i bought four at the op shop today. just because i could. and also because they were really cheap.
i don't own a record player (although i know a few people that do, plus the library has record players) and i don't know how to use one. but i guess i'll learn.
this is amazing, these are the four that i picked up:
*Carlo Mario Giulini conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition", plus Prokofiev's "Symphonie Classique".
*Vladimir Horowitz playing Mussorsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" from a recital at Carnegie Hall
*Cecile Ousset playing Mussorgky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" plus Ravel's "Gaspard de la Nuit"
*Vladimir Horowitz in Moscow, his first in Russia in 1986 since he left about 60 previously
Five points for the person who can guess why I bought each of those, as you will notice lots of doubling ups.
i hope they work; i'm really excited about experiencing this! and wow, i can't believe i got my hands on some of this...!
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Friday, September 28, 2007
'endlessly' by muse
there's a part in me you'll never know
the only thing I'll never show
hopelessly I'll love you endlessly
hopelessly I'll give you everything
but I won't give you up
I won't let you down
and I won't leave you falling
If the moment ever comes
It's plain to see it's trying to speak
cherished dreams forever asleep
hopelessly I'll love you endlessly
hopelessly I'll give you everything
but I won't give you up
I won't let you down
and I won't leave you falling
if the moment ever comes
hopelessly I'll love you endlessly
hopelessly I'll give you everything
but I won't give you up
I won't let you down
and I won't leave you falling
but the moment never comes
the only thing I'll never show
hopelessly I'll love you endlessly
hopelessly I'll give you everything
but I won't give you up
I won't let you down
and I won't leave you falling
If the moment ever comes
It's plain to see it's trying to speak
cherished dreams forever asleep
hopelessly I'll love you endlessly
hopelessly I'll give you everything
but I won't give you up
I won't let you down
and I won't leave you falling
if the moment ever comes
hopelessly I'll love you endlessly
hopelessly I'll give you everything
but I won't give you up
I won't let you down
and I won't leave you falling
but the moment never comes
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Monday, September 24, 2007
one of those days
after attempting (again) to take stock of my life, i just had one of those beautiful days.
that made me think "yeah, i think i like it. i could see something happening out of this."
i woke up at about 7am with my alarm, to pull back my curtains and have sunlight STREAMING into my room (perhaps a little too bright mind you!) as S asked me later, "did you have a good morning?" the real answer is a very emphatic "yes!". you see, this sunlight made me happy. listened to the news in bed, and then jumped out for the morning routine of the shower, checking of email and breakfast.
i managed to do about three hours of piano practice in the morning, with a little break within that time. which i thought was pretty enthusiastic! mind you, it would be just lovely if almost every day was like that! i then went to the brass department concert, which was part of the melbourne international festival of brass - a big event indeed! unfortunately, D couldn't come, but that's ok. the horn octet was hilarious, on so many levels. mind you, K, D and I sat there, feeling remarkably and ridiculously local and non-brassy...! haha. the trombone choir was great, especially the wagner.
i got peer-pressured (in a good way!) by S, A & K (who's not even going...!!! haha) to buy a ticket to the wednesday night concert of mifb: stefan dohr & ralph sauer in concert. Dohr is principal horn with the berlin phil. and i suppose one just can't turn down this opportunity to see and hear him play. plus, he's playing the brahms trio. with no other than Duo Sol, of which my teacher is half. so, i should totally go. i'm very excited. because the brahms is awesome. and because this guy plays in the berlin phil!!!! and also because i'm about to embark on the brahms with S & K. should be fun! i wish K was coming so we could have, i dunno, pre-trio bonding?! haha.
afterwards, we (the intention was K & me, and the horn boys, plus others who came along) went for lunch; we bought food from threshermans and then went to the park near the melbourne museum to consume it, while sitting on the grass (S wanted outdoors. great idea, coz it was such a lovely day!) we had a great time, being silly and all. we played hacky sack for a while - i suck at it coz i don't really have any co-ordination, but still fun nevertheless!
it was just such a beautiful afternoon, to just hang out, enjoy the weather, and definitely each other's company! on the way back, ran into a few friends, which was nice. i like how that happens in melbourne, particularly on lygs. it's nice to know that it's really like our own neighbourhood.
attempted to do some work when i got home, which was admittedly pretty hard - so, i didn't get much done. oops. oh well.....
was expecting D to come over to collect some stuff he'd left here yesterday, but he was running late, oh well. he did make it in the end! went to melba hall to help out with a concert!
this concert was part of the impressaria series, and Ewa Kupeic was playing. incidentally, i met her yesterday...she was at queen's! (shock horror you say! no way! a real life concert pianist, just ....THERE!!!! yes!!!) i was finding M to tell her i could help out, and instead ended up talking to Ms Kupeic, which was pretty phenomenal. she told me to practice hehe :P. because there is no such thing as too much practice! so, i was there to help with ticketing and programme selling. which went well. it was a great concert, i really enjoyed it.
here comes the epiphany for the day.
as i sat in the concert, listening to schubert, i was thinking about what a great day i had. and that most of it was strung together with music. and i thought, "yeah, i really do enjoy and love music. i could do it for the rest of my life. i could just play piano. i want to do chamber music and i want to be an associate artist."
there, i said it. if anybody asked if i ever had a job in mind, that would probably be my best bet at the moment.
it might change tomorrow, but at least i have thought this at least three times in the last three months!
that made me think "yeah, i think i like it. i could see something happening out of this."
i woke up at about 7am with my alarm, to pull back my curtains and have sunlight STREAMING into my room (perhaps a little too bright mind you!) as S asked me later, "did you have a good morning?" the real answer is a very emphatic "yes!". you see, this sunlight made me happy. listened to the news in bed, and then jumped out for the morning routine of the shower, checking of email and breakfast.
i managed to do about three hours of piano practice in the morning, with a little break within that time. which i thought was pretty enthusiastic! mind you, it would be just lovely if almost every day was like that! i then went to the brass department concert, which was part of the melbourne international festival of brass - a big event indeed! unfortunately, D couldn't come, but that's ok. the horn octet was hilarious, on so many levels. mind you, K, D and I sat there, feeling remarkably and ridiculously local and non-brassy...! haha. the trombone choir was great, especially the wagner.
i got peer-pressured (in a good way!) by S, A & K (who's not even going...!!! haha) to buy a ticket to the wednesday night concert of mifb: stefan dohr & ralph sauer in concert. Dohr is principal horn with the berlin phil. and i suppose one just can't turn down this opportunity to see and hear him play. plus, he's playing the brahms trio. with no other than Duo Sol, of which my teacher is half. so, i should totally go. i'm very excited. because the brahms is awesome. and because this guy plays in the berlin phil!!!! and also because i'm about to embark on the brahms with S & K. should be fun! i wish K was coming so we could have, i dunno, pre-trio bonding?! haha.
afterwards, we (the intention was K & me, and the horn boys, plus others who came along) went for lunch; we bought food from threshermans and then went to the park near the melbourne museum to consume it, while sitting on the grass (S wanted outdoors. great idea, coz it was such a lovely day!) we had a great time, being silly and all. we played hacky sack for a while - i suck at it coz i don't really have any co-ordination, but still fun nevertheless!
it was just such a beautiful afternoon, to just hang out, enjoy the weather, and definitely each other's company! on the way back, ran into a few friends, which was nice. i like how that happens in melbourne, particularly on lygs. it's nice to know that it's really like our own neighbourhood.
attempted to do some work when i got home, which was admittedly pretty hard - so, i didn't get much done. oops. oh well.....
was expecting D to come over to collect some stuff he'd left here yesterday, but he was running late, oh well. he did make it in the end! went to melba hall to help out with a concert!
this concert was part of the impressaria series, and Ewa Kupeic was playing. incidentally, i met her yesterday...she was at queen's! (shock horror you say! no way! a real life concert pianist, just ....THERE!!!! yes!!!) i was finding M to tell her i could help out, and instead ended up talking to Ms Kupeic, which was pretty phenomenal. she told me to practice hehe :P. because there is no such thing as too much practice! so, i was there to help with ticketing and programme selling. which went well. it was a great concert, i really enjoyed it.
here comes the epiphany for the day.
as i sat in the concert, listening to schubert, i was thinking about what a great day i had. and that most of it was strung together with music. and i thought, "yeah, i really do enjoy and love music. i could do it for the rest of my life. i could just play piano. i want to do chamber music and i want to be an associate artist."
there, i said it. if anybody asked if i ever had a job in mind, that would probably be my best bet at the moment.
it might change tomorrow, but at least i have thought this at least three times in the last three months!
Sunday, September 23, 2007
holidays: thoughts and happenings
the potential to do about 5-6hrs of piano practice a day, by doing a morning and an afternoon session, leaving my evenings free. it's worked a couple of times - other days i've been kinda slack...oops....but it is quite nice!
sleeping in till 8.30, shock horror!
taking stock of my life, again. this happens every so often.
often about my course - is this really what i want to be doing?
my mum re-ignited ideas about exchange. i'm hesistant about exchange next year because a) i don't know where i'd go [and before you all say "uh, duh! europe! music!", i do have to consider the commerce degree, where in europe, what university, what sort of programme etc. there are many things to think about! however ideal we'd like it all to be!] b) i feel, well, not necessarily tied down, but committed to commitments - eg. accompaniment roles ('associate artist'. whatever. you know who you are.), choir, chamber groups. just to name a few.
studying and enjoying muse 1-1. thanks for the recommendations guys :)
hanging out at the vic quite a lot. five times in one week, friday to friday, if i'm not mistaken!
going out for coffee/breakfast/dinner with friends. nice :)
trying to figure out course plans for the next two years. kinda hard because the 2008 handbook hasn't come out yet and i suppose some things will change because of the new generation degrees in the melbourne model.
cleaning my room in the afternoon. also known as throwing out a few things. then making new piles of stuff. that are all at 90-degree angles to other things.
and then subsequently turning my room upside down that night in search of something in particular.
only to not find it. but to find lots of other stuff, namely, lots of music! amounting to a pile about 25cm high, including some folders which are only partially full - so, lots of music plus files to clean out so i can use them!
finally cracking open a subject that isn't prac study nor chamber music! haha
techniques listening list.....getting there.....starting, i mean. haha
i should do my laundry.
spending enormous amounts of time on facebook.
wondering if i have to sit by myself at mealtimes because there is almost nobody left at college.
researching: contact lenses from the victorian college of optometry.
finding it very hard to find winter (our summer) programmes for music in europe. or internships - not really sure where to look. this, i suppose, was the latest thought before re-ignition of exchange ideas. perhaps i should google 'scholarhips' instead.....if anybody knows any programmes, let me know - i'd be interested to have a look!
sleeping in till 8.30, shock horror!
taking stock of my life, again. this happens every so often.
often about my course - is this really what i want to be doing?
my mum re-ignited ideas about exchange. i'm hesistant about exchange next year because a) i don't know where i'd go [and before you all say "uh, duh! europe! music!", i do have to consider the commerce degree, where in europe, what university, what sort of programme etc. there are many things to think about! however ideal we'd like it all to be!] b) i feel, well, not necessarily tied down, but committed to commitments - eg. accompaniment roles ('associate artist'. whatever. you know who you are.), choir, chamber groups. just to name a few.
studying and enjoying muse 1-1. thanks for the recommendations guys :)
hanging out at the vic quite a lot. five times in one week, friday to friday, if i'm not mistaken!
going out for coffee/breakfast/dinner with friends. nice :)
trying to figure out course plans for the next two years. kinda hard because the 2008 handbook hasn't come out yet and i suppose some things will change because of the new generation degrees in the melbourne model.
cleaning my room in the afternoon. also known as throwing out a few things. then making new piles of stuff. that are all at 90-degree angles to other things.
and then subsequently turning my room upside down that night in search of something in particular.
only to not find it. but to find lots of other stuff, namely, lots of music! amounting to a pile about 25cm high, including some folders which are only partially full - so, lots of music plus files to clean out so i can use them!
finally cracking open a subject that isn't prac study nor chamber music! haha
techniques listening list.....getting there.....starting, i mean. haha
i should do my laundry.
spending enormous amounts of time on facebook.
wondering if i have to sit by myself at mealtimes because there is almost nobody left at college.
researching: contact lenses from the victorian college of optometry.
finding it very hard to find winter (our summer) programmes for music in europe. or internships - not really sure where to look. this, i suppose, was the latest thought before re-ignition of exchange ideas. perhaps i should google 'scholarhips' instead.....if anybody knows any programmes, let me know - i'd be interested to have a look!
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Phantom of the Opera
This probably isn't the best time to do it, because I like sleep (something that is in great demand and very short supply during the semester) but heck, I'm going to attempt the review....
