New year brouhaha

by jon laa on December 31st, 2009

They planned to go to some club last night though I don’t think the plan translated to reality.

This other person asked me to the beach, I think they’re out to ogle at girls. No, I declined to join. I wonder if they still made it there.

I am home though I wouldn’t mind being out. The lack of sleep two nights ago caused a lot of fatigue in my voice. I spent bulk of my time sleeping. It still doesn’t feel right though, like a little on the dry, exhausted side. I could still go to the bottom of my range so I couldn’t have strained it.

Didn’t spend as much time working on se tu m’ami, which was a bad choice. Pieta signore obviously didn’t go too well with all the fatigue. Found amiamo by donizetti and I ran through it as well, it wasn’t all that bad. I think working on a few pieces simultaneously helped develop different aspects of the voice, which is awesome.

:)

I didn’t like how star vincino turned out today. Too much fatigue I think? I’ll try to sleep even earlier today. Gah!

Medium-high voice

by jon laa on December 30th, 2009

Gah.

Decided to go back to my twenty-four arias and work on some of the pieces. Flipped through the book and figured se tu m’ami should probably be the most suitable piece for me to work on now. There’re some Gs and the interval (Bb - G) I have problem with in dalla sua pace. Finding placement is, as usual, a pain.

I seriously think finding the new voice in dalla sua pace is probably a new yardstick for me to work my voice around, given I can’t shed the excessively tensed and unproductive voice at the lower range. I’ve been working placement out on the descending scale and G major works great.

Found out the problem only when I took out donizetti and bellini to browse through. I realised I couldn’t manage them like how I cannot manage pieta signore. Gah!

Probably going to put dalla sua pace aside for now. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to do it in a single setting because of my loser stamina but knowing that I’m on my way there is certainly somewhat a pleasure. I’ll continue working on my stamina, I think. It’s probably one of the only things I can work at while being away from the singing for the bulk of the week.

I’m not sure if this is new direction but I’m certainly enjoying it while it last. And very honestly, I can’t wait to resume classes.

Pleasures of life

by carrie on December 29th, 2009

It really doesn’t make sense for one to be a vegetarian if it adds on to one’s misery.

I think you need some pork. You may feel better about yourself and be less sour, really.

Bitch being

by carrie on December 28th, 2009

Perhaps it’s within their job scope to make life misery for others. Maybe even to instill uncertainty or even fear.

Either way, I’m happy I get to keep my bed space even though I would be glad to lose this rice bowl altogether.

The idiot, the one who seems to have a disliking towards me, is still an idiot. I don’t appreciate the mocking laughter.

But whatever it is, and may be, I’m glad I’m still lying on my awesome, pretty, lovely bed, basking in the presence of love and pleasant company.

Unwanted visitors

by jon laa on December 27th, 2009

I am guessing there might be visitors who get here because they google my email. I should have thought of isolating my email from my website when I bought the domain. But never mind, what is done is done. It’d be convenient to leave a message here to beseech all these unwanted visitors to not my blog because I’ve left a curse or something along those lines. But I figured it isn’t going to work. In the age of individual rights and whatever not, nobody is going to not read just because you don’t want them to.

Besides, I don’t trust them to.

:)

There’s a video in ted which mentions about creative people going insane and such. The speaker, an author, was trying to work out a solution to keep her sanity without affecting her career. And her conclusion was to isolate her creative activity from her so that it becomes two separate entities. Like drawing a fine line of sorts.

The historical bit about this is that in ancient rome and greece, they have geniuses and whatever not - those mythical, divine creatures - who are the ones generating creative work. And nobody actually blames the person involved himself, which is really a brilliant idea if you think about it.

But we’ve moved into the age of self far too long to be detached from it.

It’s a lot of me, myself and I which generates a lot of unnecessary anxiety.

I’m obviously dying from it.

Met w today and it was rather strange. I can’t tell you why. There’re trances of somebody within and he is very sexy of course.

p.s. have you noticed a change in style of writing?

Back from kayaking :)

by jon laa on December 26th, 2009

Face is kinda burnt but not too bad. Got a tan, only upper body. I think I’d go without a skirt next time and let my legs have some sun, hana did that.

:)

There wasn’t an opportunity to try rolls because the water are too choppy and I wouldn’t dare to try in the midst of those more experience kayakers. This is after all my first expedition and my first experience at sea. Be very surprise - I love the waves and currents. There’s something about still water I don’t really like, how strange.

Got real long cuts on my sole. The slippers got stuck in mud several times and I landed my foot in a series of stones. There were plenty of crabs sunning themselves along some of those, it was quite worrisome. I really wouldn’t want to step on them. But after a while it kinda got okay. It was damn gross with the mud, dirty and oil of sorts. The entire place stank too.

Good cross training, I can’t wait to do it again. I saw ubin in the distance and it’s actually damn near. Maybe try a round ubin. Even a short trip across to have a picnic or whatsoever isn’t that bad an idea. I’d really love to get out to the islands and spend some time.

Next time, perhaps.

The ugly side was that we were half an hour late. It couldn’t get more embarrassing.

Fixed do and movable do

by jon laa on December 25th, 2009

The thing about us is that we end up with the most geek conversation. Never mind. Our opinions don’t matter anyways, as long as get to read our music fine. No? It’s probably our impressionable years still. There’s so much we somewhat not know and probably wouldn’t root ourselves upon - too many uncertainties.

And sometimes we don’t move on because we’re so afraid of new challenges and the unforeseeable future.

Please stop annoying me by being smart and not answering my question when you fully comprehended, thanks.

:)

Going out to the sea tomorrow and I haven’t packed. Not entirely new anyways. I probably should remember to. Urgh.

