Venting

Listening to :

Dvorak String Quartet "American" Op.96,no.12 in F
1st mov.

It is New Year's eve.Exactly 18 days from MPYO tour and 85 days or less till the next camp.That leaves about 50 or less schooling days,argh!I'm very calculative today,just realized there are only 6 violists in the orchestra!and it's really tough looking for one!Perhaps some violinist should branch out to viola playing,because there are sooo few violist in the WORLD(seriously...I wikipedia-ed it and look what I found!...results were interesting)

LOOK! a list of violists!I don't even have to scroll down and there's only 1 page!
I guess I have to admit Viola's a pretty cool instrument.
=p

Compared to Violinists :
Ok...I won't copy and paste the window,because there are a lot of violinists.It's categorized into 9 categories.

1)19th century
(L.Auer,J.Joachim,N.Paganini,H.Vieuxtemps,E.Ysaye,H.Wieniawski)
2)Post 19th century
(Grumiaux,Heifetz,Milstein,Kriesler,D.Oistrakh,Rabin,Neveu)
3)Notable Pedagogues
(Dorothy DeLay,Carl Flesch,Ivan Galamian,Shinichi Suzuki)
4)Other notable violinists
(Ricci,Kavakos,K.W.Chung,F.Zimmermann,S.Chang,S.Khachatryan)
5)Baroque violinists
(Andrew Manze,Simon Standage,Rachel Podger,Jeanne Lamon)
6)Indian violinists
(extremely long names and will not quote...=p )
7)Middle Eastern
(Aboud Abdel Al,Shajea)
8)Jazz
(Johnny Frigo,Billy Bang,Regina Carter,Stuff Smith)
9)Popular fiddlers
(D'arcy{smashing pumpkins},Mark O'Connor,Sharon Corr{the Corrs})

There you have it...the ratio of violinists to violists is a very obvious one.(well maybe in Wikipedia it is)

Those who have lit a candle in my life

Xmas eve post

yes...it's currently 11.38pm on my computer clock...in 22 minutes it will be Christmas.A day where all young kids will pry open their presents and jump up and down with joy.Last Sunday,I went to my music teacher's house for my usual lessons.About 40 minutes in to the lesson,her young 6 year old son runs in with a present asking my teacher,"mama,is this for me?".She didn't really answer and I thought I was doing her a favor by telling her son it is his present.Actually I was doing the exact opposite.Apparently,my teacher and her elder daughter have been trying to keep the presents away from the tiny fella so he won't throw a tantrum saying he wants to open his presents.So,after my lesson was over,all doors were let loose,the young fella burst into tears because he wanted to open his presents.And he was seriously all drenched in tears!! **seriously* In the end,I guess he gave up?After all,Christmas was only 2 days away.

Enough Christmas talk , I have yet to blog about the recent MPYO Malaysia(Peninsular Malaysia i mean) tour.It was FUN!!filled with...all the essentials...drama,laughter,sadness,emoness and other emotions.This tour has brought a lot of us together,well some of us.Personally,I got to know a lot of new people,and I'm glad because I was kindda afraid my whole 1st-time-orchestral-experience will be me sticking around with just one part or one section of the orchestra.The entire experience all together was just great,eating crappy food(except in Johor's Seri Malaysia and Penang hawker food),getting car-sick,feeling anxious before and after a concert,the late night gatherings,Jumping around like ninjas and singing(like drunkards) love songs like "can't take my eyes off u","love","My girl" and I can't recall what else.

Concert Repertoire :
Ria! fanfare for orchestra by Adeline Wong
Senandung Malaysia by Muriz
Hungarian Dances 1,3 &10 by J.Brahms
Four Scottish Dances by Arnold
Scheherazade by Rimsky-Korsakov(II and III mov)
A London Symphony by Vaughn-Williams

The concerts...no doubt that the Ipoh concert was the best of the bunch!! I don't know,but I remember we were all sighing and whining about how sticky the stage floor was and how dry the room was but weirdly we seem to have made it work.And of course Ipoh crowd was soooo supportive and energetic!!Thanks to Alice's friends. =p and the worst concert?it shall not be named.I loved the repertoire for the tour but I'll have to admit that some of the pieces are not exactly easy to appreciate.You can't compare it to the beautiful Scheherazade Symphony written by the ever-so-perfect Rimsky-Korsakov.Next up more difficult masterpieces ahead,and now with our beloved Concertmaster,Nami Baradan and a few other section principals(Eugenia-D.bass and Angela-viola) gone,we're screwed!!(there are big shoes to fill)maybe it's just a panic attack,but I'm sure we can carry on. Things Change,I quote the Dalai Lama.


Despite a few letdowns and mess-ups during the few concerts,there were just more things to cheer up the orchestra members.I remember a time in Ipoh when we were soooo incredibly hungry after the concert and the MPYO staff brought back McDs for us! somehow McDs never tasted better!!Or like the other time in Kuantan,after the concert when we went to the beach.The waves were very strong and something interesting happened.James and Jia Rong's footwear got washed away by the waves but minutes later...the waves washed it back in! How lucky. =p Speaking of water,we also got caught in the flood on the way back to KL from Johor.It was fun yet scary at the same time.Who knows?The bus engine could have died-ed on us.Oh right and the cute monkey(with the HUGE ass...and it shat in front of us and grabbed shit out of it's anus) walking around in circles in its cage at one of the rest stops.And I can't forget,a thank you goes to Adelyn Yeoh and Philbert Tiki Yong for teaching me how to waltz.



To be continued...