So, tonight, I went to see Phantom of the Opera at the Princess Theatre. First up, thanks to Simon for organising everybody - you truly are the man of much knowledge.
The theatre is beautiful; unfortunately, I didn't really get a lot of time to wander around because we arrived about 10mins before the start. Oh well, it's in a really nice part of town, and definitely somewhere I'd like to explore more.
So, the review part. I've only ever seen the moview version and heard the music, so I was intrigued to see how everything would be portrayed on stage. We had fantastic seats - smack bang in the centre of row D of the Dress Circle.
Anthony Warlow played the part of the the Phantom. He was by far the most outstanding performer. There is much more acting in the stage version than the movie, and he did this really well. Furthermore, his voice is to die for! Just gorgeous - so much tonal colour, variety and emotion. His projection and characterisation were fantastic.
The role of Christine was well-played - she was a talented young woman. Funnily, her song "Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again" received a lot of applause, but I unfortuantely didn't like her version too much, not least because there were a few pitching issues.
Unfortunately I didn't like the actor who played Raoul. This was probably the thing lacking most for me - it often seemed that he didn't portray a complete character at any one time, that he was either focussed on acting, or singing, but never at the same time. His voice lacked some sort of intense passion that I would associate with the role of 'the lover'. Unfortunately his singing lacked tonal and colour variation and his vowel sounds, particularly "oo" (such as in "you") were very flat, which was disappointing.
The woman who played the dancing instructor of the Opera company was excellent, maintaining poise and character very well. I noticed that this character actually requies quite a large vocal range and great stage presence, of which tonight's performance showcased that. I think that this is a largely under-valued role.
Ensemble singing in the first act suffered a little, as it was sometimes unclear, particularly when different lines were being sung by the different characters. The second act was better in this respect. "Masquerade" was awesome to watch, even if one line was left out, I suppose accidentally! The visual spectacle that is, with so much colour, action and life is quite amazing.
The orchestra was ably led by the conductor - after Urinetown, I have even more respect for musical directors, repetiteurs and conductors of musicals. For at least a third of the musical, I know I was watching the pit instead of the stage! It was interesting to see how it all worked - I could spot out TV screens focussed on the conductor, I could see the conductor giving cues and showing cut-offs (something I wish more people would watch for and follow!), and looking at particular sections. Ok, so it was a bit far to see all of the orchestra, but it was pretty good. Okay, so I'm being picky when I saw that the horns split at least one note (pretty amusing), and that the clarinet was out of tune in one particuarly prominent moment. But overall, the music was very well done - I do really think some of this music is quite poxy, but after dealing with that....the drums (as opposed to the rest of the percussion) sounded quite tinny and synthetic, as if it were an electric drum kit. I wanted to know how many keyboard players there are for the musical! Generally, the horns were excellent (some great runs in there, some great high notes, and some great stopped notes!), the flautist was quite good, and the strings were definitely solid. Of particular mention in the musical which I thought was quite amusing is the bit where the owners of the opera company are exasperating over the added requirements of the Phantom's new opera, and singing about hiring an extra bassoonist - of course, with bassoon holding up the bass line. Hehe. I laughed.
The scenery and costumes were just amazing. Everything was appropriately elaborate. The coolest 2 bits of cool set and the like were probably the coming into the underground lair of the Phantom, and the effects created by those candles. And then when the Phantom disappeared. Just amazing, I still don't know how they did it..!! Those props were pretty cool too, including that staff which emitted fire! The lighting effects were fantastic, particularly with the use of fire and pyrotechnics, which surprised me a bit and hurt my eyes sufficiently :)
I see now that after being so heavily involved in a musical myself, I tend to pick a lot of things up and apart. This doesn't really diminish my ability to enjoy it though (much like listening and analysing a harmonic progression in a song doesn't really wreck my experience of listening to music) - I actually think it enhances it, as I consider things critically. I think this is a much more active way to lead a life!
So really, I thought it was a great production. I'm very happy that I saw Anthony Warlow - he is really the reason I decided to go see the musical, and he played such a demanding character with elegance, passion, finesse and intensity, making it his own. He really made it for me :) If you do get the chance to see this production, it really is a treat. A very sumptuous musical to leave you humming the songs. My kudos go to Anthony Warlow, the orchestra and the musical director!
So, tonight, I went to see Phantom of the Opera at the Princess Theatre. First up, thanks to Simon for organising everybody - you truly are the man of much knowledge.
The theatre is beautiful; unfortunately, I didn't really get a lot of time to wander around because we arrived about 10mins before the start. Oh well, it's in a really nice part of town, and definitely somewhere I'd like to explore more.
So, the review part. I've only ever seen the moview version and heard the music, so I was intrigued to see how everything would be portrayed on stage. We had fantastic seats - smack bang in the centre of row D of the Dress Circle.
Anthony Warlow played the part of the the Phantom. He was by far the most outstanding performer. There is much more acting in the stage version than the movie, and he did this really well. Furthermore, his voice is to die for! Just gorgeous - so much tonal colour, variety and emotion. His projection and characterisation were fantastic.
The role of Christine was well-played - she was a talented young woman. Funnily, her song "Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again" received a lot of applause, but I unfortuantely didn't like her version too much, not least because there were a few pitching issues.
Unfortunately I didn't like the actor who played Raoul. This was probably the thing lacking most for me - it often seemed that he didn't portray a complete character at any one time, that he was either focussed on acting, or singing, but never at the same time. His voice lacked some sort of intense passion that I would associate with the role of 'the lover'. Unfortunately his singing lacked tonal and colour variation and his vowel sounds, particularly "oo" (such as in "you") were very flat, which was disappointing.
The woman who played the dancing instructor of the Opera company was excellent, maintaining poise and character very well. I noticed that this character actually requies quite a large vocal range and great stage presence, of which tonight's performance showcased that. I think that this is a largely under-valued role.
Ensemble singing in the first act suffered a little, as it was sometimes unclear, particularly when different lines were being sung by the different characters. The second act was better in this respect. "Masquerade" was awesome to watch, even if one line was left out, I suppose accidentally! The visual spectacle that is, with so much colour, action and life is quite amazing.
The orchestra was ably led by the conductor - after Urinetown, I have even more respect for musical directors, repetiteurs and conductors of musicals. For at least a third of the musical, I know I was watching the pit instead of the stage! It was interesting to see how it all worked - I could spot out TV screens focussed on the conductor, I could see the conductor giving cues and showing cut-offs (something I wish more people would watch for and follow!), and looking at particular sections. Ok, so it was a bit far to see all of the orchestra, but it was pretty good. Okay, so I'm being picky when I saw that the horns split at least one note (pretty amusing), and that the clarinet was out of tune in one particuarly prominent moment. But overall, the music was very well done - I do really think some of this music is quite poxy, but after dealing with that....the drums (as opposed to the rest of the percussion) sounded quite tinny and synthetic, as if it were an electric drum kit. I wanted to know how many keyboard players there are for the musical! Generally, the horns were excellent (some great runs in there, some great high notes, and some great stopped notes!), the flautist was quite good, and the strings were definitely solid. Of particular mention in the musical which I thought was quite amusing is the bit where the owners of the opera company are exasperating over the added requirements of the Phantom's new opera, and singing about hiring an extra bassoonist - of course, with bassoon holding up the bass line. Hehe. I laughed.
The scenery and costumes were just amazing. Everything was appropriately elaborate. The coolest 2 bits of cool set and the like were probably the coming into the underground lair of the Phantom, and the effects created by those candles. And then when the Phantom disappeared. Just amazing, I still don't know how they did it..!! Those props were pretty cool too, including that staff which emitted fire! The lighting effects were fantastic, particularly with the use of fire and pyrotechnics, which surprised me a bit and hurt my eyes sufficiently :)
I see now that after being so heavily involved in a musical myself, I tend to pick a lot of things up and apart. This doesn't really diminish my ability to enjoy it though (much like listening and analysing a harmonic progression in a song doesn't really wreck my experience of listening to music) - I actually think it enhances it, as I consider things critically. I think this is a much more active way to lead a life!
So really, I thought it was a great production. I'm very happy that I saw Anthony Warlow - he is really the reason I decided to go see the musical, and he played such a demanding character with elegance, passion, finesse and intensity, making it his own. He really made it for me :) If you do get the chance to see this production, it really is a treat. A very sumptuous musical to leave you humming the songs. My kudos go to Anthony Warlow, the orchestra and the musical director!
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
still busy...bring on the holidays
it has still been busy, but is that any surprise?
i missed seeing christian lindberg with aco, which i am a bit miffed about, but that is completely my fault too.
i had dinner at wen-li & jude's place last week - it was amazing, steamed fish and vegetables with rice! ok, so this is something i may typically have at home, but wow, was it super good or what?!
met up with erica on wednesday, it was beautiful just to sit in the sun (well, shade really, but a nice day) and catch up with her and read the bible and talk about stuff.
ace and i went to see 'waitress' at nova on wednesday night - i'd won tickets, being a brunetti's member thingo and all. we really enjoyed it! it's an indie sorta drama/comedy. really enjoyable. my type of film :) then we went to brunetti's, which was just round the corner, to indulge in some dessert and tea (especially after a fairly unsatisfying dinner).
had a very long thursday. it kinda went something like this (some bits i'm very proud of!)
piano practice at 7am or so, for 1.5hrs before my 9am class. yes, that's right, BEFORE a 9am. class 9-11am. more practice in the basement, 11-1. went to a careers seminar (the lady was wafty) at 1.10, till 2pm. hung out for about an hour (revising that morning's lectures, no doubt on the couches in the con foyer...!), rehearsal 3.15-about 4pm, got kicked out, then went to sinfonia at 4.30-6.30. then came home. unfortunately i didn't go to the Switchfoot concert, which i'm a bit miffed about, but i 1) couldn't afford it (despite it being ridiculously cheap for a concert, $45 oh well), and 2) not enough time.
last week was just really busy doing stuff before the weekend...
so, the weekend was APOLLO CAMP!!!!
(gah, the bit that i'd written wasn't saved, and i can't remember what i wrote. darn! oh well)
so, apollo is the group i am involved in, with the choir in particular. we went to shepparton to rehearse some, the opportunity for med kids to look at the rural clincal school, perform a community concert and to basically hang out with each for a weekend.
it was a great weekend - admittedly, i had a smaller choir which was quite unbalanced, but it worked out well in the end.
and what camp wouldn't be complete without some sort of disaster? oh, it happened, just near the very end. take this: we were driving a small truck/large van (to and) from shepparton, and i was getting dropped off at queen's. i got all my stuff out of the back, and the other two guys got back in so they could drive to the next place to unload stuff, and the vehicle wouldn't start. hmm...one first thinks, flat battery. ok. we had to tell the honking taxi behind us that it wasn't going to move so his best option really was to back out the driveway. so, went and got my neighbour to see if he could jumpstart the car. had to push the vehicle so it didn't block the road (actually, watched in amusement as somebody else did it haha). couldn't find button to put the hood up. had to make a zillion phone calls to all sorts of people. i actually had to run off (i was really really late oops..) but it turns out it wasn't a dead battery, but something was actually wrong with the starter motor. sigh! oh well, hopefully all good now.
so, camp was actually really fun - had a great time, walking along the main road in shepp (to burn off the amazingly large amounts of food we ate at dinner on saturday night), interpretive dance to the wiggles' hot potato (including the best peeling of a banana i have ever seen), getting freaked out about extra people in rooms, the game we played on saturday night involving a round of charades which involved me taking (a layer of) clothes off (hahaha...probably don't want to know....! hahaha sorry), walking around shepp, almost driving into the shepp club, george (in a yellow fluoro jacket) directing us around a tight corner, dress-shopping (aka. helen and me diverting into a shop), looking for missing sunglasses and watch, rolls in a bag in the water ('oh snap' hahaha), cow statues of all sorts. fun times :D it was great to meet and get to know med people!
had a bunch of reherasals on tuesday afternoon: 1pm don giovanni sextet, after that some of my own practice, then a trio rehearsal at about 3.30-5pm. lots of playing. quite wonderful really. when i think about the prospect of just playing lots of piano in one day, it really gets me quite excited. nerdy, i know hehe :P
i sat through a faculty of music undergraduate studies committee meeting on wednesday morning. (My piano lesson was cancelled) there was the dean and other various important people representing heads of departments (instrmentally, and specialisation-wise etc.) there were some bits that were interesting - there are many changes going on pertaining to the melbourne model! however, there were some boring bits too...as with most meetings! i went to the MUCO concert on wednesday night (instead of the GM...). considering that reherasals weren't going all too well (as i hear), it stuck together quite well. i went out to koko black with kristen and jen afterwards, which was really nice! i had a chocolate ice-cream martini: wow!!! how amazingly beautiful. that place is just wonderful hehe.