By the way, ouvre tes yeux bleus and nuit d’espagne by massenet are amazing pieces so is berlioz’s absence from nuits d’été.

Note from a dying stranger #1

by jon laa on December 25th, 2009

No better way to put it actually. It’s so much more convenient to be dead than to live with discontentment, misery and whatever not.

Does that constitute to being suicidal?

If they would just stop their endless yakking. It’s not so much of whether I know or not, it’s more of whether I want to do it or not. And I’m pretty sure I know however much they can say wouldn’t make a difference to who I become or who I am or who I will be.

They might as well determine my last day here.

It feels as if this is the last goodbye, and that I will leap out of the window of the building I hate most. Just so to inculcate fear in those who are associated with it. It’s always nice to know that your death serve a dual purpose, something else other than relief.

:)

I really take gratification in writing this.

If really I breathe my last on this christmas day, I wouldn’t really know what to say to everybody. Don’t even think I’d be sorry. I wonder who will shed some tears for me though. And I wonder who will be happy for me.

Like over dinner I was telling tyris, one of those people whom I haven’t met up with since graduation (which is really a long time), how miserable the family is and how fixated they are on assets, monetary wealth and the prospects of their investments. If my death could ease the pain of the self-proclaimed instability of their financial state, I’ll remedy it.

It wasn’t my fault I am here. I never wanted it. Nor mine that I grew up like this.

Nobody seem to take responsibility over who I am. In those impressionable years, where were you?

I never ever quite realised those parents were my parents. The fact that I was the singular, never quite pampered and always dealing with the losing end makes me no different from an unwanted child - an accident perhaps. I couldn’t have been adopted, unless out of abundance of sympathy, because it was evident - at least then - they didn’t want a child.

They seem to have a lot to say though, especially about other people’s child-raising. Maybe somebody could go convey the message how screwed up it has become. No, not so much of being mentally unsound, it’s the reality of a self-perceived experimental mind with barely any fear for death, what is here and what is to come.

The pain is where I have to try to be normal.

In fact, after years of silences and authoritative upbringing, which you have grown so proud of, I really wonder on what basis do you demand communication. Besides hearing lamentations and uncountable unresolved grievances, and unsound refutable claims of being poor and penniless, all there was was silence.

I never spoke because I was not spoken to.

Isn’t that difficult to pretend to be happy, sociable and extrovert have you not already known? I hear people saying how much I’ve changed since enlistment - what a joke. Ever heard of self-defense mechanism?

Then when I breathed my last, I’d like to lay quietly above the unsettling hysterical cries of pain, sorrow and undefined misery. It is when you know all you did was wrong - it started when you think all was right.

In love which never existed thus never heard, known or comprehended,
unnamed

Unbroken connections

by jon laa on December 24th, 2009

And so it was some kind of depressing days for him. I wouldn’t have continued speaking to him if not because it has gone unpleasant enough for me to trigger some cause for concern. Either way, it’s getting better - no cause for concern.

:)

Did christmas shopping and realised I shouldn’t be spending that much? I ended up buying a gift instead of two, which is really unnecessary yet necessary. I don’t know whether I should be forfeiting somebody’s gift for another or not. I had enough budget for two items, both of which are sold out. And it was impossible to find anything to fit the bill - either in substance or monetary restrains.

Boo hoo!

It was rational though it seems not. I figured it’s probably necessary to credit those who stood by during the darkest times. Oh well. I’m sure we all have our lives and one day everybody will move on without me. Perhaps some will make a detour to check on me while others may have forgotten about me already. There are some who came back, saw who I was and decided their pursuits outweigh our relationship - the painful reality.

Maybe that is why it’s all about giving. It’s never quite make sense to stay with somebody. There would be some point in time where agendas crash or burden arises. It’s part of the game. It’s probably also where principles and values in life set in.

:)

And there are people who forget me till they saw me on the road one day, decided to horn in the midst of their journey to yet another destination. They called me on the mobile then, attempted to start a conversation, which was very sweet in itself. Of course me being unsociable and terrible with such awkward situation couldn’t live the conversation enough to create sustenance to its life. Farewell it was. I attempted to salvage it by dropping a text message after I was done with what I was at. I do care, as much as I don’t seem to show it. But I attempted. Peace.

If you didn’t receive anything from me, I’m sorry. I couldn’t have bought anything more than I can afford. Urgh.

If you did receive something from me, please go in peace. Don’t fuss over it. Tsk!

Dalla sua pace

by jon laa on December 24th, 2009

Either way, I was removed from the friend list on facebook.

Managed to run through the first two pages of dalla sua pace. I skipped the runs/coloratura - whichever is the most appropriate technical term. Pleasantly surprised to realise the score only runs for four pages, which means I’m done with half. There’s a small repeat section which takes up almost the entire third page, which means I’m left with the last page. If you were to include the recitative, which comes before the aria, I’ve two more pages.

But I don’t think I would bother with the recitative at this point in time.

In case you think I am so zai to do dalla sua pace, I am not. I did quite a bit of it in staccatos. I think it helps to prevent tension? Like a diaphragm impulse/release of air per note will probably create a better quality, in my opinion. There are a few bars I did without consonants before adding them in.

:)

The other reason why I am doing the one diaphragm impulse/release of air per note thing is because I found a new sensation with my breath, support - whichever floats your boat - and it seems to be more ideal. In my opinion, at least for now, it goes deeper than I would have done.

It’s probably a blind spot thing. And arts, regardless of any form, is probably about unveiling blind spots and discovery. No? There’s so much in theory one could understand but to put it into practice, form, life is an entirely different story altogether.

Of course I know and there’s a lot I have already known, but that’s only all I have.

Be a thinking singer, always.

Pieta.