Saturday, July 30, 2005
Graduation 2005 Performance
The day we had all been practising so much for finally came on 27 July 2005. We generally thought we did horribly or satisfactorily - although we won't know how we actually sound until we see the video footage of our performances.
Recalling my first performance that morning on stage... my Final Fantasy group was performing the pieces "Bittersweet Romance" and "Theme of Love". I got shocked (but luckily not mind-crippled) when I realised shortly after starting to play the keyboard that its voice was set to "harp"... when I needed "piano"! And I didn't know how to operate Clef's Yamaha Motif that I was using. However, further feedback from my friends told me that it was quite nice as the "harp" was a softer, better timbre for the pieces.
I learnt my lesson - and learnt from Clef on how to operate his keyboard. My second performance in the afternoon with my main group featured the songs "At The Beginning" and "Xi Shui Chang Liu" ("Still Water Runs Deep"). It was here that I played a few wrong, though insignificant, notes. Whoops. Guess I was a bit tired or wasn't concentrating hard enough.
My final piece that evening was "Get Around" by the Beach Boys in my a capella group. Well - frankly and honestly - we rushed throughout the piece. And even went out of pitch - very obviously. Oh no. I wonder what the audience might have thought.
Whatever the case, it's all over now. And, though we made mistakes, they were mistakes worth making, because we will gain knowledge and experience through reviewing the mistakes we made when we go through the video footage. And through it we will improve - so obviously our future performances will be better.
5:58 am *
Friday, July 22, 2005
I get around.
Round, round, get around, I get around...
We had a capella training by our recently-discovered brilliant singer Mr Eric Wei. The basses and tenors, especially, underwent training for certain parts of the song "Get Around" that we were performing for Graduation 2005. We improved pretty much in our pitching and I would say that we sang much more confidently and were of a higher than satisfactory standard now. We can do better - but then again, there's the problem of time constraint/management and the undeniable fact that we are not a capella professionals. And we had only 1 month to practise... with multiple groups for most of us.
Over this final weekend before the Performance, I'll be having rehearsals throughout Saturday and Sunday. Then I have my CCA Camp on Monday and Tuesday - but the rehearsal's probably gonna be on Monday. Ack - clashing schedules are so common for me. I am still learning to be willing to sacrifice my time. Then Wednesday's the performance - for me I'll be involved the whole day. The class chalet (finally - some relaxation) is on from Wednesday to Friday - a temporary hiatus from the hustle and bustle of polytechnic life!
Being forward-looking is a good thing. Wei Jie and I have decided to embark on a piano duo for the end-year Concert - Gustav Holst's The Planets - Uranus. 16 pages long. 1 page of hard practice every week. It's a rather difficult song. Shucks. Oh well - gotta devote more time to practising for this piece.
1:19 pm *
Sunday, July 17, 2005
1 more week to Graduation performances.
The pressure is mounting up even higher as only ONE week remains till the graduation performances. The various groups have been filmed and their performances reviewed as "terrible" even if they were good - to heighten the standard.
I've come to realise that some people in DMAT are not taking time to rehearse seriously and me and some of my team have gotten real fed-up over this. There's a time to be serious and a time to have fun - and now that the time to be serious demands more than the time to have fun - I feel that we should be willing to sacrifice our time (shopping, playing pool, etc). Slacking in polytechnic (even if it is the 1st year) is not my cup of tea. I've learnt enough from my 'O' Level results - even though they were quite good... I could've did better.
Mr Eric Wei has been training with my main group (performing "At The Beginning" and "Xi Shui Chang Liu") over our vocals. For the next final week, I will focus on training my team in dynamics and pitching. Hopefully, we can bring our performance up to an adequate standard.
As for my a capella group, the last week is crucial. We need to brush up in our timing and pitching - it's not currently presentable. Our dynamics and articulation also have to be more pronounced.
My Final Fantasy group's main problems are dynamics and timing. I hope our rehearsal tomorrow will clear out a bit of these problems. You would have noticed by now that many groups have problems with keeping to a constant rhythm - it's something that even professional performers struggle with. Few people can perform in perfect time.