had a rehearsal on thursday, which went well. (wow, can you see how my life could really be described as: "practice, rehearsal, meeting, rehearsal, more practice"?!) i went to sinfonia in the afternoon; john couldn't be there, so mark took it instead. it went really well! there was much more stop-starting, but that was ok. mark would always say something helpful or suggest a way of doing something, like, "play it like this violins" or "let's do something about those note lengths". it was great! i was leading the 2nds, which was scary but fun (we were so hot right now hehe). we played the overture from wagner's tannhauser (however you spell it..), and parts of brahms' symphony 4. much fun-ness!
there was an open vic night on friday night. not too many people came, because people had gone to med ball or home or on camp. but we watched STAR WARS!! (a new hope, and the empire strikes back). i've never really watched them before, so that was pretty epic! almost everybody else in the room had, so they knew when all the funny bits were coming up, and were laughing at those as well as at me, when i made noises of surprise or when i giggled at the funny parts! it was great! i didn't think i'd enjoy star wars at all, to tell you the truth, but after the first one, i fully got into it and promptly announced "we have to watch the next one!". don't worry, i will get to watch them all, it's pretty cool!
i haven't done too much this weekend....there has been a lot of lazing around, just because it's the first weekend of the holidays. so, practice has taken a bit of a battering at the moment. there is much to prepare and practice for!
i had several minor disasters this morning, all before 10 o'clock in the morning!! how terrible! but thankfully, ace was there to help me out, and andrew was there to say everything was ok! thanks guys, you know me too well - stresshead!!!! on our way home from hawthorn this morning, i pointed out that japanese crepe place where you can get sweet or savoury crepes. they were so funny that andrew thought we should have some. hehe. so much fun, it was really amusing actually!
so, today was actually just beatiful - music, friends, eating, enjoying the day. that just seems so ideal really! that's what i definitely could be doing all weekend, all year round :) thanks for so much fun guys! xo
i missed seeing christian lindberg with aco, which i am a bit miffed about, but that is completely my fault too.
i had dinner at wen-li & jude's place last week - it was amazing, steamed fish and vegetables with rice! ok, so this is something i may typically have at home, but wow, was it super good or what?!
met up with erica on wednesday, it was beautiful just to sit in the sun (well, shade really, but a nice day) and catch up with her and read the bible and talk about stuff.
ace and i went to see 'waitress' at nova on wednesday night - i'd won tickets, being a brunetti's member thingo and all. we really enjoyed it! it's an indie sorta drama/comedy. really enjoyable. my type of film :) then we went to brunetti's, which was just round the corner, to indulge in some dessert and tea (especially after a fairly unsatisfying dinner).
had a very long thursday. it kinda went something like this (some bits i'm very proud of!)
piano practice at 7am or so, for 1.5hrs before my 9am class. yes, that's right, BEFORE a 9am. class 9-11am. more practice in the basement, 11-1. went to a careers seminar (the lady was wafty) at 1.10, till 2pm. hung out for about an hour (revising that morning's lectures, no doubt on the couches in the con foyer...!), rehearsal 3.15-about 4pm, got kicked out, then went to sinfonia at 4.30-6.30. then came home. unfortunately i didn't go to the Switchfoot concert, which i'm a bit miffed about, but i 1) couldn't afford it (despite it being ridiculously cheap for a concert, $45 oh well), and 2) not enough time.
last week was just really busy doing stuff before the weekend...
so, the weekend was APOLLO CAMP!!!!
(gah, the bit that i'd written wasn't saved, and i can't remember what i wrote. darn! oh well)
so, apollo is the group i am involved in, with the choir in particular. we went to shepparton to rehearse some, the opportunity for med kids to look at the rural clincal school, perform a community concert and to basically hang out with each for a weekend.
it was a great weekend - admittedly, i had a smaller choir which was quite unbalanced, but it worked out well in the end.
and what camp wouldn't be complete without some sort of disaster? oh, it happened, just near the very end. take this: we were driving a small truck/large van (to and) from shepparton, and i was getting dropped off at queen's. i got all my stuff out of the back, and the other two guys got back in so they could drive to the next place to unload stuff, and the vehicle wouldn't start. hmm...one first thinks, flat battery. ok. we had to tell the honking taxi behind us that it wasn't going to move so his best option really was to back out the driveway. so, went and got my neighbour to see if he could jumpstart the car. had to push the vehicle so it didn't block the road (actually, watched in amusement as somebody else did it haha). couldn't find button to put the hood up. had to make a zillion phone calls to all sorts of people. i actually had to run off (i was really really late oops..) but it turns out it wasn't a dead battery, but something was actually wrong with the starter motor. sigh! oh well, hopefully all good now.
so, camp was actually really fun - had a great time, walking along the main road in shepp (to burn off the amazingly large amounts of food we ate at dinner on saturday night), interpretive dance to the wiggles' hot potato (including the best peeling of a banana i have ever seen), getting freaked out about extra people in rooms, the game we played on saturday night involving a round of charades which involved me taking (a layer of) clothes off (hahaha...probably don't want to know....! hahaha sorry), walking around shepp, almost driving into the shepp club, george (in a yellow fluoro jacket) directing us around a tight corner, dress-shopping (aka. helen and me diverting into a shop), looking for missing sunglasses and watch, rolls in a bag in the water ('oh snap' hahaha), cow statues of all sorts. fun times :D it was great to meet and get to know med people!
had a bunch of reherasals on tuesday afternoon: 1pm don giovanni sextet, after that some of my own practice, then a trio rehearsal at about 3.30-5pm. lots of playing. quite wonderful really. when i think about the prospect of just playing lots of piano in one day, it really gets me quite excited. nerdy, i know hehe :P
i sat through a faculty of music undergraduate studies committee meeting on wednesday morning. (My piano lesson was cancelled) there was the dean and other various important people representing heads of departments (instrmentally, and specialisation-wise etc.) there were some bits that were interesting - there are many changes going on pertaining to the melbourne model! however, there were some boring bits too...as with most meetings! i went to the MUCO concert on wednesday night (instead of the GM...). considering that reherasals weren't going all too well (as i hear), it stuck together quite well. i went out to koko black with kristen and jen afterwards, which was really nice! i had a chocolate ice-cream martini: wow!!! how amazingly beautiful. that place is just wonderful hehe.
had a rehearsal on thursday, which went well. (wow, can you see how my life could really be described as: "practice, rehearsal, meeting, rehearsal, more practice"?!) i went to sinfonia in the afternoon; john couldn't be there, so mark took it instead. it went really well! there was much more stop-starting, but that was ok. mark would always say something helpful or suggest a way of doing something, like, "play it like this violins" or "let's do something about those note lengths". it was great! i was leading the 2nds, which was scary but fun (we were so hot right now hehe). we played the overture from wagner's tannhauser (however you spell it..), and parts of brahms' symphony 4. much fun-ness!
there was an open vic night on friday night. not too many people came, because people had gone to med ball or home or on camp. but we watched STAR WARS!! (a new hope, and the empire strikes back). i've never really watched them before, so that was pretty epic! almost everybody else in the room had, so they knew when all the funny bits were coming up, and were laughing at those as well as at me, when i made noises of surprise or when i giggled at the funny parts! it was great! i didn't think i'd enjoy star wars at all, to tell you the truth, but after the first one, i fully got into it and promptly announced "we have to watch the next one!". don't worry, i will get to watch them all, it's pretty cool!
i haven't done too much this weekend....there has been a lot of lazing around, just because it's the first weekend of the holidays. so, practice has taken a bit of a battering at the moment. there is much to prepare and practice for!
i had several minor disasters this morning, all before 10 o'clock in the morning!! how terrible! but thankfully, ace was there to help me out, and andrew was there to say everything was ok! thanks guys, you know me too well - stresshead!!!! on our way home from hawthorn this morning, i pointed out that japanese crepe place where you can get sweet or savoury crepes. they were so funny that andrew thought we should have some. hehe. so much fun, it was really amusing actually!
so, today was actually just beatiful - music, friends, eating, enjoying the day. that just seems so ideal really! that's what i definitely could be doing all weekend, all year round :) thanks for so much fun guys! xo
Saturday, September 01, 2007
i think i made it...
after getting through production week, i had to keep going through week 5.
went mask shopping last monday, to the city. thankfully it didn't take too long. also bought a book for chamber music notes. i figured that chamber music is something i really want to get into, and i sit in class listening to pearls of wisdom, which somehow exit my mind almost straight away, which is a waste. so, a book to write down these pearls for future reference.
went to the orchestra concert on monday night.
two bad ideas (completely my fault):
1. wear shoes that hurt. and i know they hurt. but then 1a) i suppose is that i didn't take precautions (ie. bandaging) to prevent even more hurt.
2. stay out wayyy too late. luckily, i came home with some friends, so thanks guys!
and Y&J didn't even open up the top part for us...
A) i got asked for ID at the bar, when i ordered a lemon lime & bitters. uhm....there isn't that much alcohol in that drink....it's basically soft drink..!!!
B) towards the end of the night i heard somebody in passing "is it just me or are there lots of really young people here...?!" um...we're not all young, like, underage or even just straight out of school thank you. i felt like turning around and telling her, "um, does that mean you're old?"
ball working-bee on wednesday involved writing names on placecards. daniel commented "the president and vice-president shouldn't be doing tasks like this!" haha. i like his idea of executive :) but it was fun anyway, doing the job with him, ed & bridie.
all years concert class was pretty good. the horn quartet cracked me up - who knew horns could swing it?! and will's composition was absolutely beautiful.
admittedly, i didn't really concentrate very much on thursday, and am surprised i even managed to sit still for part of thursday, because thursday night was MUSIC BALL!!!
photos may come later, no guarantees (ie. just get facebook). preparations started well in the afternoon - involving me having fantastic ideas about hair, and trying to source a lily hair piece. i was really hoping for a clip at the chemist. two chemists later (and no hair piece) i decided that a live lily would have to suffice. the conversation at the florist kinda went like this:
me: "do you have any oriental lillies?"
florist: "white or pink?"
"err..preferably pink, but white's ok too."
"well, we have these"
"i was actually just hoping for just one lily, you know, almost completely open, for tonight"
"well, i could sell you this one..."
i decided to take the whole stem, which comprised of one almost completely open lily, plus two more to bloom over the next week. the lady probably thought i was completely crazy haha.
then the hair-curling began. now let me tell you that my hair doesn't normally curl. it has never, and so i really was quite unsure whether my fantastic plans were going to work out. thanks penny for doing it, and for enduring such a shiny hand/finger from the hair spray. and check this out, i'm going to put in a photo because it's pretty phenomenal...:
i was a bit freaked out coz i had to make the welcoming speech, plus a few thankyous at the beginning of the ball - and if you know me, you'll know that i don't really like public speaking at all. but all ended up going well, and it turned out to be an aweomse night! ok, so we decided that it'd be a good idea at about 2am after the ball to go get macca's. it was a good idea at the time.....not so great afterwards haha. got to bed at about 3am, and woke up (after a sleep in yay!) at about 8.45am. i guess it's no surprise that chamber class was significantly less full than normal - to the extent that everybody could get a seat haha.
was very bored on friday night - i suppose after the excitement of the previous night, it seemed like a funny end to a great week!
went to renee's 21st on saturday night; this required a drive of about 1.5hrs in ben's hire car. hehe fun times. good conversations :) this party was so nice, i had a great time :) and admittedly, i've never been to that area either, so that was really cool!
on sunday night a few of us went to UC parkville, which was cool. that was the first time i'd been, so that was a new experience! we had the urinetown oscars at birra bella that night, after our final production meeting. there were some awesome awards presented, and a final chance to wrap up the excitement and experience that was urinetown. as i look back on the experience, i think several things:
1. I probably wouldn't really choose to do it again. this is not to say i didn't have a good time. there are several reasons for this:
a) this is a massive job. i unfortunately don't have the luxury of time. (although i was impressed i managed to do it, keeping on top of almost all of my uni work. and i didn't skip any classes!)
b) i don't find the music in musicals (in general) to be incredibly fantastic, in terms of the challenge it presents musically. of course, some of it is very hard, and is very good, but when you compare it to the piano repertoire (arguably one of the biggest) i struggle to keep interest when there is little more than oom-cha oom-cha.
c) of course, not to say i didn't enjoy my experience at all - because i did - or that recognition is the only thing one works for, but musical directors definitely don't get enough recognition for everything they do. i suppose it's because they're often left to their own devices, because something like musical directing is very specialised, and not many people can do it. and a lot of time and effort is spent in so many other (also important) things, but i think people sometimes overlook the music in a musical, as if it's a given. but the musical director is actually probably one of the most important people of the show - without that person, there is no musical, there is no show. if the music isn't hot, the show isn't hot. and i think MDs can be seriously under-appreciated.
