MusICian

great, now that i’ve gotten the special term over and done with, i finally have 2 weeks of holiday! happy man! think i got about 49/60 for my CA. looks like i’m gonna pass this module, so i shan’t worry too much about it. anyway, the result will only be out on 11th august. i’ll just worry about CORS bidding for now. got pre-allocated 3 of my modules, so i’ll only have 2 more modules to bid for! german and history of film. hope to get these 2 and i’ll have my great timetable

can’t believe it… i’ve played 12 performances together with sweetie already. since i stepped into mus’art again as a clarinetist, that is. about 24 hours more to our unofficial year of romance! rather excited as we’ve got some exciting plans coming up for our special day. hee. we will definitely enjoy ourselves to the max

now that InClarion concert is out of the way, i can finally go back to NUSWS practices! i miss my friends there man. though i saw some of them when i went for the chalet after my paper, but there were many whom weren’t there, cos it was only the first night. well, serves me right for not going for the bbq! but it’s ok, i’ve had fun this weekend. about time i took a good rest, before i go full stretch for my next semester! the only problem now is NTUSB practices, cos that will take up 2 evenings and saturday afternoon. and fiona is coming back from switzerland so i’ll need to start teaching her again soon. that burns my entire weekday evenings, i guess. it’ll be tough from now till NTUSB concert!

so excited with mus’art’s plans for an overseas trip next year! we might be going to japan for a competition, or we might go to hongkong for a festival. well, whatever the case, i’m excited. we’re really going places, and i’m happy to be part of this successful band. i guess that’s what mrs chua meant about having a core group of people who always play with the band and achieve awards and go places with the band. the sense of achievement is one thing; the friendship gained is another… and is priceless. i will always remember how fate got me stepping into mus’art’s band studio once again after so many years, and how i unknowingly became one of their most faithful members!

meanwhile, i need to get a better mouthpiece of my own! my charles bay mouthpiece is killing my stamina and intonation… not that the mouthpiece is not good… it just has inherently higher pitch, and so does my clarinet, so the combination is lethal. i hope the chardash barrel’s stock comes quick, so that i can get the 680 barrel and correct a lot of the intonation! and sharks, the auction price of the lomax mouthpiece is getting out of hand… S $71.50 now, and about 2 days more to the end of the auction. i’m not gonna make it man… i don’t have that much money to spend on mouthpieces.

loads of events this coming week! looking forward

i should really go learn how to speak loudly without hurting my throat! today i had such a hard time teaching theory, almost needing to yell across the room at times. now i come back home and my bro forced me to yell at him. my throat hurts. and no amount of mint can help it cos i guess it’s a technique problem. but then again, sometimes i yell a lot, but my throat doesn’t hurt. maybe i just have a sore throat. oh well. i’m going around in circles.

my bro just got on my nerves yet again. for a very simple thing that he refused to do right and tried to argue his way out of it. just because i knew that he’s trying to be lazy and is practising the piano in the wrong way. but he’s smart; he knows that kinda impresses my mom who doesn’t know too much about classical music. but well, i know enough to see right through it and now he’s resorting to another tactic to avoid doing the hard work: being angry with me for saying things out. now he’s wasting time sitting at the piano and inspecting some speck of dust in greater detail.

seeing this, i just wonder how many of the band members i taught like music, but don’t want to put in effort to train up their fundamentals. these people normally wanna play difficult pieces but don’t wanna work on simpler things like scales, arppeggios and thirds. they normally try to avoid all the theory lessons and tests, and they also try to avoid playing scales and all. i was once like them… until i realised that without basic theory and the fundamental scale training, i couldn’t play many things as fast as those people who had taken these things seriously. under the tutelage of mr png, i started to realise how important these fundamentals are. i worked hard on them, and now i can play many many things with relative ease. such is the importance of basics.

still, i am not as skillful a player than some of my counterparts because my fundamentals are not as good as theirs. it all boils down to the basics. i’m already glad i took quite some effort to train my basics; because they brought me this far in my playing. and i’m glad that i learnt some theory, although i’d wish to further my theory grades (but i’m too busy these days!).

learning never stops until you decide to put an end to your interest. i wish that those members who take these basics lightly could just see the big picture with an open mind, and understand that whatever mr png implements, it is definitely not a waste of time, because we definitely do not have time to waste. once these fundamentals are there, the SYF pieces will come, the concert pieces will come. and we will be able to play difficult stuff with relative ease. only then can we have more work done, and really really pull up the standard of the band for that much desired SYF gold medal.

work hard, my band members. as long as you guys put in the effort, rest assured that mr png and i will be there to help you out. and we WILL achieve greater success in our performances and SYF.

