Falling

by jon laa on February 7th, 2009

It is very unsettling to know you overexposed yourself and more unsettling to know you never deal with it quite well. The emphasis is always on the wrong noun and there is this huge waste of emotions.

I think at this point in time, it is getting pretty clear who I should be and what I should be working towards. But my dearest lord, to do what I can see is not as easy as to hear what I heard. Please be forgivable and be merciful to those who come after me.

Those pleasant, holy and pure, perfect thoughts have been amazing and I am not sure if they are inculcated into my evilly saturated soul for any beyond-divine reasons.

My dear lord, it is difficult la. I am weak and you know what my weakness are.

And you know, I hate to cheat but I am reduced to taking the easiest way out because I have been wasting my entire week away, and I have been just scraping it through with minimalism.

I shouldn’t even have bothered. The never-say-die attitude is obviously not divine.

Lord, you know there is only one person who ever did love me and all my flaws and there is only one person I loved with all his flaws. I need one of those again, thanks.

Power

by jon laa on February 6th, 2009

Good music is such a terrible distraction. Especially when good music is played good by good musicians, the result is something un-fathomable. In case you are wondering, I am listening to t’ang quartet off youtube and I am being driven to tears.

Okay, back to work. I know.

Gratefulness

by jon laa on February 5th, 2009

Even though my parents aren’t the ideal-perfect parents, I am grateful I have two of them. Not none, nor four. I wouldn’t know how I will be dealing with that.

And also that they have been financially independent enough for me to be financially dependent on them.

I forgot to mention that the farewell recital was not that bad. The pizzicatos that were audible were actually damn good. I love it.

Practised on the violin for an hour or so, on the voice for about half. I believe I did less on the violin today. It’s a bad day, everything seems wrong.

Lucia

by jon laa on February 5th, 2009

I cannot listen to lucia without moving. In occasions when I try (to not move), I end up jerking involuntarily.

Back to work, while mariella devia does her lucia thing.

Laziness

by jon laa on February 5th, 2009

Day 8: woke up late, feeling all soggy. No, no morning practice. Maybe late for work. Music theory class in the evening is unconfirmed. Lots of practising to do - fingering exercises and vocalises. Damn! No time!

Day 7: managed to run through a new piece. It is always easier to play a new piece than to revisit old ones, especially those you know you can play but have grown too rusty that you no longer can. Painful. The new piece was fine, managed to figure most of the notes, wrote some fingerings to avoid playing the wrong note. Only one scale was good, the easiest one. Fingering practises was almost terrible, too many repeated notes.

This is more like a log than a blog.

Forgot my ipod yesterday. Everything felt dull, without imagination. I guess music fuels imagination and keeps your brain occupied over time.

I am late for work, gotta go.

Peace out, whatever.

Dread

by jon laa on February 4th, 2009

Day 7: I’m at work, no morning violin practice. I must remember to when I am home, to see if my hearing has improved. Did sing a little before I went for work, it was awesome. Better than nothing, and better than the usual thing.

Day 6: Morning class at 9:15, I ended up arriving at 10. Dropped at the wrong stop, one stop too early and went to the wrong lift lobby. Got to work only after 12, terrible. Pitching is still haywire. Ears are terrible, not sensitive to pitches. There is tone differences in pitch, which is what I am not aware of. Like flatter notes sounding dead and sharper notes sounding screechy. Epiphany, not. Did not practise at all. Taught till 9:30 before I decided my student is not doing anything constructive, left earlier. Did nothing constructive at home.

There is this slight dread to write, I don’t know why. But I must say I am comfortable with this space. There’s little readers and known readers, which is excellent.

Feeling a little lonely, which is weird. It is not typical of me.

There’s a new woman at work, part-timer.

Ungodly

by jon laa on February 2nd, 2009

The ungodly hour, as nina would put it. I received her invitation for her chalet, but I doubt I can make it.

Going to have violin class at nine tomorrow morning, at the ungodly hour, because my teacher wouldn’t be able to make it on wednesday. My fingers feel numb, and a little cold to touch, so I didn’t practise for the entire day. Not like I had the time to. And theory class was a complete flop, I don’t think it was the quietness but more of the attitude towards learning or the lack of. Bad lesson, I guess. It’s difficult to isolate ourselves from emotions, but I still think it has to be learned. Then again, it’s day 1. The first day is always slightly disappointing, but it can only get better.