those are my thoughts so far....
so thus began my week of going out YET AGAIN. i didn't realise this when i planned my semester. when i thought that the week after the show was going to be busy, i didn't really think about the following week. it kinda went like this:
sunday night - urinetown oscars
monday night - jude's smc
tuesday night - kungsbacka trio concert
wednesday night - dinner with mel and tim
thursday night - very long day at uni, didn't go out wow!
friday night - george's 21st
which leaves me sitting here on a saturday night, blogging.
cancelled apollo choir on monday afternoon, coz i felt horrible. i felt pretty bad about having to cancel though, so i went along and waited for a while while people trickled in, only to tell them to go home coz i felt sick. the sick thing is completely my fault - going out lots, not enough sleep. seirously self-induced, i know. but lucky it's med students: "what are your presenting symptoms?" haha. i love hanging out with them, they're awesome!
so, the jude's smc meeting was good. it was good to think about so many issues. thanks erica and jane for the ride home :) haha. and when we circled round the roundabout twice to check on the guy who was lying in the middle but apparently not drunk/passed out, when we realised he had a bag of grocery shopping, and then got up and walked home after we drove past again to ask him "are you ok?" haha.
i was debating all day tuesday whether i should go to the musica viva concert. in the end, the things that convinced me to go were:
1) my brother telling me that i should
2) mel asking me whether i would regret it if i didn't go (the answer was yes)
so i went. i coudln't find anybody else to go with me, so i went by myself. this thought was a bit intimidating, actually, coz i've never been to a concert (or similar kind of thing, such as a movie, or eg. going to dinner) by myself. but it was ok. because:
a) i saw a couple of people i knew (from the con)
b) i had an amazing seat - in the circle (elevated view) smack bang in the middle. all for $15!
c) i met a couple more friends i knew after the concert
d) we listened to the post-concert little chat with two members of the trio, plus one of the composers (obviously not schubert nor smetana...they're dead...)
e) i chatted a bit to the pianist; i told him that i really enjoyed watching him play, then had to explain that i was watching him quite a lot because i am a piano student myself
f) emma ayres (the cellist for the 1st beethoven cello sonata for the beethoven project with 3mbs in week 2, and most definitely the host of the afternoon weekday show on abc classic fm) was hosting this chat. i got to talk to her, she remembered me, then i actually did tell her that i enjoy listening to her :)
so the night was actually fantastic
i had a great piano lesson on wednesday morning. i was nervous, coz i didn't really know what i was doing with the chopin, and don't really play much beethoven (although after the cello sonata, i've been more enthusiastic!) so wasn't sure whether my interpretation was anything like what it's supposed to sound like! but she gave me lots to think about, which was good. i've had 3 lessons in 6 weeks, which by most standards, is not good at all. but it feels like those lessons have been productive, and feels like that i HAVE to be self-motivated (can be hard for me without lessons), and that it's a lot of individual progress, independant study. which i guess has to happen sometime, because a teacher can't hold your hand for your entire life.
went to dinner with mel and tim that night to a place called Rumi, which serves cuisine of arabic-speaking nations. so we had things like: dipping bread with their house-made yoghurt, cigar shaped pastry (omg, so good), persian meatballs, a cauliflower dish, and lamb on rice (best rice i've had in a long while!). it was so beautiful, and oh-so-filling! we walked a bit, came across a beatuful pastry store which caught our eyes (and stomachs!) and had to buy some stuff! yum :)
accompanied nick d for concert class on thursday - he sang poulenc's le bestiaire. it's fantastic. we got ripped for using half-stick, but that was about it. the ensemble worked fantastically. the ending was absolutely magical, this amazing g min 7 chord, labelled "long", "laiser vibrer", and tied over, plus a pause on the bar line. there was this amazing silence as it rang in melba hall. absolutely wonderful. i think that's how wonderful performances end (to quote/paraphrase another student's review) - in magical silence, or to raptous applause.
was a very long day on thursday - up at about 7am, had to meet somebody at 7.45am to give something to them, a day of uni (with funny breaks, not worth coming home to waste time, so brought homework to do on the couch - no wonder people never think i leave!), came home at about 7pm after sinfonia. no wonder i didn't want to go out thursday night!
friday was yet another intense day. (it was an intense week of piano, which is absolutely lovely!) M came to queen's at approximately 8am for our rehearsal at 8.15. J slept through her alarm, came at 8.30. we played through some stuff, then ran down to uni for our 9am chamber music tute. that was fairly intense, but good! H had good stuff to say about our playing, plus lots of comments and suggestions for doing stuff. at 10am, J had another tute (this time with her quintet!), M had a music lesson, and i had the hour off (couldn't find a practice room, sad!). then we had chamber music class, at 11am, whereupon our trio played! we were at the front for a while, about 45mins (of the hour long class!). we played quite well. we were very well-warmed up! so, yeah, about 4 hours of playing before lunchtime! pretty intense!! but fantastic. if only that was all i had to do....lucky i'd done my techniques assignment well in time :)
so, at the moment, working on rachmninoff prelude (b-flat major, pretty intense. i don't get it, caroline suggests stuff then says later, after i've completely committed to it, "it's hard". oh great..! haha). i really have to re-look at the chopin winter wind. it's an intense programme, actually. looks like this:
JS Bach: Prelude & fugue in D Major (bk 2); Prelude & Fugue in E Major (Bk 2)
Chopin: Etudes Op 25 nos 7 (the beautiful one with the conversation between the lh and rh), and 11 (winter wind)
Beethoven: Sonata in a-flat major, op 110 movt 1
Rachmninoff: preludes op 23 nos. 2 & 4
plus keeping up with chamber music:
4 of the 8 pieces for clarinet, viola and piano op 83 by max bruch
accompaniment stuff, including:
a strauss nocturne, saint-seans nocturne, the sextet from don giovanni
i don't think the concerto competition is going to be for me this year...i've hardly looked at it...
oh well.
so, sorry this is insanely long. if you've made it all the way, i'm incredibly impressed. leave me a comment if you did, i'll personally congratulate you! bed time...
went mask shopping last monday, to the city. thankfully it didn't take too long. also bought a book for chamber music notes. i figured that chamber music is something i really want to get into, and i sit in class listening to pearls of wisdom, which somehow exit my mind almost straight away, which is a waste. so, a book to write down these pearls for future reference.
went to the orchestra concert on monday night.
two bad ideas (completely my fault):
1. wear shoes that hurt. and i know they hurt. but then 1a) i suppose is that i didn't take precautions (ie. bandaging) to prevent even more hurt.
2. stay out wayyy too late. luckily, i came home with some friends, so thanks guys!
and Y&J didn't even open up the top part for us...
A) i got asked for ID at the bar, when i ordered a lemon lime & bitters. uhm....there isn't that much alcohol in that drink....it's basically soft drink..!!!
B) towards the end of the night i heard somebody in passing "is it just me or are there lots of really young people here...?!" um...we're not all young, like, underage or even just straight out of school thank you. i felt like turning around and telling her, "um, does that mean you're old?"
ball working-bee on wednesday involved writing names on placecards. daniel commented "the president and vice-president shouldn't be doing tasks like this!" haha. i like his idea of executive :) but it was fun anyway, doing the job with him, ed & bridie.
all years concert class was pretty good. the horn quartet cracked me up - who knew horns could swing it?! and will's composition was absolutely beautiful.
admittedly, i didn't really concentrate very much on thursday, and am surprised i even managed to sit still for part of thursday, because thursday night was MUSIC BALL!!!
photos may come later, no guarantees (ie. just get facebook). preparations started well in the afternoon - involving me having fantastic ideas about hair, and trying to source a lily hair piece. i was really hoping for a clip at the chemist. two chemists later (and no hair piece) i decided that a live lily would have to suffice. the conversation at the florist kinda went like this:
me: "do you have any oriental lillies?"
florist: "white or pink?"
"err..preferably pink, but white's ok too."
"well, we have these"
"i was actually just hoping for just one lily, you know, almost completely open, for tonight"
"well, i could sell you this one..."
i decided to take the whole stem, which comprised of one almost completely open lily, plus two more to bloom over the next week. the lady probably thought i was completely crazy haha.
then the hair-curling began. now let me tell you that my hair doesn't normally curl. it has never, and so i really was quite unsure whether my fantastic plans were going to work out. thanks penny for doing it, and for enduring such a shiny hand/finger from the hair spray. and check this out, i'm going to put in a photo because it's pretty phenomenal...:
i was a bit freaked out coz i had to make the welcoming speech, plus a few thankyous at the beginning of the ball - and if you know me, you'll know that i don't really like public speaking at all. but all ended up going well, and it turned out to be an aweomse night! ok, so we decided that it'd be a good idea at about 2am after the ball to go get macca's. it was a good idea at the time.....not so great afterwards haha. got to bed at about 3am, and woke up (after a sleep in yay!) at about 8.45am. i guess it's no surprise that chamber class was significantly less full than normal - to the extent that everybody could get a seat haha.
was very bored on friday night - i suppose after the excitement of the previous night, it seemed like a funny end to a great week!
went to renee's 21st on saturday night; this required a drive of about 1.5hrs in ben's hire car. hehe fun times. good conversations :) this party was so nice, i had a great time :) and admittedly, i've never been to that area either, so that was really cool!
on sunday night a few of us went to UC parkville, which was cool. that was the first time i'd been, so that was a new experience! we had the urinetown oscars at birra bella that night, after our final production meeting. there were some awesome awards presented, and a final chance to wrap up the excitement and experience that was urinetown. as i look back on the experience, i think several things:
1. I probably wouldn't really choose to do it again. this is not to say i didn't have a good time. there are several reasons for this:
a) this is a massive job. i unfortunately don't have the luxury of time. (although i was impressed i managed to do it, keeping on top of almost all of my uni work. and i didn't skip any classes!)
b) i don't find the music in musicals (in general) to be incredibly fantastic, in terms of the challenge it presents musically. of course, some of it is very hard, and is very good, but when you compare it to the piano repertoire (arguably one of the biggest) i struggle to keep interest when there is little more than oom-cha oom-cha.
c) of course, not to say i didn't enjoy my experience at all - because i did - or that recognition is the only thing one works for, but musical directors definitely don't get enough recognition for everything they do. i suppose it's because they're often left to their own devices, because something like musical directing is very specialised, and not many people can do it. and a lot of time and effort is spent in so many other (also important) things, but i think people sometimes overlook the music in a musical, as if it's a given. but the musical director is actually probably one of the most important people of the show - without that person, there is no musical, there is no show. if the music isn't hot, the show isn't hot. and i think MDs can be seriously under-appreciated.
those are my thoughts so far....
so thus began my week of going out YET AGAIN. i didn't realise this when i planned my semester. when i thought that the week after the show was going to be busy, i didn't really think about the following week. it kinda went like this:
sunday night - urinetown oscars
monday night - jude's smc
tuesday night - kungsbacka trio concert
wednesday night - dinner with mel and tim
thursday night - very long day at uni, didn't go out wow!
friday night - george's 21st
which leaves me sitting here on a saturday night, blogging.
cancelled apollo choir on monday afternoon, coz i felt horrible. i felt pretty bad about having to cancel though, so i went along and waited for a while while people trickled in, only to tell them to go home coz i felt sick. the sick thing is completely my fault - going out lots, not enough sleep. seirously self-induced, i know. but lucky it's med students: "what are your presenting symptoms?" haha. i love hanging out with them, they're awesome!
so, the jude's smc meeting was good. it was good to think about so many issues. thanks erica and jane for the ride home :) haha. and when we circled round the roundabout twice to check on the guy who was lying in the middle but apparently not drunk/passed out, when we realised he had a bag of grocery shopping, and then got up and walked home after we drove past again to ask him "are you ok?" haha.
i was debating all day tuesday whether i should go to the musica viva concert. in the end, the things that convinced me to go were:
1) my brother telling me that i should
2) mel asking me whether i would regret it if i didn't go (the answer was yes)
so i went. i coudln't find anybody else to go with me, so i went by myself. this thought was a bit intimidating, actually, coz i've never been to a concert (or similar kind of thing, such as a movie, or eg. going to dinner) by myself. but it was ok. because:
a) i saw a couple of people i knew (from the con)
b) i had an amazing seat - in the circle (elevated view) smack bang in the middle. all for $15!
c) i met a couple more friends i knew after the concert
d) we listened to the post-concert little chat with two members of the trio, plus one of the composers (obviously not schubert nor smetana...they're dead...)
