As we arrived in Canberra, I thought back to my last visit to the nation's capital - Australian Youth Orchestra Season 1, 2009. I have never arrived in Canberra by plane; looking out the windows, one may suspect they are in a fairly small country town. The airport is quite new-age, different wings and what not. Our flight was short (45 minutes) and uneventful, thought that's probably what you want in a flight! It seemed like we'd only been in the air for a moment before we were starting our descent!
We were greeted at baggage collection by a driver (note: no hat, no gloves) bearing a sign with our names (Yes, "Ms Chua". I am rarely ever greeted as such!). I may never ever have somebody wait at the airport with a sign for me again. He offered to take our bags as we went to teh car - a large Mercedes-Benz van with so much leg room and huge enough for me to almost stand up inside it! So this is an embassy vehicle! I noticed that its plate was blue, and rather than being an ACT plate, or even federal plate (I did not know these existed such a thing until recently), it bored 'Capital State'. Yes, royalty indeed. On our way from the airport, we passed the Royal Military College Duntroon, which was an expansive and impressive compound. I couldn't help but wonder whether the lakes across from the college were used for milirary exercises or not! The crisp air and the beautiful blue sky, sun shining, made the bare trees look like a picture from New England rather than Australia.
As we turned toward the main part of Canberra, New Parliament House appeared as the dominant scenery ahead of us. I suppose this is what people think of when they come to Canberra - a city of government officials and public servants. We passed the buildings of the Australian Federal Police (think a bit like super-new, shiny centre for fighting crime) and the National Archives of Australia. Many of the foreign embassies are located in close proximity to each other. Along the same street as the Polish embassy are the embassies of the USA, India, Israel, Germany and Sweden. Our lovely driver pointed these all out to us. The Chinese is the largest, the USA the 2nd. It is interested to see how each country has tried to outdo the others, each building looking like a symbol of its country's architecture - the US of New England (complete with red bricks actually imported from the USA!), with guards staunchly protecting it, British colonialism in India, and the distinct presence of communism of a bygone era of the Polish embassy. The lines are all very clean, straight, and there is a sense of austerity. When we walked in, we were greeted by a friend, though fairly concise, woman. The Polish ambassador and his family live in this large building that also houses a reception hall (in which we played), offices and guest rooms. In an earlier era, there were far more employees on site; now, only about nine. The driver also tends to the gardens and does all sorts of jobs around the place. He pointed out that the entire land area is about one hectare, and well-monitored by security cameras.
The hall we played in is like a reception hall, capacity about two hundred or so. They were setting up - dressing some tables with tablecloths and ironing them, arranging flowers, working out the state and lighting and other details. I experienced the Polish sense of humour, and attitude. The man who was overseeing all these arrangements pointed out all sorts of problems: "So, we have this little problem with the lights....", "And this little problem with the noise in the kitchen...", and continuing to point out the flaws of this performance arragement, but ending with a smile and shrug, "But this is what we have".
Present at this concert were members of the Polish community in Canberra, the Polish ambassador, the Finnish and Turkish ambassadors, a former Austrlaian ambassador in Poland, and the Archbishop of Canberra & Goulbern, who is the uncle of my colleague, the violinist! Good thing we only found out who all these people were after! A reception was held after about an hour of music and poetry readings in English and Polish. Along with the wine and juice on offer, standard too was vodka! We met lots of lovely people who really enjoyed the evening. The Finnish ambassador particularly enjoyed the music, as did her husband, who kissed both of our hands! We met the Polish ambassador, and many members of the Polish community.
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Friday, July 22, 2011
just an ordinary lesson
My lessons this year are quite extraordinary.
You know how as a kid, or even older, you'd sometimes go to lessons knowing that you hadn't practiced enough, and that your teacher was going to yell at you for it, or you knew exactly what your teacher was going to say because it was the same thing as last week. Or that feeling that you'd let your teacher down, or that fear of going into a lesson because of all the above thing, and more?
Well, I don't feel that at all this year.
This is not to say that I don't work hard to try and incorporate every thing that I've been taught in my previous lesson into everything else. But I certainly don't feel that sense of dread that my teacher is going to yell at me. I actually really look forward to each lesson because I know that I'll learn something extraordinary and will change my perception of my technique or musical idea.
Today was no exception. We only had a little bit of time, but short or long time, these lessons usually leave me much to contemplate. I had intended to get through a lot, but it was to be so.
We spent about 45 minutes on these two lines or so with a particularly difficult section. If you're particularly interested, it is the end of the first movement of Beethoven's seventh violin sonata in c minor with that tricky broken octave bit that trucks along and causes great misfortune to pianists.
