well prac today was quite good also and almost full attendance i guess. but mr oura didnt go through the songs as thoroughly as he did on monday. probably because he didnt wanna tire out the winds one day before competition...only left one last run through tmrw, one last hour to correct any mistakes left and polish up the songs.
tmrw will be the last official time we perform merry widow and dance celebration as a band with the sec4s of this year, and actually the final public performance with the sec4s before they leave at investiture. time passes so quickly... i can still remember investiture last year when the sec4s then handed leadership over to the sec3s then. at that time, all the sec 4s were all like so sad after they played their batch song and i didnt realise why they were so sad. i mean it was just another batch of sec4s leaving the band and another batch of sec3s taking over...no big deal right?
but now i know why all the sec4s are so sad to leave. its because theyll never be able to share the joy of playing in the same rimb with all their batchmates and the rest of the band anymore. rjc band isnt the same, with all the girls and everyone will be different and not everyone go will back to band in rjc anyway. same goes for rwinds, the alumni band for ri rgs rjc band. its just not the same as being able to perform on the same stage, as one rimb with the rest of your batchmates.
oh well...makes me sad to think that i'll never play the perc soli from merry widow with jerald and benni beside me ever again after tomorrow. after all our hardwork perfecting (:D) it and working so hard to improve it, it all comes down to tomorrow. like jerald said today we've only got one chance, one chance to show the judges and most importantly ourselves and mr oura that we've worked so very hard this year, and we've come a long way from the start of the year when the sec2s just joined the main band. will we be able to prove ourselves.. or will we freak out on stage and make mistakes. whatever happens i think the most important thing is to try our best and have no regrets tmrw afternoon. screw the hw we have to do after that, screw the tests next week, screw the gold silver or bronze we get, they're not that important.
lets just play for the sake of music.
ken posted @ 9:21 PM
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
past few days have been so busy no time to blog! countdown to sibf:
2 DAYS!!
and only one more prac left to "clear up all the shit".
actually, thinking about it i think we have really improved our dance celebration and merry widow since prometheum and the japan trip. it's a pity how mr oura has such a nice interpretation of merry widow yet we dont exactly have that high a standard to complement it...and we are (probably) the weakest band in all 3 raffles bands.
prac yesterday was good though. attendance was good, i think 100% of the sibf players were there. hope it will be the same tomorrow...and we were actually able to go through merry widow quite detailed-ly and run through dance celebration too before we hurried out so rj band could come in. you could tell that most of us were very focused too and maybe we could maintain this discipline all year round, not only when a competition is coming up? then we would be able to improve much faster.
oh well. last prac tmrw before sibf. looking forward to it and batch dinner after that...
joseph! make batch blog!
ken posted @ 10:33 PM
Saturday, July 19, 2008
went to rgs band concert cadenza today! it was nice haha. they played lots of songs. more songs than us...metro gnome was nice! so was ticotico and brazil cos both were samba. but the nicest was percussion ensemble! they performed technology which nycb also performed last year i think. way proer than our perc ensemble -.- william tell and stinking stinkin garbage!
the sec2 perc was also very pro considering she started in sec 1. playing a 4-mallet part and the snare part in techonology. fastest learner in perc ive seen in a very long time! i think she may overtake me by like next year or maybe this year! even though i got so long experience. unless i work harder!
really need to work on my rolls! which are very rough and even now :( and have to improve my paradiddles to like 230bpm by the end of this year.
need heavier sticks!
ken posted @ 10:48 PM
ken posted @ 10:48 PM
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Countdown to SIBF! 7 days!
only one week left till sibf. prac today was quite...unfruitful. with samuel conducting because lucas left to go physics remedial. and then austin taking over because of samuels leaky nose.
oh well...hope we can get gold for sibf. but itll be hard with all the other pro bands in division one and especially philharmonic youth winds :(
ken posted @ 10:26 PM
Monday, July 14, 2008
noooooooooooooo........ have to wake up at like 7 plus tmrw to go to school :( to perform at apcg opening ceremony. stinking stinkin garbage! id rather play even william tell la! even though its a whole lot messier haha.
booooooooo im sleepy
ken posted @ 11:38 PM
Saturday, July 12, 2008
ok im so tired now so shant blog in detail...
today rushed down to church immediately after tuition to meet for community service project. half of us went in the bus and the other half went in the parents' cars... and me, ryan, gabriel tan and nic ow went in nic ow's parents car. half the time ryan was listening to music on his ipod and was like dancing and dancing and singing to himself.
then we arrived at the pelangi village and we went into one of the homes which i forgot what the name of it was haha. but all the ex mental patients were there sitting in some kind of canteen and at first when i saw them i felt like quite uncertain, because they were so many of them and we didnt know what we were going to be like.
but it turned out to be very meaningful...like many of them are like very poor thing and got a sad history like the family abandon them and all those. many of them were very happy when they saw us and even happier after we served them the food and sang the songs for them. even though we were a bit shy (scared?) at the start... we got to talk and interact with many of them and realised that they werent that different after all. i think its just great how they can be so happy while just living a simple life there with all their friends. many of them who we talked to said they were very happy living there as they could talk to all their friends all day and were not lonely at all.
what touched me most was when we were singing the final song before leaving, one of the patients was very happy and his toothless smile was one of the most beautiful things i have ever seen! he was just so happy and was clapping his hands and saying byebye! to us. i cant wait to go back there again. but cant go next saturday though cos of cadenza rg band concert :( or maybe :)
so after that we took the bus back to church cos nic ow's parents hadnt reached and dunno where they were. then got this boring debrief and reflections writing before we were dismissed. i think i wrote more reflections here than in the csp booklet haha.
then me ryan gabriel bong went to the hawker centre near bongs house to eat before going bongs house. we thrashed his house haha! first we went to jump in all the cushions on the floor at his living room. haha then we broke his brother's portrait.
and the end result...
haha nice right! crack until very artistic. anyway its a long story...
first ryan went to bathe in bongs toilet. bong opened the locked door from outside (how did he do that) and then pissed ryan off haha. so bong faster ran to hide in his room and locked the door. then when ryan came out he was also damn pissed so he wanted to get into bongs room. dunno how long bong stayed there and didnt wanna come out...
so ryan being the smart ryan as he is tried to climb in to the room through the window between the living room and bongs room, while bong was playing his guitar and singing. but he didnt wanna let bong know so he took the portrait (above) off the wall and put it on the sofa next to us. so he climbed up into the window and bong tried to push him out but too late... and then ryan fell and dunno who stepped/fell on the portrait. and ta-da! cracked portrait hahahaha. bongs reaction just classic! but at least that got him to come out from the room.
today was fun! gotta wake up early tmrw though for 9 am mass. my dad's coming back from thailand tonight. like about midnight so ill probably stay up to wait, since its already 11 plus...
next week APCG youth summit! Asia- Pacific Conference on Giftedness!
some big event where schools from australia, hong kong, tai wan, korea, bukit timah and orchard send representatives to the conference. but more importantly, no school for a whole week! like march holidays! but theyre stealing it back from us in term4, extending the term by a week. evil.
but who cares. holiday! and sibf soon when we come back...
ken posted @ 10:35 PM
kennethng
2M 2008
RIMB Percussion
21st April
toostinkoz@hotmail.com