Pieces I'm practising now are Theme of Love and Bittersweet Romance (both from Final Fantasy). Both are relatively simple - I just need to work on memorising them.
7:09 am *
Saturday, July 09, 2005
Chord Progressions
Today my group, "What Michael Spicer said", performed "We're Not Following" - an 8-bar strong chord progression piece. The unique thing about it was that it featured both major and minor keys. There was Wei Jie on the keyboard as arpeggio, Bo Yuan on the French Horn as bass, Wee Siong and me on the Di Zi and the harmonica respectively as pads, and Ryu and Royston's vocals as the melody. It turned out pretty bad, like the other groups, during the critique session. Though our timing was alright, it was the blending of the texture that was our major problem.
Pieces I have learnt (and are learning this week) are the Final Fantasy songs Theme of Love and Bittersweet Romance; At The Beginning & Xi Shui Chang Liu (Still Water Runs Deep); and the a capella version of Get Around by the Beach Boys. Obviously, all these songs are to be performed for Graduation on 27 July. This provides me with opportunities to showcase my accompaniment and arpeggio skills, and also my vocal abilities (I will be performing for all 3 shifts for Graduation). We've been running into difficulties booking the studios for rehearsals, so we've been going to one another's homes to practise. But even this proves a challenge because our schedules ALWAYS clash. It's impossible to get a time when everyone's free due to our different committments. Well, next Monday's our rehearsal showcase. I don't know how many groups are already prepared. But as for my group(s), I'll push them to at least a satisfactory performance-presentation level.
2:36 pm *
Tuesday, July 05, 2005
Pitch/Melody & Graduation Performance Rehearsals
First things first.
Here's the part about the timbre/texture/rhythm/pitch of my favourite song - well actually I don't have a favourite song (listen to many genres) - so I'll just pick Vanessa Carlton's "A Thousand Miles" (which was my party piece too). 1. Timbre - this song is mainly vocal and piano (accompanied by drums); and the tone is bright and optimistic. 2. Texture - the piece is homophonic (like many other pieces), consisting of a vocal melody and a piano accompaniment. 3. Rhythm - the song is upbeat and determined in feeling, largely due to its interesting "broken-up" rhythm. 4. Pitch - the vocal range of this song is medium. Considering it to be sung by a female, it is of relatively low pitch (for a female).
OK, it's Week 6 now - we've effectively got THREE weeks to brush up our performance pieces for the graduating students' big Graduation Day. And it's gonna be graded. The pressure is ON...
Just a bit about last week's pitch/melody group improvisation exercises - I guess the standard went down quite a bit compared to the previous weeks' performances - everyone was lethargic at the thought of performing unconventional music and also because we found it rather monotonous to isolate each single element of music. As for my choice of performance grouping, I've been trying to work with different groups for each exercise to better facilitate bonding and understanding of my DMAT coursemates.
I've involved in 4 groups for graduation performance - out of which only 1 group (the a capella one) has not had rehearsals planned so far. I don't even know whether they're going ahead with "it". Last Saturday I had rehearsals for the songs At The Beginning and Xi Shui Chang Liu (Still Water Runs Deep) from morning to late afternoon. On Sunday it was the Final Fantasy song "Theme of Love" (from afternoon to late evening). This coming Wednesday afternoon I'm doing the same pieces mentioned for Saturday. And for Friday morning I've to begin with a third group (If We Hold On Together). Well, I hope we really do HOLD ON TOGETHER throughout these tiring, trying times. I know I'm throwing myself into a pot of hot soup by joining four groups, but I want to score well for Performance, so - there you go.
Will be blogging more about rehearsals in my future posts. About my own personal practice, I have been trying to fit in time to practise several piano pieces and of course, my scales. But do already take note that I spend THREE hours everyday travelling to and from school - not to mention the endless rehearsals, the trivial but compulsory events like the AIDS Talk, CIP of 7 hours to be completed, and my CCA to cope with. The class is draining out of energy. PLEASE - we need adequate rest. People are falling sick and the enthusiasm's almost gone in everyone. We can see it every day in people's faces. WE NEED A TIME-OUT.
