Xinfony VIII

Wednesday was Xinfony VIII, Xinmin's band concert. We played in it as alumni band members. Was glad the audience enjoyed the pieces we brought them. Due to certain issues we have with the school on the requirement of rental of the band room for practices and the fact that we are simply unable to afford the cost nor are some of the alumni members recognized to be contributing although they have been going back to teach the junior members in some way or other, this was technically X-winds' last concert in Xinfony. I don't know what other developments there will be in the near future, but instinct tells me we would still have a chance to play together as an alumni band, though it might be quite some time later.

Alright, away from upsetting thoughts and disappointing feelings with the school and on to the concert day itself.

I had totally forgotten to inform my parents about this concert and had to SMS mother to tell her I was going to be home late because I was playing in a concert. After successive some-or-other-concert, my parents have ceased to attend. They just get bored after a while so I don't force them to, either. A typical message to my mother would sound something like this,

I'm not going home for dinner tonight... Have band concert... Forgot to tell you.. Will be back late.

It sounded so casual I was giggling at it when I told Carol. No, I'm neither that experienced nor skilled. I just had more experience playing in front of an audience so I don't get as nervous as before anymore. At least I don't feel the need to shit when I go on stage and am able to eat dinner before going on stage. Have I told you the time I almost skipped dinner to practice a part before concert? Oh yeah, I have.... Haha, talking about it reminds me of YZ because I believe she was the one who implanted the memory into my mind.

Met up with Shuping at City Hall MRT before we got to Victoria Concert Hall by cab. Being there brings back a lot of memories. It's really like our second home, after having played there at least 7 times. Because I am now completely unable to appreciate the dynamics and interplay of band music, there shall be no commentary of how we played as compared to rehearsals.

Right outside the door where performers enter, we found the person who is supposed to guard the door, playing solitaire on his computer. So Pearlin secretly tried to take a picture of it:

Green-screen solitaire (behind reflective mirror) with Yaoming being very kaypoh

3 ghostly figures standing at the balcony. Only that ghosts don't do the V-sign like the one on the left:

me, Pearl and Carol

Performing alumni percussionists:

From top, left to right: Pearlin, me, Carol, Yiang Shan, Zhiwei, Jiaxing

Random picture of Zhiwei and Jiaxing:

Somebody was saying they are like big bosses then we are like the paparazzi taking pictures of them. That's because Pearlin was trying out different photo-taking positions and she said the view while standing on a flight of steps was good:

Pearlin, taking a photo of me taking a photo of her

me, taking a photo of Pearlin taking a photo of me; Shuping posing behind on the top right hand corner

Then out of nowhere she suddenly saw this space underneath the steps and said she wanted to take a picture of her hiding there:

Pearlin looking constipated

Alumni band outside hall after our pieces

Percussion members (both performing and attending) and Daniel (senior, conductor, alumnus)

Whoever took the above picture likes the ceiling a lot.

XMSB percussion alumnus:

First row (from left): YZ, Ying Xin, Carol
Second row (from left): YS, me, Pearlin
Third row (from left): Biing Yih, Jiaxing, Zhiwei

I believe Manshan was there that night too but she wasn't there to take a picture with us. Then from Anderson JC percussion, Fiona was there too but did not see her because my handphone battery went flat after we exchanged a few SMSes. She had spotted me playing and later on messaged to ask if it was me. That girl also could not recognize Zhiwei who was also playing on stage. Oh there are 3 of us in the picture who was from AJCSB - Jiaxing, Zhiwei and me.

I'm glad the group of us are still quite close.

Wow. This is the first time I've written an entry on a concert that has near zilch mention about music.

Concert

I need sleep.

I am flattered that a friend thinks if I advertise about the concert on my blog there are people who will actually order tickets through here. Not sarcastically flattered, but really flattered that he thinks that way. Truth is that it don't exactly work. This blog isn't famous or anything and I believe most of my readers are my friends (which is very heart-warming, knowing that my friends do read my blog still), whom I would have had bugged to no end about attending one of the (yet another) concert I'm performing in. So to those whom I have already bugged and bugged and now come in here to read about something else, I'm awfully sorry because here's another promotion for the concert! =D


Ok, the Anak Baba Band and Ministry of Bellz concert, titled Babas h'and Bellz, the former playing peranakan music, the latter handbells, will be on the 26th December 2007, Wednesday (the day after Christmas), at either 3pm or 8pm. Tickets are priced at $15. Concert is held at The Arts House (The old Parliament).