So I'm having troubles with it because:
i) I have little hands
ii) repeated broken octaves in that particular figuration does my brain (and hands) in
iii) the last of those octaves in the LH is a G Major - all white notes!!! No reference point doesn't help
So what to do?? Take it to your teacher, of course!
And thus the lesson of a whole heap of pratice techniques and discoveries. This is a list of them that I've noted for myself:
* Practice with earplugs. Dulls all the overtones and enhances peripheral perception of technique and physical things going on, rather than the actual sound feedback and the auditory sense. This totally came about in this fashion:
As my teacher was fiddling with my hands trying to explain muscles and what not, he saw the stamp on my inside right wrist and asked how the nightclub was. I quickly explained that I'd gone to a pub to see a friend's band, but don't worry, I had earplugs to save my ears. And he smiled and said, "Well, speaking of earplugs..."
There you go. Such diversions. Great.
I also pointed out that this friend had suggested that the stamp (a star in a circle) looked slightly evil and might have been a pentagram. I just thought it was a star in a circle.
* Fingers 2-3-4 acting as a unit. Band together with elastic band/cloth/other device so they stop flapping about unnecessarily.
* Stops on bottom / various stop combinations. Oh heck, stop practice is HUGE this year. I can't even begin to emphasise how much it's helped!
* Core of body but keep breathing! Related to Alexander Technique, which has been a massive change this year. There's pelvic floor that's related to the core, which is different to holding in your stomach. Go figure.
* Cupped hand position to brace 5th finger. Work that massive interossi muscle! Pianists with little hands often have a HUGE muscle on the outside side of their hand because they've had to develop it to do stuff. Mine is possibly one of the largest developed muscles in my body. How embarrassing!
* Relaxing the muscle between 1 and 2 even if the thumb doesn't contract.
* Letting go of stuff, including the above, and as a result of having a strong core. That is, free arm, free wrist, free everything.
* Voicing between LH & RH
So yeah, that's what we did in about 45 mins.
And although not all lessons leave me with quite as many practice methods, they're all extraodinarily helpful and enlightening.
Yep, an ordinary lesson indeed.
You know how as a kid, or even older, you'd sometimes go to lessons knowing that you hadn't practiced enough, and that your teacher was going to yell at you for it, or you knew exactly what your teacher was going to say because it was the same thing as last week. Or that feeling that you'd let your teacher down, or that fear of going into a lesson because of all the above thing, and more?
Well, I don't feel that at all this year.
This is not to say that I don't work hard to try and incorporate every thing that I've been taught in my previous lesson into everything else. But I certainly don't feel that sense of dread that my teacher is going to yell at me. I actually really look forward to each lesson because I know that I'll learn something extraordinary and will change my perception of my technique or musical idea.
Today was no exception. We only had a little bit of time, but short or long time, these lessons usually leave me much to contemplate. I had intended to get through a lot, but it was to be so.
We spent about 45 minutes on these two lines or so with a particularly difficult section. If you're particularly interested, it is the end of the first movement of Beethoven's seventh violin sonata in c minor with that tricky broken octave bit that trucks along and causes great misfortune to pianists.
So I'm having troubles with it because:
i) I have little hands
ii) repeated broken octaves in that particular figuration does my brain (and hands) in
iii) the last of those octaves in the LH is a G Major - all white notes!!! No reference point doesn't help
So what to do?? Take it to your teacher, of course!
And thus the lesson of a whole heap of pratice techniques and discoveries. This is a list of them that I've noted for myself:
* Practice with earplugs. Dulls all the overtones and enhances peripheral perception of technique and physical things going on, rather than the actual sound feedback and the auditory sense. This totally came about in this fashion:
As my teacher was fiddling with my hands trying to explain muscles and what not, he saw the stamp on my inside right wrist and asked how the nightclub was. I quickly explained that I'd gone to a pub to see a friend's band, but don't worry, I had earplugs to save my ears. And he smiled and said, "Well, speaking of earplugs..."
There you go. Such diversions. Great.
I also pointed out that this friend had suggested that the stamp (a star in a circle) looked slightly evil and might have been a pentagram. I just thought it was a star in a circle.
* Fingers 2-3-4 acting as a unit. Band together with elastic band/cloth/other device so they stop flapping about unnecessarily.
* Stops on bottom / various stop combinations. Oh heck, stop practice is HUGE this year. I can't even begin to emphasise how much it's helped!
* Core of body but keep breathing! Related to Alexander Technique, which has been a massive change this year. There's pelvic floor that's related to the core, which is different to holding in your stomach. Go figure.