e) i chatted a bit to the pianist; i told him that i really enjoyed watching him play, then had to explain that i was watching him quite a lot because i am a piano student myself
f) emma ayres (the cellist for the 1st beethoven cello sonata for the beethoven project with 3mbs in week 2, and most definitely the host of the afternoon weekday show on abc classic fm) was hosting this chat. i got to talk to her, she remembered me, then i actually did tell her that i enjoy listening to her :)
so the night was actually fantastic
i had a great piano lesson on wednesday morning. i was nervous, coz i didn't really know what i was doing with the chopin, and don't really play much beethoven (although after the cello sonata, i've been more enthusiastic!) so wasn't sure whether my interpretation was anything like what it's supposed to sound like! but she gave me lots to think about, which was good. i've had 3 lessons in 6 weeks, which by most standards, is not good at all. but it feels like those lessons have been productive, and feels like that i HAVE to be self-motivated (can be hard for me without lessons), and that it's a lot of individual progress, independant study. which i guess has to happen sometime, because a teacher can't hold your hand for your entire life.
went to dinner with mel and tim that night to a place called Rumi, which serves cuisine of arabic-speaking nations. so we had things like: dipping bread with their house-made yoghurt, cigar shaped pastry (omg, so good), persian meatballs, a cauliflower dish, and lamb on rice (best rice i've had in a long while!). it was so beautiful, and oh-so-filling! we walked a bit, came across a beatuful pastry store which caught our eyes (and stomachs!) and had to buy some stuff! yum :)
accompanied nick d for concert class on thursday - he sang poulenc's le bestiaire. it's fantastic. we got ripped for using half-stick, but that was about it. the ensemble worked fantastically. the ending was absolutely magical, this amazing g min 7 chord, labelled "long", "laiser vibrer", and tied over, plus a pause on the bar line. there was this amazing silence as it rang in melba hall. absolutely wonderful. i think that's how wonderful performances end (to quote/paraphrase another student's review) - in magical silence, or to raptous applause.
was a very long day on thursday - up at about 7am, had to meet somebody at 7.45am to give something to them, a day of uni (with funny breaks, not worth coming home to waste time, so brought homework to do on the couch - no wonder people never think i leave!), came home at about 7pm after sinfonia. no wonder i didn't want to go out thursday night!
friday was yet another intense day. (it was an intense week of piano, which is absolutely lovely!) M came to queen's at approximately 8am for our rehearsal at 8.15. J slept through her alarm, came at 8.30. we played through some stuff, then ran down to uni for our 9am chamber music tute. that was fairly intense, but good! H had good stuff to say about our playing, plus lots of comments and suggestions for doing stuff. at 10am, J had another tute (this time with her quintet!), M had a music lesson, and i had the hour off (couldn't find a practice room, sad!). then we had chamber music class, at 11am, whereupon our trio played! we were at the front for a while, about 45mins (of the hour long class!). we played quite well. we were very well-warmed up! so, yeah, about 4 hours of playing before lunchtime! pretty intense!! but fantastic. if only that was all i had to do....lucky i'd done my techniques assignment well in time :)
so, at the moment, working on rachmninoff prelude (b-flat major, pretty intense. i don't get it, caroline suggests stuff then says later, after i've completely committed to it, "it's hard". oh great..! haha). i really have to re-look at the chopin winter wind. it's an intense programme, actually. looks like this:
JS Bach: Prelude & fugue in D Major (bk 2); Prelude & Fugue in E Major (Bk 2)
Chopin: Etudes Op 25 nos 7 (the beautiful one with the conversation between the lh and rh), and 11 (winter wind)
Beethoven: Sonata in a-flat major, op 110 movt 1
Rachmninoff: preludes op 23 nos. 2 & 4
plus keeping up with chamber music:
4 of the 8 pieces for clarinet, viola and piano op 83 by max bruch
accompaniment stuff, including:
a strauss nocturne, saint-seans nocturne, the sextet from don giovanni
i don't think the concerto competition is going to be for me this year...i've hardly looked at it...
oh well.
so, sorry this is insanely long. if you've made it all the way, i'm incredibly impressed. leave me a comment if you did, i'll personally congratulate you! bed time...
| You Are Romanticism |
 You are likely to see the world as it should be, not as it is. You prefer to celebrate the great things people do... not the horrors they're capable of. For you, there is nothing more inspiring than a great hero. You believe that great art reflects the artist's imagination and true ideals. |
Thursday, August 30, 2007
hehe
i could do with a laugh....hope you do too :)
"ooh Nick's singing"
S: "yeah and check out his pianist - she's hot!"
"Gladys Chua? who's she?"
S: "some little, asian chick, plays piano"
E: "and she's so short you dont notice her next to the piano"
S: "and she wears all black so blends in with the piano"
A: "I hear she's really good to work with"
S: "Coz you wouldn't know from experience would you?"
S: "no! not at all!"
i was amused!
well done nick! what an amazing ending....! loved fiona's comments, including "looking forward to seeing you guys work together again!"
S,A&E - you guys crack me up. i find out most stuff eventually ;)
"ooh Nick's singing"
S: "yeah and check out his pianist - she's hot!"
"Gladys Chua? who's she?"
S: "some little, asian chick, plays piano"
E: "and she's so short you dont notice her next to the piano"
S: "and she wears all black so blends in with the piano"
A: "I hear she's really good to work with"
S: "Coz you wouldn't know from experience would you?"
S: "no! not at all!"
i was amused!
well done nick! what an amazing ending....! loved fiona's comments, including "looking forward to seeing you guys work together again!"
S,A&E - you guys crack me up. i find out most stuff eventually ;)
Sunday, August 19, 2007
urinetown
and just like that, Urinetown is over.
but wow, was that an amazing week of all sorts! amazingly tiring, amazingly busy, amazingly stressful, and amazingly wonderful - all at the same time.
we bumped into the theatre just as we were about to completely outgrow the JCR, so that was good timing.
tech run was very stop-start-ish, but i guess that's what tech runs are like. including a 1-about 9pm (with a half hour break for dinner) on the tuesday. luckily i only have one class on tuesday (at 9am)
wednesday night was our dress rehearsal. i cancelled my music lesson coz i felt bad that i hadn't really done that much practice during the week. the dress went fairly well, although there were some hitches (as expected, when you do your first full run-through with everything).
i was so nervous on thursday. i had a class starting at 9am, then rehearsals/tutes going through till 1pm, upon which i had to sell ball tickets. and then i had a sound check at the theatre at 4.30pm, got home at 5pm and then had to be at the theatre at 6pm. i was so disappointed i didn't get time to nap. and surprised that i didn't just fall asleep in the show! the first show went pretty darn well. there were a few hitches at the beginning, but we managed to recover easily and slid back into the scheme of things. just before the show started, i physically felt so sick because i was so nervous! luckily, i felt more confident as the show went on, so i managed to push through it all!
the rest of the shows went fantastically. it was so wonderful to see so many people i knew come along with each successive show. the prize for the most enthusiastic probably goes to my brother though, because he flew in early on saturday morning and back out on sunday morning (yes, to and from PERTH) to see saturday night's show! pretty amazing! everybody i've told has been very impressed!
thank you to all who came and saw the show, and thank you for your support. i hope you enjoyed the show and that it lived up to all we were claiming it to be. xo
but wow, was that an amazing week of all sorts! amazingly tiring, amazingly busy, amazingly stressful, and amazingly wonderful - all at the same time.
we bumped into the theatre just as we were about to completely outgrow the JCR, so that was good timing.
tech run was very stop-start-ish, but i guess that's what tech runs are like. including a 1-about 9pm (with a half hour break for dinner) on the tuesday. luckily i only have one class on tuesday (at 9am)
wednesday night was our dress rehearsal. i cancelled my music lesson coz i felt bad that i hadn't really done that much practice during the week. the dress went fairly well, although there were some hitches (as expected, when you do your first full run-through with everything).
i was so nervous on thursday. i had a class starting at 9am, then rehearsals/tutes going through till 1pm, upon which i had to sell ball tickets. and then i had a sound check at the theatre at 4.30pm, got home at 5pm and then had to be at the theatre at 6pm. i was so disappointed i didn't get time to nap. and surprised that i didn't just fall asleep in the show! the first show went pretty darn well. there were a few hitches at the beginning, but we managed to recover easily and slid back into the scheme of things. just before the show started, i physically felt so sick because i was so nervous! luckily, i felt more confident as the show went on, so i managed to push through it all!
the rest of the shows went fantastically. it was so wonderful to see so many people i knew come along with each successive show. the prize for the most enthusiastic probably goes to my brother though, because he flew in early on saturday morning and back out on sunday morning (yes, to and from PERTH) to see saturday night's show! pretty amazing! everybody i've told has been very impressed!
thank you to all who came and saw the show, and thank you for your support. i hope you enjoyed the show and that it lived up to all we were claiming it to be. xo
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
bracing for a frightening few weeks
saturday 11 august: full run of show with orchestra
sunday 12 august: full run with orchestra, bump-in; re:charge; jude's music
monday 13 august: start of CU mission week; tech run act 1
tuesday 14 august: tech run act 2; mum and dad fly out of perth
wednesday 15 august: dress rehearsal
thursday 16 august: finalise all ball tickets and tables; urinetown opening night; old girls' dinner (obviously not going)
friday 17 august: techniques assignment due; urinetown gala night
saturday 18 august: urinetown matinee; urinetown closing night; urinetown after party; kristen's party; my aunt comes to melbourne
sunday 19 august: uni open day (apollo, music)
monday 20 august: orchestra concert - young & jackson's, here we come! (okay, so the main part of the night is the concert, but Y&J i guess has some bonding memories)
thursday 23 august: music ball
saturday 25 august: renee's 21st
so if i don't get time to see you all in that, i'm really sorry - please try to understand!
i am so scared that i won't get any work done in that time. especially piano practice. eek!
sunday 12 august: full run with orchestra, bump-in; re:charge; jude's music
monday 13 august: start of CU mission week; tech run act 1
tuesday 14 august: tech run act 2; mum and dad fly out of perth
wednesday 15 august: dress rehearsal
thursday 16 august: finalise all ball tickets and tables; urinetown opening night; old girls' dinner (obviously not going)
friday 17 august: techniques assignment due; urinetown gala night
saturday 18 august: urinetown matinee; urinetown closing night; urinetown after party; kristen's party; my aunt comes to melbourne
sunday 19 august: uni open day (apollo, music)
monday 20 august: orchestra concert - young & jackson's, here we come! (okay, so the main part of the night is the concert, but Y&J i guess has some bonding memories)
thursday 23 august: music ball
saturday 25 august: renee's 21st
so if i don't get time to see you all in that, i'm really sorry - please try to understand!
i am so scared that i won't get any work done in that time. especially piano practice. eek!
Saturday, August 04, 2007
very stretchy elastic
sorry to those around me who've had to endure my very elastic-like moods in the past two weeks.
it has stretched from ecstatically enthusiastic, to content, right to the other end of the scale, of severe mopiness (such as now), blah-ness and horrible illness-induced sadness.
i don't know what it is. but for some reason i've been missing lots of people quite a lot recently.
particularly home - it really hasn't ever happened since i moved here, but this semester seems to be quite bad. i suppose one reason is that getting sick makes you realise how much you just really want to be at home, getting TLC and just to be in your own bed, with somebody else pottering over you.
and while i love urinetown, it has been quite a lot of stress, i feel. perhaps i'm adding so much onto it. but conducting the whole show is a somewhat large task. and it's true, i guess people only look at the conductor when things go wrong...and i'm desperately hoping that stuff doesn't go wrong, or that it doesn't go wrong enough for me not to be able to fix it. i will be sad, and reminiscent (is that a word?!) but relieved when it's over.
i guess there's just been lots of pressure at the present moment...deadlines to adhere to, people waiting on my actions before they can do theirs. i've had to organise the sale of music ball tickets, which we're obviously hoping goes really well. i guess i'm so afriad of screwing up so often that i probably place a lot of pressure on myself to get it right. sometimes it pays off.
i went to see the JCH play last night. it was Oscar Wilde's "An Ideal Husband", which is just a beautiful play. we studied it in lit in yr 12, so that was nice. this version was very well done, i thought. by and large, i thought the casting was fantastic, and the acting was quite good, particularly the leads - i loved the desparation of robert chiltern, the morality of gertrude, mabel's obsessive (with goring) nature, goring's fabulous expressive face and comic timing, and mrs cheveley's evilness! i had actually wanted to see the friend who was playing mabel (along with the rest of the show), but also managed to find that the girl playing mrs cheveley was a girl i'd gone to school with, and hadn't seen in a long time! so that was nice :) i really enjoyed going to see this production. that made me smile a lot.
i sometimes wonder at this stage whether there is something medically wrong with me. i really hope not. i really have no reason. my friends have been wonderful - thank you so much guys, i love you heaps, and really appreciate your love, care and concern for me. thank you so much to everybody who's been asking how i am, and whether i'm getting better. thank you for your care. i've just had a few moments of weakness, all in my own privacy. and i guess that makes me feel even more alone sometimes.