Ministry of Bellz is a very new handbells group, started only half a year ago. We've just came back from HK for an educational trip (which I have YET TO BLOGGED ABOUT). We have performed at a joint concert with The emBellishment Handbells Quartet in Hong Kong and also at Disneyland Hong Kong.

Anak Baba Band is primarily a band playing peranakan music. They use keyboards, drumset and some percussion. Should be quite interesting. I don't play in it though, so I'm afraid I am not very sure about the details of the band.

So there are 2 sections in this concert - The Anak Baba Band playing peranakan music using keyboards and percussion, and the Ministry of Bellz playing Christmas and other pieces using handbells.

If you're interested in attending this concert, do contact me at my email ng.wan.jing@gmail.com.
I've never stepped into The Arts House and it's kind of exciting to think about how it is inside there. By the way I'll be playing handbells in Ministry of Bellz. It's my first time performing as a ringer and I'd just picked it up slightly more than a month ago. It's a challenge, but exciting and very different from percussion. What I thought of as simple bell ringing did not turn out to be so simple. There are techniques, ringing motions, damping, coordination, gracefulness and other stuff I have to know. Crash course in 2 weeks and then show time. It's quite beautiful, though, playing music with handbells. I'd very much appreciate if some of you would come down to watch! I remember the last time percussion concert, my friends went down to watch then I was so nervous and during intermission they told me to relax because they could see that I was nervous. It's a lot better now though. Stage fright isn't so bad for me nowadays.

Ok, hope I can sell all 20 tickets. It might be my last concert with this group, if I can actually bear to stop playing handbells (the group has 3 octaves of bells - very expensive).

On hiatus; Concert

Every semester during this period of time I am messed up, screwed up, very horny and very emotional.

It's the examination period. Seems as if everybody else is on blogging hiatus. Have not been blogging a lot because been simply too busy trying to suck some cocks with studying, projects and other school-related stuff, not to mention handbells practice. A frown is starting to permanently etch itself onto my forehead. So I think I'll be going on a hiatus too until 3rd December because I simply do not have enough time at all to blog.

Before I go off, here's an announcement for a concert put up by both the Ministry of Bellz which is a handbells group and The Anak Baba Band, a percussion-cum-electronic-keyboards band, playing music I promise you have never heard before. I think Anak Baba Band is playing Peranakan music. Argh! I'm playing in this concert and I do not even know! So embarrassing. Then again I am a ringer in the Ministry of Bellz, not Anak Baba Band. Do come down and watch us! It's my first time performing as a handbell player, should be interesting. You may come down to laugh at me. I promise I will not throw the bell at you.

Event: BABAs hAND BELLZ
Date: 26th December 2007, Wednesday
Time: 3pm or 8pm
Venue: The Arts House @ The Old Parliament
Price: $15

If you do not know, this is how a handbell look like:

Link

Think Christmas.

If you are interested, please do leave a comment on this post or drop me an email at ng.wan.jing@gmail.com with any questions, the number of tickets you want and your details. Will get back to you very very quickly because just about everything is linked to my email.

Xinfony VII

Xinfony VII happened last evening. MZ, YZ, RF and Carol came to watch us. This is the first time I have played without YZ, Pearl and LY. This is also the second time I have played with Jiaxing and Zhiwei (I think) in this alumni.

I don't know how we sounded because I don't know how to listen anymore. We got through with no major mishaps, although after a few years of performance, one's idea of a "mishap" alters considerably and nothing is really a mishap anymore. If it happens, then tough luck, get over it and go on to the next note/section already. According to YZ and MZ, X-winds sounded good, better than the rest, in fact. I asked them if we sounded far too loud because even during rehearsal, Daniel our conductor, told us that the hall cannot stand our volume. However YZ said that we were loud but rich. On a personal level, I guess I screwed up some and covered most parts adequately.