i know i know, some of you probably hate me now for flooding your friendster mailbox with my concert ‘advertisement’. sorry! it’s my last minute attempt to sell tickets. at 3:45am too. if u don’t want these ’spam’ to hit you, do let me know! i’ll make a conscious effort not to send these out to you guys. anyway, it’s the first time i’m doing this, and it’d probably be the last. it’s quite tedious, u know. but of course, it’s all for the sake of this concert.

anyway, it’s this thursday. so soon. we probably have been preparing for at least 2 months now. choosing the repertoire was quite a chore; we had to sightread the pieces, decide which are nice and then put them in a pending list. oh well, at least those days are way over, and now it’s time to put up a good show. i promise, whoever’s coming to watch this concert will be entertained. at least by the sight of the entire range of clarinets! and i’m taking money out of my own pocket to see that my students/ex-students/my friends who are still students are subsidised. that’s the least i can do (cos i also ain’t rich, unfortunately).

anyway, hope you guys can respond to the message whether you wish to come or not! cos it’s been quite a hassle typing out the messages (friendster’s mail function does not include a ‘forward’ tool). just hope for some response!

woah. 6 official months in a flash! i enjoyed every single moment of those 6 months, and i look forward to our wonderful future together. we will be happy, as we truly are now. i have faith that i can give you happiness. let’s stay this way, always! i love you, Huili. thank you for wandering into my life, and changing it totally by showering your angelic touch into my darkness

5th august is NCHS investiture. the recruits still cannot play my arrangement properly. and my brass players are not stable enough yet. i’m worried. and they have to do scales too. i’d wish to integrate them into the band sooner but the disparity between standards… is just a little too much to handle. have i been too slack with them? they seem to be taking me for granted these days. whine, complain, do things as they like; i guess i really have been way too lenient.

time to buck up on discipline. step by step.

also, time to slow down my music commitments and concentrate on my core bands! after clarinet choir concert next thursday, i’m gonna stop clarinet choir. after NTUSB concert in august, i’m gonna stop NTUSB. concentrate on NUSWS and Mus’Art, and of course, NCWO. i think i’m doing enough band work for now. next sem’s gonna be even better as i’ll definitely wanna take up more bands while i have my easiest semester in NUS ever. do the bands up for SYF! and maintain the bands that don’t go for SYF next year.

i hope to achieve a good result with NCWO next year

wow, i’ve done quite a lot of work today despite staying at home the entire day. finished marking NCHS recruits’ theory papers, have to say i’m quite disappointed by their results. well, what to do, they have gotta buck up! then i tried to do many things at a time… try to arrange a piece, figure out Macromedia Flash and do my webpage at the same time. ended up being unproductive, and finally i decided to do it one by one. finished up my profile page for the project on Dreamweaver and then i tried to figure out the Macromedia Flash again to no avail. gave up, and went on to finish arranging the piece for NCHS investiture… this one the whole band can play. then i went on to tabulate out the scores for the major scale tests (thirds) and printed all my scores out. the last thing i haven’t done is the flash animation.

i give up. i really dunno how to do it. even though there’s a tutorial handout on it. i’m bad at computer stuff lah.

nevertheless, i’m quite satisfied with what i’ve accomplished today. tmr’s gonna be a busy day again! school, NCHS band prac, NTU band prac. where does lunch and dinner fit in??? god knows, and maybe in my sleep i’ll find the answers. have loads to achieve tmr. i want a new baton!!!

yes, it’s official. mus’art wind orchestra got 3rd place in the Open Division of the 1st National Band Competition!!! but i think we were only slighly behind RJC. could’ve gotten 2nd place, but we’re happy. the results are great, and it justifies our performance on competition day when we played oh so well. so GOLD it is! and we’re definitely a happy band. and we’ll be back at VCH performing our pieces again next sunday

concert was ok only. made a couple of mistakes, sound wasn’t that satisfactory at times, but we did ok. many thanks to the 6 NCHS members who came today, i heard your screams! so sorry you all had to hear me screw up my solo. haha. but ok lah, like you guys said, i squeaked with style. thank you for saving my embarrassment! but seriously, i was quite upset with the bad solo lah.

unfortunately, among the good news, there were some unpleasantries. firstly, my baton broke. my dear baton. my very first. broken. into 2 pieces. simply because i was rushing and i had no time to make sure that everything is put properly. secondly, my recruits had so much they didn’t understand about theory. i had to drop them so many hints the other day (not that a few of them needed the hints), and even though i dropped enough hints for everyone to pass, not everyone will pass. because they didn’t understand enough. thirdly, i’m very very broke. officially left with $30 in my bank, have about $32 in debts from tickets, and yet i wasted money on this stupid shirt that couldn’t be ironed. i might’ve damaged it while washing it, i dunno. but there goes $40 for nothing.

and i had to spoil the whole day by being late… and being jealous.

sometimes i hate myself. feel like i always make my own efforts go down the drain. please tell me i’m just not that lucky.

