it was an eventful day today. i was supposed to meet emily at vch to buy the mep student ticket for the gil shaham concert tonight... somehow i arrived like 20 minutes early. it's weird that when i need to meet my pw group at city hall mrt i take a little more than an hour... but when i stop at raffles place and walk to vch, i take like little less than an hour? ridiculous! i don't walk that fast! mrts are so freaky. just today another two accidents happened... one at redhill and one at bukit batok. and don't forget the one at bishan previously. eeks...

okay, so i waited for emily... she said she was going to be late but was actually just on time. when we tried to buy the tickets, the lady at the counter told us that the mep card is only for category 4, 5 & 6. we were like... "huh?" cos the card says that it's all categories for gala concerts. but even when we kept explaining to her about the card she insisted that it was a mistake and that the computer system's mep tickets are for category 4, 5 & 6 only. obviously all these are sold out by now... sigh. and i can't even afford a category 3 ticket with the 20% student concession. if they had made a printing error on the card, shouldn't they have informed us about it? then we would have bought the category 5 or 6 tickets long time ago... i really don't mind sitting at the back, as long as i get to go. but to wait till the day of the concert to be told that the card holder is not entitled to category 1, 2 & 3 is totally disappointing! as if they'll manage to sell the expensive tickets by concert time... rich people who want to go would have bought their tickets long time ago lor, still wait until concert day to buy meh. if it's the aunty's mistake then i'll be totally irritated... really wanted to go for tonight's concert!

so emily and i went to esplanade library to find scores to include into our compo portfolio appendices. browsed through lots of shelves and books looking like a kiasu nerd who's super eager not to miss out on anything available... hahaha really! i looked through every shelf and every book on each shelf (at the very least it was at the cover and title of the book). in the end i found quite some string quartet scores which i thought would be of help for my third compo... and some two piano works and variations. managed to zap two of the string quartets... the shorter ones. one by bartok and the other by gorecki. since the variations and two piano works were too thick to be zapped there, i decided to borrow three of them. then decided to borrow a ginastera string quartet... if i have time some other day, i think i'll go back for the schoenberg and janacek string quartets.

after dinner at mac's, emily and i decided to "drop by" towers. hahaha... ya, u all know why the inverted commas are there! at first i did find things that are useful for my compos or things i wanted to listen to. i found debussy's images (can't find it in ms... CD 599, anyone took it pls return!) which i'm supposed to get some inspiration from for my third compo, and found a beethoven leonore conducted by karajan with symphony no. 8 i think, can't remember. didn't buy it in the end cos emily found another cd, leonore and fidelio, for 75% off... decided to buy this instead cos it's cheaper plus i already have his symphonies. so when there seemed nothing else to look at, i began flipping through the shelves to see what's for sale... (towers having sale, for those who are interested) the pile of cds in my hands just grew non-stop. i had to exercise some self-control and consider only those i would be interested in or would find helpful and not just take all the cds that are on sale. hahaha, still ended up with lots of cds... joined emily at some table at the corner to decide which cds to buy. ended up spending $73.40... excluding a $10+ cd which emily helped me pay for. wah... no more money liao, luckily no school for the next two weeks. one of the most expensive towers trips i've had... if u don't count the one where i had to collect everyone's verdi requiem. what was funny was that while we were deciding which cds we wanted to buy at the table, this guy, who apparently thought i was just a worker sorting out cds, wanted to take a look at a grieg cd i had decided to buy. hahahaha at least he wasn't angry when i told him i wanted to buy it, and when he couldn't find anymore copies of it on the shelves. and another guy, who also thought i was the worker, asked me whether the price on one of the cds was before or after the discount. hahahaha just told him i wasn't working at towers... maybe i should have been more helpful and inform him that the cds without any stickers stating the discount are still at the usual price? still quite happy though i'm super broke... i love to buy cds!

ok... shall settle back into my usual uneventful life and do something to my compos... i have nothing to show philip tan! listened to brahms' paganini variations and though there are some ideas, i can't seem to get it right. in the first place, his variations are so super hard to play! and ms chew just reminded me on monday not to kill my players... hahaha.

yeah... that's a very good question... i wonder how i ever managed to pass my common tests and promos when i'm such a slacker. argh. totally irritated. u could say i sort of wasted the whole day away.