i guess all i want to do at this moment is to go to church, spend time with my friends and family, and play music.
it has stretched from ecstatically enthusiastic, to content, right to the other end of the scale, of severe mopiness (such as now), blah-ness and horrible illness-induced sadness.
i don't know what it is. but for some reason i've been missing lots of people quite a lot recently.
particularly home - it really hasn't ever happened since i moved here, but this semester seems to be quite bad. i suppose one reason is that getting sick makes you realise how much you just really want to be at home, getting TLC and just to be in your own bed, with somebody else pottering over you.
and while i love urinetown, it has been quite a lot of stress, i feel. perhaps i'm adding so much onto it. but conducting the whole show is a somewhat large task. and it's true, i guess people only look at the conductor when things go wrong...and i'm desperately hoping that stuff doesn't go wrong, or that it doesn't go wrong enough for me not to be able to fix it. i will be sad, and reminiscent (is that a word?!) but relieved when it's over.
i guess there's just been lots of pressure at the present moment...deadlines to adhere to, people waiting on my actions before they can do theirs. i've had to organise the sale of music ball tickets, which we're obviously hoping goes really well. i guess i'm so afriad of screwing up so often that i probably place a lot of pressure on myself to get it right. sometimes it pays off.
i went to see the JCH play last night. it was Oscar Wilde's "An Ideal Husband", which is just a beautiful play. we studied it in lit in yr 12, so that was nice. this version was very well done, i thought. by and large, i thought the casting was fantastic, and the acting was quite good, particularly the leads - i loved the desparation of robert chiltern, the morality of gertrude, mabel's obsessive (with goring) nature, goring's fabulous expressive face and comic timing, and mrs cheveley's evilness! i had actually wanted to see the friend who was playing mabel (along with the rest of the show), but also managed to find that the girl playing mrs cheveley was a girl i'd gone to school with, and hadn't seen in a long time! so that was nice :) i really enjoyed going to see this production. that made me smile a lot.
i sometimes wonder at this stage whether there is something medically wrong with me. i really hope not. i really have no reason. my friends have been wonderful - thank you so much guys, i love you heaps, and really appreciate your love, care and concern for me. thank you so much to everybody who's been asking how i am, and whether i'm getting better. thank you for your care. i've just had a few moments of weakness, all in my own privacy. and i guess that makes me feel even more alone sometimes.
i guess all i want to do at this moment is to go to church, spend time with my friends and family, and play music.
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
this side of it all
week one down, and already in the middle of week 2.
i feel as if the semester has started without me!
i managed to get quite horribly sick on tuesday night of week 1 (good start, ey?). we (helen, dave, ace and me) went to see the HP movie on monday night - i really enjoyed it! i suppose i won't do a review...if you want to know what i thought, came have a chat to me. i guess i really don't have the energy nor effort to write a review. in summary, i guess i could just say that i really enjoyed it, and although i didn't envision everything as it was portrayed in the movie, i didn't not agree with it, and it was definitely interesting.
had a lesson with lily with caroline on wednesday morning, which i sniffed my way through. i was supposed to have two rehearsals that afternoon (one with lily, one with trio), but i felt so ill that after my piano lesson, i came home, got into my pj's at 11.30am, and hopped into bed for the rest of the day. i kept waking up quite periodically to try and eat, but i felt so ill that it didn't really happen.
it was probably the first time in a very long time that i spent most of the day in bed due to illness.
on wednesday night, i had to page-turn for the seraphim trio concert at melba hall. i sniffed my way through this one, but surprisingly, managed mostly not to have to blow my nose like a trumpet on stage. penny, ace and sal also helped out with catering etc. thanks guys, you're all stars! as for the concert, it was an excellent one - the pieces were fantastic, and the ensemble was great. going to these concerts makes me think about how much i want to play in my own piano trio, because there is so much music for this genre. i just have to find a suitable violinist now...
on thursday, lily and i played the entire beethoven in concert class. both of us were feeling quite blah about it, but we did it anyway, which was good, because it was a chance to get through it all. we nearly fell apart at the end (we were like, a beat out for about two bars) but apparently nobody seemed to notice..? oh well, we got to the end. it turned out alright, we both weren't quite feeling it but it was good to play the whole thing.
had a lesson with zoe on friday, which was really helpful. zoe truly is amazing, and a fantastic teacher - i really enjoyed lessons with her. i had to write a bio about myself (which didn't end up being used), but it was quite boring. i had to try expand it a bit. this is what it is:
Gladys started playing the piano at the age of four, quickly surpassing her fellow students in her group class. Her piano studies continued after relocating from overseas to Perth, Western Australia, at the age of five; her principal teachers for the subsequent twelve years included Ann Taylor and Stephanie Colemen. Gladys is currently a Faculty of Music Merit Scholar at the University of Melbourne, studying music and economics, and has been studying piano under the tutelage of Caroline Almonte for the past two and a half years.
see? boring....i really haven't done much in melbourne, apart from playing in class.
i was supposed to meet xing for coffee (or equivilent) on friday afternoon, but there was a miscommunication, so that ended up not happening. hehe. oh well, we'll just re-schedule. friday night we had connect, which was enjoyable, as always. the vic always seems to fit more people in everytime i look! the new-look vic was most exciting, and the lemon slice cake was beautiful! hehe.
saturday was meetings and trying to get stuff organised. we went to the Idea of North concert at chapel off chapel on saturday night, for their Live DVD launch!
again, it was another fantastic concert. Fields of Gold, and the Aretha Franklin number were highlights, so too was Staying Alive. As well as a little bit of the extras from the DVD...hehe pizza. :P it was ace's first ION live experience, so that was pretty special - she enjoyed it!
wow, all i can say about the concert was that i thought it was awesome, and wish that it could have gone on for longer! there was a point where andrew (the bass) winked at somebody in the audience (i SWEAR it was ME...!!! not the 50 other women sitting on the left block..) and every one of those 50 women must have smiled because he grinned back. haha. ace and i had an argument to claim rights to that wink haha.
of course, afterwards we bought some stuff (i got the live DVD) and said hi to them all again. and it was nice, they remembered us :) well, i kinda expect gina to be remembered (nick surely did!), but i was kinda pleasantly surprised that naomi said, "And who could forget this group?!" hehe...and Andrew said "Ooh yes, I recognised your group, particularly...." (and picks out specific people, including ME! hahaha. I was most amused). So, had a good chat to them, and can't wait for them to come back (again! hehe). Indeed, they are an amazing live performance. for the meantime, the DVD and cds shall have to suffice.
sunday was a lot of rehearsals for urinetown. this show is overcoming my life, but will be over in just over two weeks, which is a scary thought. one this week is over, i can have my rightful pianist in :) yay!
on monday night, i went out for dinner with my cousin, aunt and uncle. my cousin actually lives two colleges away, but we are so busy that we don't really get a chance to hang out! we see each other more often over the holidays when we're at HOME instead of in melbourne! hehe. i didn't get a chance to see myaunt&uncle over the winter break because they'd left for europe before i got home, and returned to perth after i came back to melbourne, so it'd been since february that i hadn't seen them. so, we went out for dinner, which was nice. and of course, they tried to stuff us with lots of food, which we couldn't manage because there was SO MUCH!!! i went to visit my cousin's place at ormond, which was cool., and then my aunt and uncle came to queen's to see my room. the last time they came to queen's was when they came to melbourne to help us move in at the very beginning of this exciting melbourne adventure. they loaded me up with some gifts of clothes and food (necessary items!). it was GREAT to see them :)
on tuesday i had the LIVE AT THE CONVENT Broadcast of the Beethoven Project!
Heck, this probably deserves its own post, but i'm too lazy...so here i go...!
went to class in the morning, which was quite distracting. hehe. then lily and i headed to abbotsford convent, where the 3MBS studios are. we kinda missed the turnoff at first, then had to double back after driving for a little while trying to find a road to turn into and out of. we finally got there, and walked into the convent complex, to be faced with a map and confused directions of which building the radio station was actually housed in! we finally got there, and had to wait for a while for our sound check. we got a little mini-tour of the place, which was cool. i should totally listen to 3MBS more, not just ABC...
we got to go inside the studio where the guy (peter?) would be fiddling with the knobs to make it sound like we were in a much larger space rather than just the performance studio, which was quite small. we got our run, our 3rd movt kinda fell apart...eek! but it was a good run, we were feeling alright about it.
we had to wait for an AGE for the whole thing. the concert actually started at 1.30pm, instead of the information about 1pm that I'd received. oh well. at least some people managed to tune in - many thanks guys :) i know some of you had class, or got a lot of static from the con (who would have thought..?!) i'll be getting a recording (hopefully of all of the sonatas) so that we can re-create the whole effect hehe.
i page-turned for the first two, which was quite exciting....i definitely hadn't heard the beethoven cello sonatas, so it was a good opportunity to hear them all!
of note...the first cellist was emma ayres, whom i'm pretty sure is the same emma ayres on ABC (who does afternoons..?) i should have tried to say something intelligent to her. or at least just something (even if it was unintelligent)...because i really enjoy listening to her on the radio. oh well.....hopefully zoe remembers me when she has students who want to do stuff.
so, lily and i went pretty well. the 2nd movt was great, it felt very comfortable. the unique thing about the 5th cello sonata is that it is the only one with a complete 2nd movt, as a well-developed musical movement. so that's pretty exciting. zoe said some nice things at the beginning, of which i found out later hehe. the 1st movt stuck together, and i started pretty well, so i was quite comfortable. and the formidable 3rd movt has lots of double 3rds, 6ths and 8ves and is feindishly hard for the piano- and it all stuck together! the whole sonata felt fairly comfortable, the nerves really melted away after the first 3 lines or so, and we really enjoyed the experience. at the very end, just as we were finishing those V-I-V-I chords at the close of the 3rd movt, lily and i had fairly stupidly big grins on our faces, because we knew we had made it stick, and we'd gotten to the end together, and we both knew that THAT was the best we could have done at that time, which was pretty good!
so lily, thanks so much for such an enjoyable time playing beethoven with you! we shall look for more repertoire..! :)
right, my piano lesson this morning got cancelled, so i have no classes today, but some recording for urinetown to do, as well as a trio rehearsal. and i should really nip down to the library to photocopy some stuff. and to drop something off at the con.
and i should really go into work, at least for a little while....it'd be pretty horrible to have to say, 2 weeks in, that i'm too busy to work!
and i should get some homework done.....
i'm only taking 3.5 subjects this semester (i did 4.5 last semester, for a reason..!) and 1.5 of those are practical (prac 3-2, and chamber music....mmm..i should practice..), so i don't have too many hours, but somehow my time is being filled up..?
anyway....
sorry this is a mammothly long post....if you got to the end, congratulations. now you can go stare at that white wall to relieve your eyes....!
i feel as if the semester has started without me!
i managed to get quite horribly sick on tuesday night of week 1 (good start, ey?). we (helen, dave, ace and me) went to see the HP movie on monday night - i really enjoyed it! i suppose i won't do a review...if you want to know what i thought, came have a chat to me. i guess i really don't have the energy nor effort to write a review. in summary, i guess i could just say that i really enjoyed it, and although i didn't envision everything as it was portrayed in the movie, i didn't not agree with it, and it was definitely interesting.
had a lesson with lily with caroline on wednesday morning, which i sniffed my way through. i was supposed to have two rehearsals that afternoon (one with lily, one with trio), but i felt so ill that after my piano lesson, i came home, got into my pj's at 11.30am, and hopped into bed for the rest of the day. i kept waking up quite periodically to try and eat, but i felt so ill that it didn't really happen.
it was probably the first time in a very long time that i spent most of the day in bed due to illness.
on wednesday night, i had to page-turn for the seraphim trio concert at melba hall. i sniffed my way through this one, but surprisingly, managed mostly not to have to blow my nose like a trumpet on stage. penny, ace and sal also helped out with catering etc. thanks guys, you're all stars! as for the concert, it was an excellent one - the pieces were fantastic, and the ensemble was great. going to these concerts makes me think about how much i want to play in my own piano trio, because there is so much music for this genre. i just have to find a suitable violinist now...
on thursday, lily and i played the entire beethoven in concert class. both of us were feeling quite blah about it, but we did it anyway, which was good, because it was a chance to get through it all. we nearly fell apart at the end (we were like, a beat out for about two bars) but apparently nobody seemed to notice..? oh well, we got to the end. it turned out alright, we both weren't quite feeling it but it was good to play the whole thing.