I got the impression from them that they did not really enjoy the concert because of various reasons. Firstly, the band was not that good, with being out of tune, being messy and simply the disappearance of the melody. All these points to one very obvious thing, that the band is not listening to each other. If everybody were listening, they could spot being out of tune, they would know to come in together and they would watch out for the melody, lowering their volume when necessary.

I will not say that the alumni was listening to each other. When you are on stage with hundreds of eyes staring at you, combined with insufficient practices (or inattentiveness during practices), all you can pretty much concentrate on are the notes on your scores and ensuring that you do not screw up the parts you previously had no problem playing.

Everything flows, from one section to another, one note to the next, one dynamic to the other. There is a reason why musicians find themselves physically, mentally and emotionally exhausted after a concert or rehearsal. There is much to concentrate on, there is a lot of multi-tasking. (I often wonder if anybody realizes this, that musicians multi-task constantly. Once I lost the ability to listen properly, I gradually lost my ability to multi-task as well.)

The second reason they did not enjoy the concert was the fact that the pieces were all long and slow pieces, very much typical band pieces. This was a vast difference from the last concert where there were a number of pieces the audience could identify with. However, that is not to say that the pieces should be only those the audience know, or that all band pieces are long and slow. Perhaps there should have been more exciting pieces. Now I wonder if our concerts in the past were also of this genre and if the audience fell asleep while listening to us. Interesting that only 4 years after graduation do I realize the importance of engaging or entertaining the audience. I am oddly pleased, though, that the band is venturing once again into these band pieces. In my opinion, these are the pieces that truly challenge the individual player and the band as a whole.

Thirdly, there was a problem with the air-conditioning in the hall. Hall was stuffy.

Fourthly, wrong placement of percussion ensemble, featuring Mr. Pan Huei Yuan and percussionists from the Singapore Wind Symphony, in the programme, especially when great changes in instruments arrangement are needed. Gap in programme while re-arranging instruments back before X-winds went on stage resulted in audience being noisy. Not to mention that I was not exactly happy when I went on and found no stands in front of the vibraphone or the bells. My ratchet was also squashed beneath the Xylophone leg. Took the next 15 seconds to re-arrange quickly but ended up having to do some squeezing and instruments moving during the pieces itself, which is not a good visual image for the audience.

Did I mention that the alumni had to give up our seats backstage to the percussionist guest players? We ended up standing around or seating on some chairs placed around backstage. I am aware that I sound grumpy and calculating, but if I do not remember wrongly, it is the band which requested for the alumni to play in the concert because they did not have time to prepare enough pieces to cover for the whole concert. If it is as such, then I am irked that we are placed 2nd class. I am also extremely irked that the assistant band conductor referred to the guest players as VIPs - Very Important People. Alright, alright, I know, formality and politics in the real world. Fuck the real world. I suppose that the alumni are not important enough.

Ok, I am just feeling dissatisfied. Am fully aware that it is not the guest players' fault, for they are the guest players and guests should always be treated with respect.

One thing I do not fathom though. It is the band's concert, their (our) Xinfony, why do they have to invite guest players, to play an entire percussion ensemble at that. There is probably a good reason behind it, but I simply do not like the idea at all. Like what YZ said, it made things look as if the guest players were the highlight of the concert instead of the school band. But oh well, it is their era, their concert and their Xinfony.

The 5 alumni percussionists:

Biing Yih, Jiaxing, Zhi Wei, me, Bao Zhen

Yiang Shan, Man Shan and 2 other juniors joined us in playing but we were unable to take a picture with them. Many thanks to them for their help!

The uh, don't know how many generations of percussionists, all graduated:

Jiaxing, Yizhen, Rui Fang, Bao Zhen, me, Zhi Wei, Biing Yih

Saw Alvin too but he didn't drop it for the concert itself, just the rehearsal. He was saying that the band has become commercialized and running like an organization. The band members don't look happy playing. Things are happening because the teachers want it, not because the students want it, which should not be the case.

A look inside VCH. Of the many times I've played here, I have never showed you all how it looks backstage.

These are the steps to stage right:


This is how it is like, looking down from the steps:


This is Frankie:

This is how it looks like after entering the door towards backstage (i.e. the door in the 2nd picture of this series):

Shuping giving me that look

And this is how the corridor behind Shuping looks like:

Juniors thinking I am taking a picture of them

The other end leads to stage left.