okay, the morning was not exactly wasted, just a little... here goes the events:
0430: wake up!
0530: getting out of the house and rushing to catch the train (why all the rush when i dun need to be in sch today??)
0645: reaches school and stares at compos at the ms computer, waiting for poh ning to come (only later did i hear from her that she has something on and wouldn't be coming)
0830: sits at ms piano and plonks through harmony exercise 8 a thousand times trying to figure out what chords to use...
0940: gets busy helping ms kang call pple (who are still in bed) to see if they can make it for harmony on sat... (oh, i think it should be confirmed since there hasn't been any news of a change??)
1000: sees ms chew for compo...
1100: tries to find scores and recordings recommended by ms chew while waiting for kankan to come (actually i'm very stupid, should have just msged her abt the harmony and ask her to tell ms kang whether she's free on sat... but then i was also looking for missing recordings and scores so didn't really waste time here)
1130: listens to brahms on the way home but ends up falling asleep...
1300: starts reading transition elements notes (sigh, should have gone for lectures)
1500: falls asleep
1720: tries to concentrate hard on practising...
1930: eats dinner and slacks around watching tv
2100: tries to practise some more
2130: watches tv again
2243: starts blogging

sigh. total slacker... i think the main problem is how to keep awake, not how to keep myself from being distracted. there are not many distractions... nothing nice on tv, don't have so many things to blog about... and practising is not a distraction! if i could just keep my eyes open and refrain from flopping on the bed for "15 minute breaks" (which end up being 2hrs of nap... bleah...). both coffee and tea are not working anymore... and if i continue eating chocolate at this rate, nvm... i don't really want to think of the consequences... hahahaha.

went for the gathering at miss ching's house today... never thought it would make me ponder so much about what i'm going to do after jc. listening to all her older students' experiences made me realise that being passionate about and interested in music is totally different from being good in a music-related profession. one of them did mention that music is not really a stable job... which i think applies more to performers and such, so doesn't bother me that much. but she also said that u have to consider the many things you have to sacrifice in order to do music, and about being the oddball among friends. the latter is quite alright with me, since in our time it's not as extreme a situation as hers... though classmates may question u with wonder and amusement about why and how are u ever going to earn a living on music alone, there are more aspiring "musical people" around to hang out with now. and if worse comes to worse, let people stare. what's wrong with earning a decent living doing what u enjoy?

as for the sacrifice... i dun think i have sacrificed enough to justify that i have invested heavily towards a career in music. though miss ching thinks i'm hardworking enough in terms of practising, i'm totally trailing compared to others who spent like 3 hours a day at the piano! oh, and i'm a super slacker though people think i practise alot... totally not true! hmm well miss ching does say that hard work is not everything, it's not going to bring u success. that's where the problem is. i need to listen... i'm trying hard to squeeze in some listening time into my super-tight schedule, which is quite impossible, so i end up playing recordings while i rush through my homework or revision. that's totally equal to not listening at all, it just makes me feel better that at least i put something on. sigh. well... that just shows i haven't been able to sacrifice some of my time to listen and thus improve my playing...

another thing the student mentioned was how she won some competition yet two years later was so overcome by fear that she withdrew from another competition. she talked about how it was really devastating for her and how she began to move away from music. i can relate to how she felt... sometimes when u go for lesson after lesson and exam after exam yet don't show signs of improvement, it's totally demoralising. just makes me feel like... is it worth it to go through all these just because i used to score well in music exams? or... what am i doing? there are other things i could possibly do without having to put in as much effort.

on the other hand, exam results constantly reassure me that my choice is not wrong. afterall, mep is always the subject with the highest score among the other subjects. and though i should be humble and thank my ex-piano teacher for my grade 8 theory and my theory teacher for my AmusTCL, these results also prove to me that i'm not that useless and that i can make it if i just work harder. sometimes i feel convinced that perhaps piano is not exactly my forte, while music theory, analysis and such are better choices. however, there's just this certain sort of attraction in piano that i can't seem to figure out and come to terms with.

well, so much for "random musings"... hahahaha back to compo again... sigh, another prove of how slack i am. only barely just finished my third compo! need to at least edit one of the other two to show ms chew tomorrow. and haven't started the harmony exercise 8... bleargh.