10:08 am *
Saturday, July 30, 2005
Graduation 2005 Performance
The day we had all been practising so much for finally came on 27 July 2005. We generally thought we did horribly or satisfactorily - although we won't know how we actually sound until we see the video footage of our performances.
Recalling my first performance that morning on stage... my Final Fantasy group was performing the pieces "Bittersweet Romance" and "Theme of Love". I got shocked (but luckily not mind-crippled) when I realised shortly after starting to play the keyboard that its voice was set to "harp"... when I needed "piano"! And I didn't know how to operate Clef's Yamaha Motif that I was using. However, further feedback from my friends told me that it was quite nice as the "harp" was a softer, better timbre for the pieces.
I learnt my lesson - and learnt from Clef on how to operate his keyboard. My second performance in the afternoon with my main group featured the songs "At The Beginning" and "Xi Shui Chang Liu" ("Still Water Runs Deep"). It was here that I played a few wrong, though insignificant, notes. Whoops. Guess I was a bit tired or wasn't concentrating hard enough.
My final piece that evening was "Get Around" by the Beach Boys in my a capella group. Well - frankly and honestly - we rushed throughout the piece. And even went out of pitch - very obviously. Oh no. I wonder what the audience might have thought.
Whatever the case, it's all over now. And, though we made mistakes, they were mistakes worth making, because we will gain knowledge and experience through reviewing the mistakes we made when we go through the video footage. And through it we will improve - so obviously our future performances will be better.
5:58 am *
Friday, July 22, 2005
I get around.
Round, round, get around, I get around...
We had a capella training by our recently-discovered brilliant singer Mr Eric Wei. The basses and tenors, especially, underwent training for certain parts of the song "Get Around" that we were performing for Graduation 2005. We improved pretty much in our pitching and I would say that we sang much more confidently and were of a higher than satisfactory standard now. We can do better - but then again, there's the problem of time constraint/management and the undeniable fact that we are not a capella professionals. And we had only 1 month to practise... with multiple groups for most of us.
Over this final weekend before the Performance, I'll be having rehearsals throughout Saturday and Sunday. Then I have my CCA Camp on Monday and Tuesday - but the rehearsal's probably gonna be on Monday. Ack - clashing schedules are so common for me. I am still learning to be willing to sacrifice my time. Then Wednesday's the performance - for me I'll be involved the whole day. The class chalet (finally - some relaxation) is on from Wednesday to Friday - a temporary hiatus from the hustle and bustle of polytechnic life!
Being forward-looking is a good thing. Wei Jie and I have decided to embark on a piano duo for the end-year Concert - Gustav Holst's The Planets - Uranus. 16 pages long. 1 page of hard practice every week. It's a rather difficult song. Shucks. Oh well - gotta devote more time to practising for this piece.
1:19 pm *
Sunday, July 17, 2005
1 more week to Graduation performances.
The pressure is mounting up even higher as only ONE week remains till the graduation performances. The various groups have been filmed and their performances reviewed as "terrible" even if they were good - to heighten the standard.
I've come to realise that some people in DMAT are not taking time to rehearse seriously and me and some of my team have gotten real fed-up over this. There's a time to be serious and a time to have fun - and now that the time to be serious demands more than the time to have fun - I feel that we should be willing to sacrifice our time (shopping, playing pool, etc). Slacking in polytechnic (even if it is the 1st year) is not my cup of tea. I've learnt enough from my 'O' Level results - even though they were quite good... I could've did better.
Mr Eric Wei has been training with my main group (performing "At The Beginning" and "Xi Shui Chang Liu") over our vocals. For the next final week, I will focus on training my team in dynamics and pitching. Hopefully, we can bring our performance up to an adequate standard.
As for my a capella group, the last week is crucial. We need to brush up in our timing and pitching - it's not currently presentable. Our dynamics and articulation also have to be more pronounced.
My Final Fantasy group's main problems are dynamics and timing. I hope our rehearsal tomorrow will clear out a bit of these problems. You would have noticed by now that many groups have problems with keeping to a constant rhythm - it's something that even professional performers struggle with. Few people can perform in perfect time.