This is Han Yong and Ray:

Han Yong's head is very interesting

Have I mentioned that one of our oboist came in for rehearsal wearing the no.4. I was very happy looking at the uniform. He was very exhausted though. Wondered how many girls stopped him on the way to the hall.

Am just kidding about the girls.

I was toying with the idea of just playing an ensemble with the percussionists we are close with, not too many people, just a few. No proper instruments, no practice place. Feasible?

Upcoming concert - Xinfony VII

It is a full week before XMS's concert next week. I have been (sort of) practicing for a couple of months but I am really not ready. Reason being that the past practices I was never serious. Somehow the concert always seemed far away and I did not feel the need to take things seriously. I have improved and learnt more today about the pieces and my part than I have ever learnt in the past 2 months. This is really really bad. Is it possible for me to miraculously master my part in 1 week with maybe a day of practice? It is virtually impossible for me to get my hands on a xylophone until concert day itself.

Alright, a little publicity.

Xinmin Secondary Symphonic Band will be having its annual concert, Xinfony VII, this coming Friday, 13th July. For some reason we always get weird dates. I remember there was once the concert was held on National Day. National Day, for goodness' sake! Anyway I'll be playing in the alumni band, X-winds, and we will be taking control of the 2nd half of the concert. I have no idea what time the concert starts except to guess that it is probably in the evening around 7.30pm. Similarly, I do not remember how much the tickets cost except that it is above $10. What I know for certainty is that we are playing in Victoria Concert Hall (VCH), as we have done so for as long as I remember.

I am not sure what the main band is playing, but they have an impressive 7 song repertoire (around there, plus minus 2). The alumni will be playing Bugler's Holiday, Jericho, 童话.

Ha, some publicity!

Anyway if anybody is interested to come (despite the lack of information) and pressurize me so that I will screw up my parts and enjoy yourself laughing at me after that, please contact me. I would love to know that you are in the audience, watching my every move.

Amplitude

Attended Amplitude just now at UCC, NUS. Amplitude is a performance by choir and a cappella groups of NUS Halls of Residence as well as NUS Choir and Resonance (a cappella). It is part of the Exxonmobil Campus Concerts as well as the NUS Arts Festival 2007.

I'm crazy, right? Go back to school on a Sunday just to watch some performance. I was actually undecided between going back to school or staying at home to watch Phantom of the Opera (a classic!) and Ugly Betty. Due to certain circumstances, I ended up going to school. Can't say that I'm glad I went because although most of the performance was pretty alright, there were some sections that really spoilt the whole experience. Not to mention that I was seated beside a girl who would shake her head so hard I could feel her through the chair and who just shook her head even harder when she clapped. In fact, her head was twisting about when she was clapping and it was kind of scary. I was also, for a short period of time, seated in front of a guy who was slapping out the beat on his thigh.

The performance itself was alright, not excellent but passable. I was surprised there were so many a capella groups in school. There are some real talents in there. There was this girl in Sheares Hall choir who look really sweet and neat and somehow I traced a really marvellous voice to her. Really liked watching her and would have liked to listen to her sing solo.

On the other hand, Sheares Aca's performance of "This Love" by Maroon 5 started out nice but at the end the girl was singing so loudly into the mike, I physically shrank into the seat and stuck my fingers into my ears.

Another group, a choir, sang songs from Les Miserables. It started out interesting with obviously strong and loud voices as well as interesting movements. But the soundtrack was far too loud, so loud that I could hardly hear them and almost gave me a headache. It was utterly horrible, not really because of the headache but because it was obviously too freaking loud for the choir. I was so pissed off with that and with the fact that somehow nobody in charge was noticing it, that I was on the verge of asking the usher to please inform whoever was at the sound controls to lower down the freaking volume. Or I'd walk out there and then. I'm fired up now even just thinking about it. Anyway the costumes for this group were too excessive because there were not a lot of moving around or acting. Would have preferred more acting and real soloists instead of having one person stand in the spotlight yet having everybody sing the part. For goodness sake, you're singing a well-known musical! Do it well or don't do it at all! I was just praying for it to end quickly.