running out of time yet i have no idea how to edit my compos. finished half of my third compo today... and a bit of its write up. haven't edited the other compos... dunno how i'm going to finish by monday. plus tomorrow got miss ching's gathering. can only count on my experience that inspiration always comes at the last minute. luckily there's no school for now... totally deprived of sleep nowadays. ok... back to compo time... =)

yay! my teacher just told me last night that i got 90 marks for AmusTCL! i'm at a loss of words! was only hanging on to the hope of passing and not even aiming for anything higher than a passing grade... totally unexpected. haven't really felt so cheerful for a long time... and though today's the dreaded friday, it's still okay cos i can hold on to the euphoria from last night plus it's the last day of school! not exactly the last, of cos, but rather the last day of lessons... yes! totally sick of school man... never thought i'd reach this day man. on the other hand, it's quite scary to be here cos it's only two more weeks to prelims and i haven't exactly started...

ok, don't let things like this get me down today... nothing can make me feel sad today! not even the fact that i haven't finished harmony and compo... haha... ok, must pull myself back down to earth and continue doing harmony... otherwise i'd feel really bad even if ms kang doesn't get angry. must rush compo during weekend liao, phillip tan's coming next week and i haven't seen ms chew with my compos yet. though she doesn't seem angry or worried, i still feel very bad. it's not really a good feeling when the teachers are kind to you just because you used to hand in things on time... feel very bad when others are chased for their work and when i hand in late they don't show any forms of unhappiness. though of cos it's not a bad thing too... don't put too much pressure on yourself, rite?

just watched the badminton match. susilo lost! gosh...

less guilty today, finished practising etc in the afternoon, not going to study for chem test... now all i have to do is edit my compos and do watever we'll be going through for maths tmr. which i totally have no idea what it may be... so i shall start with compo. the only thing stopping me is the lack of inspiration. somehow, it never comes when i need it so desperately... it will hit me some time when i'm doing other things totally not related to compo. crap. well, i shall still go and try to do some things and hope it works!

oh, and i just got to complain about the zap uncle man... so irritated with him. Went to photocopy my guzheng scores to submit for prelim recitals... i arranged the scores neatly according to how i wanted to bind it... i.e. blank pages facing each other so that they can photocopy double sided without messing up my page arrangement. so when i explained to the uncle how i wanted him to photocopy it, he didn't understand. still nvm, what really irritated me was when he said, i dunno what you're saying, i print first then say. okay, so i just assumed that he would print it just fine since i already put the pages in order. but he ended up printing two copies of every sheet of paper i gave him, single sided. hello?! if i wanted that, i could have just gave you the whole stack and told you to do two copies of it. why would i have bothered to arrange everything nicely and tell you specifically what i want? so when i told him he printed wrongly and explained again what i wanted, he refused to admit he printed wrongly... he was stubbornly convinced that i gave him wrong instructions... even emily was pissed cos she heard me telling him exactly how i wanted it to be printed. so i had to wait for him to photocopy it again, which he only did after serving two other people behind me in the queue... plus i had to pay for the wrongly printed copies too. what a money-faced monkey! don't understand can ask me to explain again what, and if he decided to go ahead and print it without trying to understand, he should bear the cost when it turns out wrong lor. so crap. wonder how the aunty can stand him man... and the helper who binded my score was totally opposite of him la. she punched the hole too near the edge and she printed it again without charging extra. that's how you do business lor, who wants to use your photocopying services when you're so unreasonable.

in school now... early in the morning, dun feel like doing anything... trying to wake up. this week has been quite hectic... maybe it's partly because my time management is not very good... but there are also other things i can push the blame to. haha, it's nice to do that, then i won't feel that guilty that my week has been bad.

the first thing i can blame is chem remedial test on monday. hello?! what's the use of me taking the test when i only knew on the day itself and didn't study at all? i could just take it home and do it as an exercise and save all the waiting time. 2.10 to 4.40... that's 2 hrs and 30 mins... time enough for me to travel home and still have an extra hour to do work! well, at least i spent most of the waiting time in the recital room practising. i think miss ching was right, when i said that my fingers were too cold to run and the piano is very hard, it was just another excuse. when i practise on the piano i can actually run, except that it's still quite hard to shape it la, considering that the higher you go, the softer the piano gets... but i guess i just couldn't run during the masterclass cos i was too nervous. so monday after dinner, i proceeded as planned to practise guzheng before doing compo. was doing okay until the computer crashed. again. it's so stupid! must restart like five times before it doesn't hang while starting up... and my bro's comp got no sibelius. then i realised the ronald susilo's match with lin dan was replaying on tv. so i went to watch! ok, my own fault... managed to revise a bit of complex numbers.

