was 'da' as the brain tries to resolve how someone can say 'ba' while mouthing 'ga'.
The tutor explained that most of the time, as a time-saving measure, the brain tries to shortcut by picking up cues from multiple senses simultaneously. The McGurk effect is simply an illustration of how the brain, receiving audio input but at the same time receiving conflicting visual cues, can be misled into thinking a sound is different from what it really is.
That got me thinking about performing and live performances. As any good musician knows, the performance is not just about the sound, but also the gestures. That expression on your face just before you start, or the contortion of the face while you try to express the pain in the music... It all adds up. Musicianship isn't only about sound. A large component is also about being an actor, of sorts, at least. The music itself cannot always speak, but with these additional visual cues, can send a message more powerful than just with the sound itself.
Why is a live performance almost always better than a CD recording? Other than the general atmosphere, the better acoustics... I think this is definitely a contributing factor. One of my teachers, once talked about a percussionist from the MPO. He said that for this percussionist, when he is about to play, his body language when he is about to hit the timpani, or simply his expression... You can just know that the sound is going to be big, or small, as the case may be. Maybe it's like someone telling you that a sound should be big, that when you actually hear the sound, even though it's not really big, you think it is.
Obviously it's not just percussionists which make use of this, because many other instruments use it too. For harpists, we definitely use it. The other time when Marie-Pierre Langlamet gave a masterclass she talked a lot about the whole sound concept, since we have so much trouble with it. Harps have so much sustain that we are not always able to stop when we want it to. On the other hand, when we do want to sustain something, like a chord, we can't sustain it for as along as the string, wind and brass instruments. So, we cheat. It's not just the expression on our face, but the way in which we extend out our arm in an arc after playing a note... These are all gestures which all add up, leading audiences to think that a certain sound is different from what they actually hear. Harpsichordists probably rely most on the McGurk effect, since they have the toughest life of all. Their instrument is mostly incapable of sustain, and the range of their dynamics is severely limited. However, their performances are anything but unmusical. You see, they have so many thousand tricks up their sleeve that it would be too much to list them all down here. Anyway I think you get the point by now.
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