had a lesson with zoe on friday, which was really helpful. zoe truly is amazing, and a fantastic teacher - i really enjoyed lessons with her. i had to write a bio about myself (which didn't end up being used), but it was quite boring. i had to try expand it a bit. this is what it is:
Gladys started playing the piano at the age of four, quickly surpassing her fellow students in her group class. Her piano studies continued after relocating from overseas to Perth, Western Australia, at the age of five; her principal teachers for the subsequent twelve years included Ann Taylor and Stephanie Colemen. Gladys is currently a Faculty of Music Merit Scholar at the University of Melbourne, studying music and economics, and has been studying piano under the tutelage of Caroline Almonte for the past two and a half years.
see? boring....i really haven't done much in melbourne, apart from playing in class.
i was supposed to meet xing for coffee (or equivilent) on friday afternoon, but there was a miscommunication, so that ended up not happening. hehe. oh well, we'll just re-schedule. friday night we had connect, which was enjoyable, as always. the vic always seems to fit more people in everytime i look! the new-look vic was most exciting, and the lemon slice cake was beautiful! hehe.
saturday was meetings and trying to get stuff organised. we went to the Idea of North concert at chapel off chapel on saturday night, for their Live DVD launch!
again, it was another fantastic concert. Fields of Gold, and the Aretha Franklin number were highlights, so too was Staying Alive. As well as a little bit of the extras from the DVD...hehe pizza. :P it was ace's first ION live experience, so that was pretty special - she enjoyed it!
wow, all i can say about the concert was that i thought it was awesome, and wish that it could have gone on for longer! there was a point where andrew (the bass) winked at somebody in the audience (i SWEAR it was ME...!!! not the 50 other women sitting on the left block..) and every one of those 50 women must have smiled because he grinned back. haha. ace and i had an argument to claim rights to that wink haha.
of course, afterwards we bought some stuff (i got the live DVD) and said hi to them all again. and it was nice, they remembered us :) well, i kinda expect gina to be remembered (nick surely did!), but i was kinda pleasantly surprised that naomi said, "And who could forget this group?!" hehe...and Andrew said "Ooh yes, I recognised your group, particularly...." (and picks out specific people, including ME! hahaha. I was most amused). So, had a good chat to them, and can't wait for them to come back (again! hehe). Indeed, they are an amazing live performance. for the meantime, the DVD and cds shall have to suffice.
sunday was a lot of rehearsals for urinetown. this show is overcoming my life, but will be over in just over two weeks, which is a scary thought. one this week is over, i can have my rightful pianist in :) yay!
on monday night, i went out for dinner with my cousin, aunt and uncle. my cousin actually lives two colleges away, but we are so busy that we don't really get a chance to hang out! we see each other more often over the holidays when we're at HOME instead of in melbourne! hehe. i didn't get a chance to see myaunt&uncle over the winter break because they'd left for europe before i got home, and returned to perth after i came back to melbourne, so it'd been since february that i hadn't seen them. so, we went out for dinner, which was nice. and of course, they tried to stuff us with lots of food, which we couldn't manage because there was SO MUCH!!! i went to visit my cousin's place at ormond, which was cool., and then my aunt and uncle came to queen's to see my room. the last time they came to queen's was when they came to melbourne to help us move in at the very beginning of this exciting melbourne adventure. they loaded me up with some gifts of clothes and food (necessary items!). it was GREAT to see them :)
on tuesday i had the LIVE AT THE CONVENT Broadcast of the Beethoven Project!
Heck, this probably deserves its own post, but i'm too lazy...so here i go...!
went to class in the morning, which was quite distracting. hehe. then lily and i headed to abbotsford convent, where the 3MBS studios are. we kinda missed the turnoff at first, then had to double back after driving for a little while trying to find a road to turn into and out of. we finally got there, and walked into the convent complex, to be faced with a map and confused directions of which building the radio station was actually housed in! we finally got there, and had to wait for a while for our sound check. we got a little mini-tour of the place, which was cool. i should totally listen to 3MBS more, not just ABC...
we got to go inside the studio where the guy (peter?) would be fiddling with the knobs to make it sound like we were in a much larger space rather than just the performance studio, which was quite small. we got our run, our 3rd movt kinda fell apart...eek! but it was a good run, we were feeling alright about it.
we had to wait for an AGE for the whole thing. the concert actually started at 1.30pm, instead of the information about 1pm that I'd received. oh well. at least some people managed to tune in - many thanks guys :) i know some of you had class, or got a lot of static from the con (who would have thought..?!) i'll be getting a recording (hopefully of all of the sonatas) so that we can re-create the whole effect hehe.
i page-turned for the first two, which was quite exciting....i definitely hadn't heard the beethoven cello sonatas, so it was a good opportunity to hear them all!
of note...the first cellist was emma ayres, whom i'm pretty sure is the same emma ayres on ABC (who does afternoons..?) i should have tried to say something intelligent to her. or at least just something (even if it was unintelligent)...because i really enjoy listening to her on the radio. oh well.....hopefully zoe remembers me when she has students who want to do stuff.
so, lily and i went pretty well. the 2nd movt was great, it felt very comfortable. the unique thing about the 5th cello sonata is that it is the only one with a complete 2nd movt, as a well-developed musical movement. so that's pretty exciting. zoe said some nice things at the beginning, of which i found out later hehe. the 1st movt stuck together, and i started pretty well, so i was quite comfortable. and the formidable 3rd movt has lots of double 3rds, 6ths and 8ves and is feindishly hard for the piano- and it all stuck together! the whole sonata felt fairly comfortable, the nerves really melted away after the first 3 lines or so, and we really enjoyed the experience. at the very end, just as we were finishing those V-I-V-I chords at the close of the 3rd movt, lily and i had fairly stupidly big grins on our faces, because we knew we had made it stick, and we'd gotten to the end together, and we both knew that THAT was the best we could have done at that time, which was pretty good!
so lily, thanks so much for such an enjoyable time playing beethoven with you! we shall look for more repertoire..! :)
right, my piano lesson this morning got cancelled, so i have no classes today, but some recording for urinetown to do, as well as a trio rehearsal. and i should really nip down to the library to photocopy some stuff. and to drop something off at the con.
and i should really go into work, at least for a little while....it'd be pretty horrible to have to say, 2 weeks in, that i'm too busy to work!
and i should get some homework done.....
i'm only taking 3.5 subjects this semester (i did 4.5 last semester, for a reason..!) and 1.5 of those are practical (prac 3-2, and chamber music....mmm..i should practice..), so i don't have too many hours, but somehow my time is being filled up..?
anyway....
sorry this is a mammothly long post....if you got to the end, congratulations. now you can go stare at that white wall to relieve your eyes....!
Friday, July 27, 2007
Live-to-air broadcast
3MBS, Melbourne's local classical music radio station, presents on Tuesdays their "Live at the Convent" series, featuring young Australian artists in direct broadcasts from their studio in Abbotsford, Melbourne. This Tuesday, 31 July, starting at 1pm (AEST; for time difference conversion, try http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/ ), will be the Beethoven cello sonatas, of which I will be playing the 5th one (Op 102 No 2 in D Major) with a cellist. So I will be a little while after 1pm AEST but all of the Beethoven cello sonatas will be great to listen to!
If you are in Melbourne, you can tune into 103.5FM; if you are interstate, or even abroad, you can listen online by going to www.3mbs.org.au, and going to the "Listen Live" tab.
I hope you are able to tune in - your support is always appreciated.
If you are in Melbourne, you can tune into 103.5FM; if you are interstate, or even abroad, you can listen online by going to www.3mbs.org.au, and going to the "Listen Live" tab.
I hope you are able to tune in - your support is always appreciated.
Friday, July 20, 2007
new friends, new stuff in general
admittedly, i have been a bit dormant here. so i'm sorry if you've been waiting for posts, checking regularly only to find that i haven't updated.
but there is a good reason for this. and that is because i've been INCREDIBLY busy.
but now is the time to update on what this business has been.
so, went to ballarat for the first weekend i came back to victoria. ace and i caught the train from spencer street to ballarat, only took about and hour and a half. it was ABSOLUTELY FREEZING! good thing ace had figured most of it out, and pen had given us directions, coz i was absolutely lost! all i know that in ballarat, it is cold. we spent about an hour and a bit in one of the main shopping centres waiting for pen to finish work. most of that time was spent in a cute cafe where we spent them time eating yummy baked goods and drinking tea to warm us up! (you think melbourne is cold, go to ballarat..! haha) anyway, pen came to pick us up and we went to her house! it was so exciting!!!! her house is wonderful! we were treated so well. everything was so beautiful, and so comfortable! we watched pride and prejudice that first night (the new one) and fell in love with jane austen, and lizzie, and darcy, and bingley and all them delightful characters. we stayed up for ages talking that night as well, even when the lights were off! hehe (i find this always happens on the first night..!) it was wonderful being there with pen and her family.
we went to sovereign hill the next day, which has been voted the #1 victorian tourist attraction for a number of years. and golly, does it deserve it or what?! ace and i got 10% off the admission price, plus a free coach ride because we'd come on the VLine. cool offer! there's so much to do at Sovereign hill - watch displays of various sorts, go to the little stores/other town stuff like the school, gold-panning, watching shows, going into mines etc. So much fun. Plus it SNOWED!! at precisely 1pm and 4pm on the dot in the main street. mind you, the snow resembled bubbles from bubble machines very much..... hehe :P it was fun though! there were also guards who marched through the main street ('red coats'!!! ooh!!!) and we got some photos with them, including an amazingly hilarious one of four of us (in the style of pride and prejudice's "Officers!!") with one of the guys. i think his smile in the photo is incredibly honest..!
we went to church with pen's family on sunday morning, which was totally cool. it's nice seeing where people go about their everyday things. things that seem boring to one often seem interesting to others! we went to pen's work afterwards and got to see that too! in the afternoon, pen got her bells out and started playing for us. then i started joining in with some harmonies. eventually, we worked our way basically through an entire hymn book playing tunes with harmonies. it was hilarious!!! unfortunately we had to leave on sunday afternoon... :( but it was a most enjoyable weekend! it was great to hang out with such lovely friends :D
on monday we had a training day for welcome. there was mostly administrative stuff, and brainstorming things like "what will they feel like when they get here?". a fairly comprehensive of "what to do if this happens..." of everything. then we had a st john's ambulance guy come talk to us for about an hour and a half about basic first aid. oh my. this was first aid crammed into this time. and if you've done first aid of any sort, you know how much material there is!
so, what did we learn?
*blue ringed octopuses can kill you in about 6 mins if untreated.
*cone shells are also deadly (unlukily for us, they don't look dangerous at all)
*both of these sea-dwelling creatures live in australian waters
*(i think the box jellyfish also made it....? not sure..)
*sydney funnelwebs are insanely venomous. ie. you can die very quickly
*the taipan is also deadly
*these two also live in australia
(see why i didn't want to leave the room after the talk..?!)
*there are seven ways to burn yourself
*the treatment of spider and snake bits (tightly bandage from beyond the limb to the very top of the limb)
*if you get a snake bite, and if there is venom still on the skin, leave the venom there so they can treat you with the right antivenom.
*bleeding (well, loss of blood) is one of the biggest dangers of losing somebody
*in australia, the emergency number is 000. or 112 from any mobile in australia
*different poisons (ie. chemicals) have different treatments
lots of what the guy talked about i cringed at....especially the story about the blood spurting all over the room - walls, and ceiling - when he fell through a window. urgh, i'm cringing now....
the next day i did RSA training (responsible service of alcohol). this was held from 3-6pm. ie. ideal time for napping. there were times when i had to fight very hard to not fall asleep, particularly in that 20min video. the video was incredibly bad, particularly as it was made in the 80s, and you could tell......
and then there was an assessment at the end. where the instructor was like, "Ok, you have two choices on how to do this! either you individually do your assessment as an open book test or we do it all as a class, and if anybody can tell me the right answer, we can write it down. if nobody can give me the right answer, we'll revert back to the first option, and i'll probably give you the answer anyway." needless to say, i'm pretty sure i got 100% for that test...!
Welcome finally started on wednesday! people moved in, we lugged bags and more bags up lots of stairs. we met lots of new people, of whom i can hardly remember all their names. we met LOTS of new people, it was awesome.
throughout the week, we did lots of fun stuff, including going to:
*the melbourne museum (my first time inside this place, it's awesome! you should totally go, and students get in for free!)
*scav hunt through the city (this was excellently organised! one of the tasks was to go to the audi showroom, and get a quote and all that kind of stuff from the people there. some people actually got driven home in it, and others got a quote - read about $90 000 - for a car etc. it was amazing. they got lots of extra points! and another of the tasks was to buy krispy kremes for one of the hosts. hehe. one group did this!!!)
*Healesville sanctuary (first time there!). renee and i organised this day. there were a few glitches with timing, but mostly turned out well! pity it was so wet though! healesville was awesome, it's a really fun place to go! we had a bbq lunch (true australian style!) and then went to a winery on the way back. it was a beautiful day!