The day ended with bad singing. I went back to the pull-up bar and managed to do some monkey stuns on it. Don’t think I should be exerting myself given the bruise on my arm is still slightly visible.

There’s some kind of meeting tomorrow in the city, followed by tuition at night. I don’t think I am going to survive wednesday. On the bright side, I have two evenings to myself. No, I actually have three. I may decide to head down to yst on for their german woodwind recital on friday. I always thought handel was italian. Tsk!

Okay, I need to shower, grab the chicken pies before heading to bed.

I’m glad I made my parents return the library items. It’s comforting to know that I had time to practise and they actually took some time off for a date and got some chicken pies. But knowing my parents, they could have been out at the same place but went off in their own directions/stores before meeting back at a certain time. Oh well.

By the way, internship hasn’t been that great. But the thought of two more weeks, or 9 more days, is immensely pleasurable. And thereafter would be theory, theory and more theory. I don’t foresee myself getting my distinction, which will probably mean I have to go try my luck at the diploma. But we know that I am completely missing the point.

Dear lord!

I have been giving some thought about my post-internship plan. My colleague asked for the second time why am I not going to continue. I think everybody has economic recession at the back of their heads, and employment issues as well, but I will like to have a better grip over my distant future than the immediate.

Back!

by jon laa on February 2nd, 2009

I did manage to attend Nella Hunkins Chamber Recital: A Farewell Concert on friday. And that would mean that I skipped theory class, which is going to be on monday, which is actually when I will have my violin class. And that will mean that violin class will have to be postponed to wednesday, and will probably be stuck at wednesdays for the next two weeks or so.

Practised quite a bit, don’t think I did practise more. My fingering is getting better but I need to align them better. Like, to have a standard point of reference.

Day 2 was a lot better than day 1, everything started to fall in place. The changes could be heard. Day 3 was not that great, it was totally morbid. I ended up tuning the violin, which helped a lot but it may not be perfectly in tune yet. I finally gave up after I figured that it’s the violin’s fault and not mine. I wanted to get batteries for the electric tuner but I didn’t. I didn’t pass by any stores where I can get them. I should have gone daiso while I was at vivocity. Day 4, today, was okay. I didn’t really want to pick it up, I thought I needed a break. But you know, 15 minutes is better than nothing. But I ended up spending quite some time on it again probably between an hour to three. It’s scary how fast time flies when you are practising. And I tuned the violin further against my finger. I know that’s probably the worst thing to do, but I did check it against the keyboard. It sounded fine.

Electric tuners are probably bad ideas. But I will need something to check my tuning against, and so I decided it’s a necessary evil. I’ll rather have a violin in tune so I can fix my fingers, than not.

The recital was okay, not fantastic nor bad. More like, there were good moments and not so good ones. They played beethoven’s piano trio no. 5 in D major, also know as the ghost trio, and tchaikovsky’s piano trio in A minor. The tchaikosky piece was a total test of patience, given I was holding a beyond full bladder. I nearly fainted when they are going to play an entire movement for encore. It would be sweet if they could play something else. Like something fun perhaps. But the encore piece wasn’t that bad. It was the last movement of the ghost trio. For the least, it was in presto.

The first set of pizzicatos were by the violin, I think, I don’t think I heard any before that. But either way, I completely did not hear anything from the last row. It was stupid because you see the violinist’s hands plucking away and you subconsciously started to lean forward to realise you cannot hear anything. The cello line was also pretty difficult to pick up, it was pretty much hidden between/under the piano and violin. There were some lovely lines that could be heard but everything else was difficult to catch from the last row.

There are slips here and there, parts where running notes, or even scales, sounded clumsy like elephants. For the piano, it sounded confused like bisexuals. The steinway (with the pianist) did not allow the possibility of an elephant sound. But you know, it’s forgivable. They are all busy people, the pianist apparently holds a full-time corporate job, and his playing is gorgeous.

Either way, it is the first trio recital I attended.

Now I will remember to get tickets for the rest of the events. I didn’t know it would be that popular. The last time I went over was for a masterclass by stephen hough (which in my opinion is super OMG OMG OMG!) and the hall was about two/three-rows full, or almost completely empty. I also attended a flute masterclass by this funky japanese woman and there weren’t a lot of people around, this was held in some recital studio which looked more like a big classroom.

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