Dear band friends and fellow music lovers,

Mus’Art Wind Orchestra will be holding our annual band concert following an exciting day of competition at the 1st National Band Competition.

We’ll be featuring our choice piece and also a few other exciting pieces, conducted by our very own Mrs Chua/Mdm Tan Soh Wah and also by Mr
Suichi Komiyama.

Pieces include:

Petite Suite by Claude Debussy, Movement 4
Rhapsody in Blue by George Gershwin
Xenia Sarda by Hardy Mertens

The Mus’Art Percussion Club will also be presenting their best, so dearest percussionists, please come down and see them perform! Not to
be missed!

The Concert will be held on Sunday, 16th July, 5:30pm at the Singapore Conference Hall. Tickets are at $10 each only. Do contact me if you are
interested; drop me a message on Friendster or let me know by sms!

Hee

alright man, finally found the ideal module to fill the gap! i’d originally opted for 4 modules cos i had the luxury of spreading out my modules, thanks to special semester. but i realised that this year i might be hardly involved in band teaching, so i thought of filling it up to 5 modules so that i’ll only need to do 3 modules next semester when SYF band competition comes! haha. i’m a genius.

here goes the very very interesting modules i’m taking:

1. Critical Discourse Analysis
2. Semantics and Pragmatics
3. Literary Stylistics
4. Film and History
5. German

german!!! haha. that’s the only language module that doesn’t eat into too much of my time. so there goes! and i effectively packed my tuesdays and kept my wednesdays very free! i’d still be very free on the rest of the days too, with only about 4 hours in school every other day. this plan is the best! i hope i’ll get all these modules and i MUST get that tutorial timeslot.

i’m excited. i’m finally gonna learn a new language! and it’ll come in handy… i can try conversing in german with fiona and her family, and i’ll be able to use some german when i go to the next WMC. the next WMC! i really look forward to it. such an unforgettable experience. any serious musician should go at least once to experience the total immersing into the entire musical atmosphere! do nothing but music and relaxation. BEST!

rather hopeful of the end-of-year concert for NCHS! by the looks of it, we’ll be able to get it. but it’s too early to say. it all depends on the principal and other important factors. i’d get to conduct! but first, the upcoming investiture. i hope i can plan something nice… a nice item by the recruits. they can play some really simple piece. hopefully.

all these planning is making me look forward to a wonderful semester ahead! if all the plans work out, i’ll have an extremely fulfilling year

finally! i have some energy back! i was so lifeless when travelling to mus’art practice this evening. was all wobbly and stuff. but perseverance is a good thing and i managed half a dinner with sweetie and almost a full practice with mus’art woodwind section. i said almost cos we were late… my fault, cos i had trouble travelling, and it took me much longer than i’d expected. i surprised myself with my own volume, but my tone was bad… it’s either my reed’s getting thin or i’m just thinking too much. nevertheless, i surprised myself by managing through the whole practice and playing almost everything that’s written. i’m still so weak! food poisoning is really really scary.

managed to send sweetie home! haha. didn’t know where all that energy came from, but it felt good to be able to send her home again, since i haven’t been sending her back for quite a while. the journey back was quite enjoyable, with jokes, disturbing and some hyper-activity. where did all that energy come from? i guess only sweetie and i know

i guess i’m on my way to a good recovery, and i hope to be at my best at the clarinet soon. i miss my hard-earned good tone! and i must remind myself that i have no energy to blast out loud; some ill after-effects of food poisoning temporarily weakened my diaphragm (sharks, is that how u spell the word…?) muscles. GIMME BACK MY SOUND!

haha

finally i’m back from the trip! not a very long one, but according to the theory of relativity, it was a really really long one for me. not that it wasn’t enjoyable, just that i was plagued with an unfortunate spell of food poisoning that got me landed in hospital for one night! scary. first time staying in a hospital, and it isn’t even one that i know of. was so unwell that i was shivering, and when i wasn’t shivering my stomach was aching like crazy. not to mention the hospital stay cost a bomb… that was the worst part of the trip.

but the best! haha. went around the small street markets, ate nice food from the street stalls, had some bird’s nest and shark’s fin soup for a low price, shopped around a big shopping mall, went to carrefour (yes, carrefour in a small town), took the tuk tuk cabs, etc etc. everything else was great! swept many many packets of snacks off the shelf at carrefour for the NCHS recruits and fengshan members, bought sweets for friends and stuff. wow, loads of shopping! but i’m very broke now… cos of all the spending. the hospital bill’s the main culprit…

so there u go! the ups and downs of hat yai. for me, at least. good thing i had someone very fluent in thai with me. the language barrier was really something.

hope i’m well enough for practice tmr!