Pieces I'm practising now are Theme of Love and Bittersweet Romance (both from Final Fantasy). Both are relatively simple - I just need to work on memorising them.
7:09 am *
Saturday, July 09, 2005
Chord Progressions
Today my group, "What Michael Spicer said", performed "We're Not Following" - an 8-bar strong chord progression piece. The unique thing about it was that it featured both major and minor keys. There was Wei Jie on the keyboard as arpeggio, Bo Yuan on the French Horn as bass, Wee Siong and me on the Di Zi and the harmonica respectively as pads, and Ryu and Royston's vocals as the melody. It turned out pretty bad, like the other groups, during the critique session. Though our timing was alright, it was the blending of the texture that was our major problem.
Pieces I have learnt (and are learning this week) are the Final Fantasy songs Theme of Love and Bittersweet Romance; At The Beginning & Xi Shui Chang Liu (Still Water Runs Deep); and the a capella version of Get Around by the Beach Boys. Obviously, all these songs are to be performed for Graduation on 27 July. This provides me with opportunities to showcase my accompaniment and arpeggio skills, and also my vocal abilities (I will be performing for all 3 shifts for Graduation). We've been running into difficulties booking the studios for rehearsals, so we've been going to one another's homes to practise. But even this proves a challenge because our schedules ALWAYS clash. It's impossible to get a time when everyone's free due to our different committments. Well, next Monday's our rehearsal showcase. I don't know how many groups are already prepared. But as for my group(s), I'll push them to at least a satisfactory performance-presentation level.
2:36 pm *
Tuesday, July 05, 2005
Pitch/Melody & Graduation Performance Rehearsals
First things first.
Here's the part about the timbre/texture/rhythm/pitch of my favourite song - well actually I don't have a favourite song (listen to many genres) - so I'll just pick Vanessa Carlton's "A Thousand Miles" (which was my party piece too). 1. Timbre - this song is mainly vocal and piano (accompanied by drums); and the tone is bright and optimistic. 2. Texture - the piece is homophonic (like many other pieces), consisting of a vocal melody and a piano accompaniment. 3. Rhythm - the song is upbeat and determined in feeling, largely due to its interesting "broken-up" rhythm. 4. Pitch - the vocal range of this song is medium. Considering it to be sung by a female, it is of relatively low pitch (for a female).
OK, it's Week 6 now - we've effectively got THREE weeks to brush up our performance pieces for the graduating students' big Graduation Day. And it's gonna be graded. The pressure is ON...
Just a bit about last week's pitch/melody group improvisation exercises - I guess the standard went down quite a bit compared to the previous weeks' performances - everyone was lethargic at the thought of performing unconventional music and also because we found it rather monotonous to isolate each single element of music. As for my choice of performance grouping, I've been trying to work with different groups for each exercise to better facilitate bonding and understanding of my DMAT coursemates.
I've involved in 4 groups for graduation performance - out of which only 1 group (the a capella one) has not had rehearsals planned so far. I don't even know whether they're going ahead with "it". Last Saturday I had rehearsals for the songs At The Beginning and Xi Shui Chang Liu (Still Water Runs Deep) from morning to late afternoon. On Sunday it was the Final Fantasy song "Theme of Love" (from afternoon to late evening). This coming Wednesday afternoon I'm doing the same pieces mentioned for Saturday. And for Friday morning I've to begin with a third group (If We Hold On Together). Well, I hope we really do HOLD ON TOGETHER throughout these tiring, trying times. I know I'm throwing myself into a pot of hot soup by joining four groups, but I want to score well for Performance, so - there you go.
Will be blogging more about rehearsals in my future posts. About my own personal practice, I have been trying to fit in time to practise several piano pieces and of course, my scales. But do already take note that I spend THREE hours everyday travelling to and from school - not to mention the endless rehearsals, the trivial but compulsory events like the AIDS Talk, CIP of 7 hours to be completed, and my CCA to cope with. The class is draining out of energy. PLEASE - we need adequate rest. People are falling sick and the enthusiasm's almost gone in everyone. We can see it every day in people's faces. WE NEED A TIME-OUT.
10:08 am *