* Cupped hand position to brace 5th finger. Work that massive interossi muscle! Pianists with little hands often have a HUGE muscle on the outside side of their hand because they've had to develop it to do stuff. Mine is possibly one of the largest developed muscles in my body. How embarrassing!
* Relaxing the muscle between 1 and 2 even if the thumb doesn't contract.
* Letting go of stuff, including the above, and as a result of having a strong core. That is, free arm, free wrist, free everything.
* Voicing between LH & RH
So yeah, that's what we did in about 45 mins.
And although not all lessons leave me with quite as many practice methods, they're all extraodinarily helpful and enlightening.
Yep, an ordinary lesson indeed.
Monday, July 18, 2011
My mum writes funny emails
Some highlights in recent times have included:
* After I told her that I'd been shopping again:
"More spending?!? Julia Gillard and Wayne Swan will love you for contributing towards the economy."
* Oh yeah, just casually mentioning that she's coming over in October...
"I hope there's no changes to your recital in October. I've booked my flight to go to Melbourne for this and will take you out for early dinner on 10th Oct. Will give you details later."
* When I hadn't called or emailled in a while:
"Guess you must be busy again with no news from you in between. We haven't forgotten you although not been in contact. What's been happening at your end?"
Good to know my family hasn't forgotten about me....!
* After I told her that I'd been shopping again:
"More spending?!? Julia Gillard and Wayne Swan will love you for contributing towards the economy."
* Oh yeah, just casually mentioning that she's coming over in October...
"I hope there's no changes to your recital in October. I've booked my flight to go to Melbourne for this and will take you out for early dinner on 10th Oct. Will give you details later."
* When I hadn't called or emailled in a while:
"Guess you must be busy again with no news from you in between. We haven't forgotten you although not been in contact. What's been happening at your end?"
Good to know my family hasn't forgotten about me....!
Sunday, July 17, 2011
lots of little trivial things
I know clothes don't make a man (and/or woman) but still, having some new clothes is pretty exciting. Particularly when they're on sale.
So I don't go shopping for leisure that much. I actually find it quite frustrating. I much prefer going shopping at the markets for fresh food. I tend to only go when I need something in particular, or when a sale tempts me enough to have a little poke around to see what bargains can be had. Today had some purpose in it: a pair of jeans (because I pretty much live in jeans and performance blacks...), some earphones and some warm socks for my impending one day in Canberra at the end of July. All things were accomplished today, which I am a little shocked at because I usually spend a long time umm-ing and ahh-ing, but with a limited time frame and the knowledge that fitting another shopping trip is near impossible in the forseeable future, I think I was pretty determined to get it done. I'll tell you: I'm pretty excited my two new pairs of woollen socks; They will do very well in the freezer that Melbourne currently is and the expectation of Canberra!
Also in my rather unusual-for-me-because-I-usually-have-this-practice-routine day, I did some particularly domestic activities: cupcakes baked and iced, a load of washing in the machine and dryer, a load of blacks washed, vegetables chopped and roasted in anticipation for cooking soup later this week, French toast made and consumed, supermarket shopping done. Yep, I think I'm set to be a domestic housewife if this music thing doesn't work out....or even if it does!
The vacuuming, among other things, still remains to be done...maybe as a procrastination tool....
So I don't go shopping for leisure that much. I actually find it quite frustrating. I much prefer going shopping at the markets for fresh food. I tend to only go when I need something in particular, or when a sale tempts me enough to have a little poke around to see what bargains can be had. Today had some purpose in it: a pair of jeans (because I pretty much live in jeans and performance blacks...), some earphones and some warm socks for my impending one day in Canberra at the end of July. All things were accomplished today, which I am a little shocked at because I usually spend a long time umm-ing and ahh-ing, but with a limited time frame and the knowledge that fitting another shopping trip is near impossible in the forseeable future, I think I was pretty determined to get it done. I'll tell you: I'm pretty excited my two new pairs of woollen socks; They will do very well in the freezer that Melbourne currently is and the expectation of Canberra!
Also in my rather unusual-for-me-because-I-usually-have-this-practice-routine day, I did some particularly domestic activities: cupcakes baked and iced, a load of washing in the machine and dryer, a load of blacks washed, vegetables chopped and roasted in anticipation for cooking soup later this week, French toast made and consumed, supermarket shopping done. Yep, I think I'm set to be a domestic housewife if this music thing doesn't work out....or even if it does!
The vacuuming, among other things, still remains to be done...maybe as a procrastination tool....
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