Sorry. I realize I might be a bit too worked up, but all these really gets on my nerves. Anyway those 2 performances were the ones I had the worst impressions of. There were others, but I'll just skip over them. Of course there were also very good ones like Resonance and others whose hall names I can't remember. =P

There was also guest a capella group Regu A, one of Indokustik winning groups. I don't know about them, but they're really very good and I enjoyed it a lot. Of course this is the part when the girl beside me started her clap-hand-shake-head ritual.

Glad that Regu A ended the night. Cheered me up considerably.

Here's "Bring Me to Life" by Evanescence. This song was performed by the guys of Sheares Aca and that particular performance was quite good.



Link

NUSSO's Concert - Sturm and Drum

Apologies in advance. This is going to be a long post because it's about a concert I've attended and I tend to talk a lot when it comes to that. =) If you like, you can just skip this whole section, scroll down to the end of this post and read the last few lines.

Last night I attended NUS Symphony Orchestra's Sturm and Drum, part of NUS Arts Festival 2007, at the University Cultural Centre. It's been only the 3rd or 4th time that I entered the concert hall within UCC. First time when I was still in JC, the other times were vague.

I like concert halls and the smells that come with it. Sometimes carpeted floors, sometimes polished wood. Cushioned, folded seats, dimmed lights, the orchestra on stage. It brings back memories and I realize that it has been a long time since I last attended a proper, paid concert lasting more than 45 minutes, excluding times when I was the performer.

I think UCC put up this structure on stage especially for orchestras or bands because the ceiling of the stage is very high with velvet hanging around the edges. The structure is like a wooden shelter, only much higher and much larger. The main portions of this "shelter" is the roof and the backing. It enables sound to be reflected off and up front instead of it getting lost and absorbed by the velvet and high ceiling. It reminded me of Nanyang Polytechnic's Auditorium where I've performed before with the Xinmin band. NYP Auditorium has this horribly high ceiling which absorbs so much sound that we sound really small on stage. We want the sound to reach the audience, not for the structure to fill its hunger.

Last night's concert was great. It was good to hear how an orchestra sounds like and how an orchestra concert is structured. It lasted very long, starting at 7.40pm lasting till close to 10pm. They played 5 pieces not including the encore piece. 2 of the pieces were played with a guest viola soloist, Anatoly Zelinsky. He's born in Russia but Ukrainian by origin and travels around quite a lot, playing in different orchestras and recitals. He's currently Principal Viola at Christchurch Symphony Orchestra in New Zealand.

I don't usually attend orchestra concerts because of my band background, so I'm not sure about the structure of an orchestra or how exactly it's supposed to sound. Nevertheless, last night's concert I enjoyed tremendously. It's been a long time since I've last enjoyed a concert. However on the overall I felt like something was missing, something that I should be feeling but which I wasn't.

Here's the list of pieces they played:

1) Russian Easter Festival Overture by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov

2) "Trauermusik" for Viola and Orchestra by Paul Hindemith

This piece is actually a funeral music Hindemith composed on the occasion of the unexpected death of King George V in London and performed a day after its completion. There are 4 movements to this piece. This piece is incredibly sad and mournful. I feel that this piece is something like a lone voice against the rest of the crowd, with the solo Viola being the former and the rest of the strings being the latter. All are upset, but... you know scenes from musicals where there are a lot of people in the background singing in harmony and there is one single person who sings loudly above the voice of all, representing truly and echoing how the others feel? Well that's how it feels to me.

3) Grand Sonata for Viola and Orchestra by Niccolo Paganini

Completely amazing piece, with sounds from the solo Viola that you wouldn't usually expect to hear in a concert. Makes you wonder if the soloist made a mistake or is it truly as written in the piece. By the way, the latter is true. Even a layman like me can tell it takes a lot of technique to play the solo Viola part. Even thinking about the sounds now, I'm still amazed.

4) Symphony No. 6 in F Major, Op 68, 'Pastoral Symphony' by Ludwig van Beethoven

This piece was composed simultaneously with Beethoven's more famous Fifth Symphony but was never quite as popular as it in the past. But now it's one of the central works of the symphonic repertoire. It's an interesting piece, portraying a a thunderstorm with rain, thunder and lightning, after which the storm eventually passes and there is a rainbow at the end, with what I feel is happiness and joy at the world after the rain and wonder at the storm. The program booklet says that the final movement represents "the shepherds' song of thanksgiving". Much as this piece is grand, I feel that some element of ferocity and much feelings are not portrayed enough to the audience.

5) Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op 43 by Jean Sibelius

I don't remember much about this piece except that I didn't like the slow movement but found the transition okay and the fast part in the first section quite interesting.


If you've been reading this blog for a long time, you should know that I lost my ability to listen to concerts properly back in JC. If you've followed this blog from even further back, you should know that when I listen to music or attend concerts, I experience a lot of visual effects in my head. The string of notes, accents, dynamics, emotions, everything in my head were transformed into colours. Some vivid, others dark, some huge splashes, others are scattered spots and some come in long strands. These colours dance and mix in a way I found amazing. Best of all, nobody saw these colours, only I did.

Last night I didn't see any colours, which was not surprising because I haven't seen colours in my head for a long time.

I heard sounds mixing and matching instead. It wasn't clear and I was trying to figure out this new way in which my senses interpreted what came to me, but it was interesting.

Sometimes I think I try too hard to make sense of music so that I become so stressed out, I can't enjoy it anymore, and I think that to a certain extent it is right. Yet, I can't enjoy music without thinking and listening to it in detail. There's so much to be heard in a concert, so much details to pay attention to and so many things to put together that I used to wonder how can people fall asleep while listening or say that they prefer concerts where bands play pop music or theme songs from movies. It completely eludes me. Pop music and movie themes are plain. They have no complexity in them, no tact, no details etc etc. They are, in my opinion, completely boring. I hate it when we have to perform pop pieces or anything like that because I feel that it degrades the band and the meaning of a band concert. I shudder whenever we have to play one. I'm not sure - maybe it is because I grew up playing classical band pieces and am used to it. Now I better understand how it's like, what others really hear and why they will fall asleep (cos' I did too =P).

Oh and this guy in front of me nodded off halfway through the first section while another Caucasian guy had his head bowed throughout the entire concert. And I think I heard somebody snore once very loudly behind me.

LT13 for the upteenth time...

I love school so much that I only reached home at 10pm today.

As if! This evening attended Exxonmobil's Campus Concert again. This time round it's GENUS (NUS's Guitar Ensemble). If all you know about guitar is strumming and then singing a tune with it, you probably know very little about it - like me. The guitars were amazing! Never thought a guitar ensemble could sound so... sweet, pretty, tingling, exquisite, tiny, huge, loud... The only time before I heard a guitar ensemble was in AJ I think, and I don't exactly remember them.

This man sat beside me in the concert. I was wondering if he'd start talking to me because he has that aura around him that whispers "I am a very vocal person and I will talk to you". True enough, he started talking to me, a little chat before the concert starts. I'm not very good at small talk, but he told me that he used to teach at SMU (he was a professor/lecturer) but don't anymore because it's very tiring, the class too large. He also said that he's there to watch because his son is in the ensemble and was the ex-president of it. So everytime he plays, they'll make an effort to attend his concerts. I thought that was really sweet .

By the way, GENUS is made up of mainly alumni members and have only 3 undergraduates. They're also having their annual concert sometime in March and tickets cost only $9 or $11. There's also a 20% early bird discount if you get a ticket before 31st January. You might want to keep a lookout for it. Can't remember the date, sorry. Interested maybe can just tell me? I'll check it out for you.

So if you haven't heard a guitar ensemble before, you might want to give it a shot!

Chamber concert

Attended a chamber concert by NUSSO today in school. They had some excellent players. Some were so good I almost wanted to cry. Tingling of muscles, grinning in the dark, letting the music wash over me. Music was healing, it struck me then, and that I wanted to play again, soon. To not heal is horrible. The string duet was so marvellous and watching the girl play was inspirational. Double basses quartet wasn't so good, however. In fact, they were very bad. Think it is because they are more used to playing orchestra pieces, which were relatively simple rather than quartets like these. One of the soloist was very scared, I can tell since I'm in that way too, but he was brave enough to get through the entire piece.

They're having a concert on the 16th March, at UCC, $9 (early bird till this coming Monday) or $11 (actual price). I plan to go, anybody wants to accompany me?