Saturday, December 10, 2005
alright.. far too long. gonna give this a quick update.
finished A levels. comments. horrendous. terrible. freaking weird. screwed.
slacked for a very long time. played games. FFX-2 and The Sims2.
looked for job. got hired by sakae by stroke of luck. working near home. great.
currently in band fest 2005.
main focus of update.
band fest 2005. yup. i joined. i m in band barnes! haha. we are playing ithaca, suite of old american dances and the hunchback of notre dame. mr darren sim( a cutie according to WX ) is our resident conductor. Dr lee is conducting for ithaca.
ithaca was scary. the running notes and everything. it doesn't help that i m so accustomed to using the B flat thumb key instead of the F key button to play B flat. this piece requires the E minor scale which unfortunately do not favour my usual style of running up and down the scale. i had to switched quickly from B flat to B and then back to B flat then continue up the scale. totally screwed it up when Dr Lee did an individual going through of each section. i played wrongly and it was really bad. my thumb had become really sticky by the time we played tat piece and hence the difficulty of switching between the buttons increased. i totally missed playing those few bars. hence i came up with a quick solution to a very "sticky" problem. i wrapped cigarette paper( used to dry the moist button pads) ard my left thumb den fastened it using my rubber band. the problem was instantly solved. i could run through the few bars of running notes with much ease, altho i have to admit i still have some practice to do. tml is a good day to do so. and for the acutal day i would most prob juz stick on a plaster of either plastic or cloth. at least it would look reasonable.
American dances and notre dame are fun! american dances is very light and cheesy. makes u wanna dance! haha. while notre dame has a very sweet melody and some nice ballads-like passages. overall, the pieces we have are very fun and exciting.
my section. can say its filled with diff kinds of ppl. which i m glad for. altho presently i have only talked to daniel, paul, huimin, joy and yan ping (no such need to mention Weixin.. since i speak to her since dunno when! haha.).. while i have quite little contact with eunice(speak to her on a very basis level and would like to get to know her better) and the SRJC guy and the JJC guy.(sorry! i din really catch both of ur names, i shall however get to know them on monday!) i can say that they are really very fun filled ppl. juz as wat happened during today's band prac... eg...
(roughly 3 plus pm)
dan(whispers): i m gonna trick them(the rest of the section) to raise up their flute earlier by raising mine earlier by a few bars. so they will follow me! (hehehe)
me: ....... (i was having rest during the piece)
it happens so tat previously the section sometimes did not count the number of bars of rest.. so when dan was warming his flute, the section would raise up their flute thinking tat its time to play when its actually not the case..
so the whole prac i saw dan lifting up his flute every now in an attempt to throw the whole section off. when we are having rest he would raise up and upon notices tat no one fall for it then he would quickly put it down. he's probably juz too bored. and sleepy. so he needed some entertainment. rest he raise up. other ppl's solo he also raise up. nth going on also raise up. the sight was really comical. but apparently the whole section was either not on alert mode to notice dan raising his flute up or they were studiously counting the bars, coz most of dan's attempts failed quite badly. except for one when he raised it up early to play the last few bars of american dances movt 4.. the rest of the 1st flutes were caught unaware and didn't even seemed to know that they were supposed to play until dan played like 2 or 3 bars of the passage. so it ended up dan playing the passage mostly by himself. altho his attempt to trick them to raise their flutes up early failed, he managed to fool them in another way. haha. congrats to dan. and today during prac he told me he's thinking of cutting his hair. and said tat he's scared it would come out weird. so i have smthg for u dan, "Good Luck!" haha.
the rest of the scetion are also pretty funny and friendly as well. went for lunch today with joy, weixin and yan ping at the other canteen. had fun speaking, chatting and gossiping with the three of them. really had fun with the Barnes band. i can't wait for Monday's concert to come! yeah!!!... haha..
BARNES FLUTE SECTION 2005(Photo Courtesy of Mr Darren Sim)
Clockwise from left: me, dan, paul SRJC guy, eunice, weixin, huimin, JJC guy, yan ping, joy (oboe: gabriel, bassoon: dawn)
even though i feel like my energy is totally depleted... with the early morning wake ups and long travelling and long days...
Band fest ROCK!!!!!!!!! haha.
**ppl who wants the tixs, pls contact me(juz leave a tag b4 sunday 11th dec 2005 1159pm). its 11 bucks per tix. at Esplanade 12th Dec 2005. 730pm.
Repertoire
Yagisawa - A Symphonic Tone Poem "And then the ocean glows"
Appermont - Noah's Ark
R.V. Williams - Sea Songs
Ticheli - American Elegy
Ketslbey - In a Persian Market
Smith - Emperata Overture
Hisaishi - Howl's Moving Castle
Texidor - Amparito Roca
break
RW Smith - Ithaca from the Odyssey (Symphony No.2)
Bennett - Suite of Old American Dances mvt 1 and 4
Menken - The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Reed - Alleluia Laudamus Te
Tatebe - Suite on Celtic Folk Songs
Amano - Festival March
Arnold - 'Happy Ending' from the Inn of Sixth Happiness
over and out 10:54 PM
DMD0605