tuesday was also my fault. bleah. the mep teachers shifted our mep lessons up to 1.20 and 2.10... ended at 3 plus, which saves so much more time than having lessons at 3 and 3.50... BUT... i was so tempted by the tape of singapore idol which one of the year ones borrowed from her friend. we watched and finished at 4.40... the usual time i would have ended school on tuesday. totally my fault. sigh...

the compo session with john sharpley was immensely thought-provoking. hmm... he asked so many questions which i haven't thought about. though i must admit i should have anticipated the question on the rumba. bleah... i did do my research for the write-up for jct, but chucked it aside after completing the write-up. guess i should have familiarized myself with it before going to school today... hahaha. but i did mention in the write-up that it wasn't meant to strictly follow the rumba style, it just contained some elements of the rumba. maybe i'll elaborate more in the next write-up... and probably change the marking of that variation so that it's less suggestive of a rumba.

i was wondering about the two pianos and how he asked if i actually wanted the listener to distinguish between the two. i dunno! i'm so confused. as in, i wrote for two pianos cos it's supposed to enable me to write for a bigger tessitura. cos it's obviously impossible for a single player with even big hands to play chords spanning four octaves. but then like he mentioned, if the two pianos are supposed to merge and sound like one, that would also be problematic cos of tuning. hmmm... so many small little problems in my compo. mozart's double piano concerto was more of like a melodic line divided between the two pianos... only at times when he actually used the advantage of having two pianos to write big chords. i was just so caught up with how beautifully the melodic ideas and stuff are passed between the pianos... especially in the second movement... that i think i overlooked the tuning problems, and failed to think about how such writing would actually make the use of two pianos quite redundant. except if i justified that i needed them to play big chords. then why not write for one piano four hands? big question mark!

he also said that the compo sounded eclectic. (not his exact words, that's what i derive from what he said) when mr sharpley asked if my piece was meant to be humourous, i really didn't know. of cos i didn't think it was humourous, but when people heard it they laughed. but that's not really something to convince me there's humour in the work. after all, people like emily and kankan often laugh at other things... or, in fact, nothing at all. but mr sharpley said the way i jumped from the buildup of the theme to being mysterious in variation 1 and the sudden change to a rumba makes it humourous. actually, it sort of made me think of jacques ibert's divertissement. the way he portrayed the comedy of the plot of a story, or play or watever, it was so vivid. of cos that's after you find out about the story behind it, but before you find out about that you can actually sense the humour and playfulness of the work. (the story was about a bride and bridegroom on the way to a wedding... one of their hats was "kidnapped" by a horse and the comedy's about how to chased after the hat etc) and i was also reminded of mike oldfield's tubular bells. that's what i'd really call eclectic man. in a way, it is humourous, especially if u had no idea what was coming next and when it hits you, suddenly it makes you want to laugh. and the way he switches from one mood to another... it's sort of like watching a very temperamental person having extreme mood swings.

the question is... did i even intend my compo to turn out like that? i don't think so, unlike gerald's the reds, which was meant as something humourous/satire-ry, i only intended to write a theme and variation based on the four-note motive. so why write in so many different styles? why not stick to one style but vary the theme? actually, the compo started with only the last variation. i was actually trying to write an atonal fugue for two pianos, and the subject included the four notes... one on each beat of the first bar. but i wasn't skilled enough to write really a fugue. i don't even think i understand enough of fugues to have started writing one in the first place. i think at that time i was influenced by the fugue in ravel's le tombeau de couperin. but since i couldn't write a complete fugue, it became a fugato section and of cos i had to develop other things out of something disastrous. then came the realisation that the rumba, which was writen earlier as a feeble attempt to do a jazz compo and then discarded, consisted of the same four notes. okay, not the exact same la, as in, the same degrees of the scale, i.e. 1525... so i transposed the rumba into the same key as the fugato. and out of nowhere came the mysterioso variation... at that time it was totally a last minute effort so everything was chucked together and submitted as a theme and variation. guess i should have put in more non-last minute effort huh.

die! after all those mind boggling questions, i dunno what to do to the compo! there's no time to discard it in favour of doing a new one... but there's no way i could re-write variations in the style of any one of those i used! isn't that as good as writing a new compo? i still need a third compo... which was totally a flop during jct. duh! which of the last minute compos not turn out to be flops... probably except murder la. but in my opinion, it's disgusting. probably it's my last resort when all else fails... though i think much more work can be done about it.