*footy match at the mcg! (first time i've been to the mcg, and first time i went to the footy!!) it was so much fun! admittedly, i think that footy looks quite barbaric, especially on tv. but seeing it live was much more exciting. and even though i didn't really support either team (collingwood or geelong), it was still fun. and it was almost sold out, about 85 000 people! pretty cool :)
on the last night we all went out for dinner (we split up into a few different groups) and then we all met up at commercial for our last night out. it was great to hang out with these new friends, and especially cool because we stayed around for two birthdays the following day.
welcome ended way too soon. it was really cool to meet so many new people, show them round our home, hear different experiences and the like.
had one day of rest, then it was straight into URINETOWN! we went out for dinner on the monday night, as a bonding session. then it was straight into INTENSIVE rehearsals. it has been intensive for the entire week...i know i get up early so that i can fit in some of my own piano practice! so, i'm doing orchestra rehearsals (going quite well!) as well as playing for some of the singing rehearsals (but thankfully freya could do about 3 days worth for me!) and looking in on some other rehearsals. it's a lot...!! it's been lots of fun to work with this group of people though - they're fantastic, usually quite light-hearted, and definitely dedicated.
so the latest development is that there absolutely needs to be a conductor for Urinetown. and that conductor is going to be ME!!! that's it, i'm CONDUCTING THE WHOLE MUSICAL. the whole 1 3/4hr show! me. with a baton in my hand. which means i can't play keys for it (slightly hard..there is a lot of piano in this show), so i've asked lauren to do it - she's agreed (what a champion). really looking forward to it, but am a bit freaked out as i've never done anything like this before. let alone wielded a stick for people to follow.....! any conducting tips would be greatly appreciated!
today i had a rehearsal with lily, which went quite well. then we had a lesson with zoe (lily's teacher) and that went FANTASTICALLY. zoe gave us lots of think about. and was really happy with some bits, so that made us feel more confident about what we were doing. we put in to play the entire sonata for next week's concert class, but we'll see how we feel about it. if all else fails, we'll just play the first movement. but it'd be good experience! and let me tell you, playing on a nice piano and in a spacious room (as opposed to a basement practice room) makes a lot of difference to how you play as well, and how you feel doing the performance, as opposed to just repeating stuff in a banal manner.
i haven't yet seen the HP movie - haven't really had time for very much besides rehearsals! (let me tell you, my own piano practice is taking a battering right now.. :S) but the book is comign out TOMORROW!!!!! like, in 9.5hrs!!!! ooh!!!!!!!!!!! i'm really excited for it, but don't really know when i'm going to read it (in-between rehearsals?!) penny and i went to the shops the other day to pre-book at borders (will be getting plush owl! hehe) - i used my borders gift card, i figured, i have it so i might as well use it!
anyway, just doing some looking over the beethoven (at the insanely hard, complex and weird fugue that is the 3rd movement) and finishing up last things for today, before an early morning down to the bookstore!! xo
but there is a good reason for this. and that is because i've been INCREDIBLY busy.
but now is the time to update on what this business has been.
so, went to ballarat for the first weekend i came back to victoria. ace and i caught the train from spencer street to ballarat, only took about and hour and a half. it was ABSOLUTELY FREEZING! good thing ace had figured most of it out, and pen had given us directions, coz i was absolutely lost! all i know that in ballarat, it is cold. we spent about an hour and a bit in one of the main shopping centres waiting for pen to finish work. most of that time was spent in a cute cafe where we spent them time eating yummy baked goods and drinking tea to warm us up! (you think melbourne is cold, go to ballarat..! haha) anyway, pen came to pick us up and we went to her house! it was so exciting!!!! her house is wonderful! we were treated so well. everything was so beautiful, and so comfortable! we watched pride and prejudice that first night (the new one) and fell in love with jane austen, and lizzie, and darcy, and bingley and all them delightful characters. we stayed up for ages talking that night as well, even when the lights were off! hehe (i find this always happens on the first night..!) it was wonderful being there with pen and her family.
we went to sovereign hill the next day, which has been voted the #1 victorian tourist attraction for a number of years. and golly, does it deserve it or what?! ace and i got 10% off the admission price, plus a free coach ride because we'd come on the VLine. cool offer! there's so much to do at Sovereign hill - watch displays of various sorts, go to the little stores/other town stuff like the school, gold-panning, watching shows, going into mines etc. So much fun. Plus it SNOWED!! at precisely 1pm and 4pm on the dot in the main street. mind you, the snow resembled bubbles from bubble machines very much..... hehe :P it was fun though! there were also guards who marched through the main street ('red coats'!!! ooh!!!) and we got some photos with them, including an amazingly hilarious one of four of us (in the style of pride and prejudice's "Officers!!") with one of the guys. i think his smile in the photo is incredibly honest..!
we went to church with pen's family on sunday morning, which was totally cool. it's nice seeing where people go about their everyday things. things that seem boring to one often seem interesting to others! we went to pen's work afterwards and got to see that too! in the afternoon, pen got her bells out and started playing for us. then i started joining in with some harmonies. eventually, we worked our way basically through an entire hymn book playing tunes with harmonies. it was hilarious!!! unfortunately we had to leave on sunday afternoon... :( but it was a most enjoyable weekend! it was great to hang out with such lovely friends :D
on monday we had a training day for welcome. there was mostly administrative stuff, and brainstorming things like "what will they feel like when they get here?". a fairly comprehensive of "what to do if this happens..." of everything. then we had a st john's ambulance guy come talk to us for about an hour and a half about basic first aid. oh my. this was first aid crammed into this time. and if you've done first aid of any sort, you know how much material there is!
so, what did we learn?
*blue ringed octopuses can kill you in about 6 mins if untreated.
*cone shells are also deadly (unlukily for us, they don't look dangerous at all)
*both of these sea-dwelling creatures live in australian waters
*(i think the box jellyfish also made it....? not sure..)
*sydney funnelwebs are insanely venomous. ie. you can die very quickly
*the taipan is also deadly
*these two also live in australia
(see why i didn't want to leave the room after the talk..?!)
*there are seven ways to burn yourself
*the treatment of spider and snake bits (tightly bandage from beyond the limb to the very top of the limb)
*if you get a snake bite, and if there is venom still on the skin, leave the venom there so they can treat you with the right antivenom.
*bleeding (well, loss of blood) is one of the biggest dangers of losing somebody
*in australia, the emergency number is 000. or 112 from any mobile in australia
*different poisons (ie. chemicals) have different treatments
lots of what the guy talked about i cringed at....especially the story about the blood spurting all over the room - walls, and ceiling - when he fell through a window. urgh, i'm cringing now....
the next day i did RSA training (responsible service of alcohol). this was held from 3-6pm. ie. ideal time for napping. there were times when i had to fight very hard to not fall asleep, particularly in that 20min video. the video was incredibly bad, particularly as it was made in the 80s, and you could tell......
and then there was an assessment at the end. where the instructor was like, "Ok, you have two choices on how to do this! either you individually do your assessment as an open book test or we do it all as a class, and if anybody can tell me the right answer, we can write it down. if nobody can give me the right answer, we'll revert back to the first option, and i'll probably give you the answer anyway." needless to say, i'm pretty sure i got 100% for that test...!
Welcome finally started on wednesday! people moved in, we lugged bags and more bags up lots of stairs. we met lots of new people, of whom i can hardly remember all their names. we met LOTS of new people, it was awesome.
throughout the week, we did lots of fun stuff, including going to:
*the melbourne museum (my first time inside this place, it's awesome! you should totally go, and students get in for free!)
*scav hunt through the city (this was excellently organised! one of the tasks was to go to the audi showroom, and get a quote and all that kind of stuff from the people there. some people actually got driven home in it, and others got a quote - read about $90 000 - for a car etc. it was amazing. they got lots of extra points! and another of the tasks was to buy krispy kremes for one of the hosts. hehe. one group did this!!!)
*Healesville sanctuary (first time there!). renee and i organised this day. there were a few glitches with timing, but mostly turned out well! pity it was so wet though! healesville was awesome, it's a really fun place to go! we had a bbq lunch (true australian style!) and then went to a winery on the way back. it was a beautiful day!
*footy match at the mcg! (first time i've been to the mcg, and first time i went to the footy!!) it was so much fun! admittedly, i think that footy looks quite barbaric, especially on tv. but seeing it live was much more exciting. and even though i didn't really support either team (collingwood or geelong), it was still fun. and it was almost sold out, about 85 000 people! pretty cool :)
on the last night we all went out for dinner (we split up into a few different groups) and then we all met up at commercial for our last night out. it was great to hang out with these new friends, and especially cool because we stayed around for two birthdays the following day.
welcome ended way too soon. it was really cool to meet so many new people, show them round our home, hear different experiences and the like.
had one day of rest, then it was straight into URINETOWN! we went out for dinner on the monday night, as a bonding session. then it was straight into INTENSIVE rehearsals. it has been intensive for the entire week...i know i get up early so that i can fit in some of my own piano practice! so, i'm doing orchestra rehearsals (going quite well!) as well as playing for some of the singing rehearsals (but thankfully freya could do about 3 days worth for me!) and looking in on some other rehearsals. it's a lot...!! it's been lots of fun to work with this group of people though - they're fantastic, usually quite light-hearted, and definitely dedicated.
so the latest development is that there absolutely needs to be a conductor for Urinetown. and that conductor is going to be ME!!! that's it, i'm CONDUCTING THE WHOLE MUSICAL. the whole 1 3/4hr show! me. with a baton in my hand. which means i can't play keys for it (slightly hard..there is a lot of piano in this show), so i've asked lauren to do it - she's agreed (what a champion). really looking forward to it, but am a bit freaked out as i've never done anything like this before. let alone wielded a stick for people to follow.....! any conducting tips would be greatly appreciated!
today i had a rehearsal with lily, which went quite well. then we had a lesson with zoe (lily's teacher) and that went FANTASTICALLY. zoe gave us lots of think about. and was really happy with some bits, so that made us feel more confident about what we were doing. we put in to play the entire sonata for next week's concert class, but we'll see how we feel about it. if all else fails, we'll just play the first movement. but it'd be good experience! and let me tell you, playing on a nice piano and in a spacious room (as opposed to a basement practice room) makes a lot of difference to how you play as well, and how you feel doing the performance, as opposed to just repeating stuff in a banal manner.
i haven't yet seen the HP movie - haven't really had time for very much besides rehearsals! (let me tell you, my own piano practice is taking a battering right now.. :S) but the book is comign out TOMORROW!!!!! like, in 9.5hrs!!!! ooh!!!!!!!!!!! i'm really excited for it, but don't really know when i'm going to read it (in-between rehearsals?!) penny and i went to the shops the other day to pre-book at borders (will be getting plush owl! hehe) - i used my borders gift card, i figured, i have it so i might as well use it!
anyway, just doing some looking over the beethoven (at the insanely hard, complex and weird fugue that is the 3rd movement) and finishing up last things for today, before an early morning down to the bookstore!! xo
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
quotable quote
Heard on national radio during the Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition:
"If only more young men realised how sexy it is to play a string instrument."
I would be inclined to extend that to an instrument in general, but I guess particularly for me, orchestral. Or just classical in general...
"If only more young men realised how sexy it is to play a string instrument."
I would be inclined to extend that to an instrument in general, but I guess particularly for me, orchestral. Or just classical in general...
darn!
i have lost my second earring in three weeks!
this sucks. because they were both really good earrings (in terms of colours, and matching). i am looking for my second one, because i think it dropped out sometime around lunch time. perhaps i'll find it.
the first pair were just a black pair. the second a blue one. both highly functional. well, not anymore, because i only have one now.
i think it's got something to do with my left ear, because they both fell out of my left earhole.
so, what does this mean now?
i should only wear earrings that won't fall out. how i shall ensure this, i'm not too clear. but if anybody has suggestions, it would be greatly appreciated.
and now i have to go look for a pair of suitable replacement earrings. which probably means the market stalls at university, or to hope really hard that a nice friend will make some for me. or that i will learn myself!
gargh. this is almost as annoying as the mouse. :(
this sucks. because they were both really good earrings (in terms of colours, and matching). i am looking for my second one, because i think it dropped out sometime around lunch time. perhaps i'll find it.
the first pair were just a black pair. the second a blue one. both highly functional. well, not anymore, because i only have one now.
i think it's got something to do with my left ear, because they both fell out of my left earhole.
so, what does this mean now?
i should only wear earrings that won't fall out. how i shall ensure this, i'm not too clear. but if anybody has suggestions, it would be greatly appreciated.
and now i have to go look for a pair of suitable replacement earrings. which probably means the market stalls at university, or to hope really hard that a nice friend will make some for me. or that i will learn myself!
gargh. this is almost as annoying as the mouse. :(
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