Random sketches: Squirrel

How to teach without a voice?

Must have got a bad flu – lost my voice since early Sunday morning (or late Saturday night?) and still haven’t recovered. Well, recovered a bit, not my voice, but sore throat is mostly gone and don’t feel dizzy anymore. I should be glad that I didn’t lose my voice during my long teaching day on Saturday. Thank God!

But I do have to teach today. How?

A marker and a whiteboard.

One good thing for teaching violin is I get to use a big room in the studio, which also means I can use the whiteboard. So the first thing I did today after arriving at the studio was grab two markers and wrote on the whiteboard:

“I’ve lost my voice. I’ll write instead.”

The first student was brought in by her mom. Her mom saw it immediately and told her daughter to behave herself. The mom also told me that the 10-year-old girl was really too busy with school work this week and so she didn’t practise as much. Throughout the 45 minutes, I basically done all my “talking” with the marker and the whiteboard. The girl didn’t give me any trouble. I usually had to yell a couple times in her lesson.

The second student … got a fever and so was absent. Really appreciate the 30-minute break. The third one never gave me any trouble – he’s a 15-year-old (14? 15? 16?) boy not going for any exam but playing the piano as… just playing. The easiest 30 minutes of the day.

Then came a 10-11-year-old girl who never practice much. She, too, was coughing and was even coughing worse than me. She could be quite  a headache to any teacher who takes teaching seriously. And I am this kind of teacher. She’s not without talent but she’s pretty lazy. I need to kick her at least trice to make her play one scale normally. Today? I just wrote “A major, slurred bow” on the whiteboard. And there was A major, slurred bow. Not without mistake but she played it almost immediately and corrected her mistakes very quickly!

The Primary 1 young boy is a very nice boy. Never gave me headache except his little fingers being a bit too soft and wriggly or completely flat like sausages on the piano. His lesson ran fast like usual. I always have fun in teaching him.

The last one is always a headache. In fact, he wasn’t my student but my colleague’s. He got transferred to me partly because his mom and my colleague couldn’t get along (they’re like Martian VS Human, simply can’t communicate), and partly because my colleague thought this boy was really too much a headache for him. So, when the mom asked if her son could get another teacher, my colleague enthusiastically passed him over. The boy isn’t too naughty. He’s just like a normal 7 to 8-year-old boy: he likes exploring the room; he likes poking around with his bow; he likes talking about the silly things happened in school… so on and so forth. If his mom doesn’t mind her son spending half the lesson on doing non-violin stuff, that’s fine. But his mom does mind it… a lot. So, it’s the teacher’s job to discipline this young boy. But then, this young boy gets really negative if you get tough on him. He’d simply retreat to the corner of the room and refuse to come out. My colleague would get really aggravated but for me, it’s time for my “a spoon of sugar, a spoon of poo” practice (alright, this is purely Cantonese 一啖砂糖一啖屎). This didn’t happen today. Since I couldn’t talk, I used the whiteboard and body language in his lesson. He couldn’t play the G# on D string right? I drew diagrams on the white board explaining the difference between G and G#, and the relationship between G# and A. He played something wrong? I raise up my hand to stop him. If I did this on any normal day, he’d just ignore me. He wanted to talk back? I coughed… very hard. (Hmm… I wasn’t pretending but the timing was just right LOL.) After playing for 40 minutes and there were only 5 minutes left, he said,

“I am very tired!”

This actually happens quite often. Usually, he wouldn’t pick up the violin again before I win the fight of staring. (Right, he stares at me, I stare at him. Whoever relents first is the loser. He’s ALWAYS the loser, of course.) Today? With my really really broken voice, I said,

‘I’m sick; I’ve been teaching for hours; and I haven’t said “I’m tired” yet. So, you are tired?’

His response? He immediately picked up his violin and played that Gavotte by Lully one more time. LOL

This only works on the days when I’m sick.

And this only works if the teacher has a good relationship with the students.

Maybe I should intentionally lose my voice every now and then LOL

Simone Osborne Recital

Powerful voice – maybe too powerful for the lieder tonight sometimes.
Her face worked very hard – she is an opera singer. However, her facial expressions are almost all the same for all the French melodies and German lieder in the program – Sometimes just totally unfit. If I wasn’t reading the lyrics along, I really couldn’t tell what the lyrics (or in fact, poems) were about from her facial expression.
In fact, it’s not just a problem of facial expression, her tone color lacks variety, to my opinion. It’s probably unfair but Andreas Scholl on Tuesday night was WAY better in terms of interpretation and techniques and such. It sounded like she rushed through all the songs.
Her best songs were probably the two encores in English (there’s another encore in Chinese: 好一朵美麗的茉莉花). Of course, the lyrics for those two songs are funny enough and the wide range also helped to show off her high notes. Her effort to sing an encore in Chinese was much appreciated but… really couldn’t tell what she was singing other than the first sentence – another proof of Chinese be ing too hard for Westerners?! She sang O Mio Babbino Caro but… too many people has sung it – too many really good sopranos have sung it really well before and Osborne’s interpretation couldn’t stand at all in front of these gems.
The recital was short: it wasn’t even 9pm yet when she’s finished her program. By the time she’s sung her encores and really ended the program, it was only 9:10pm. The concert started at 8pm.
One word about the accompanist: Have to admit that I am not that familiar with the piano part of the songs tonight but … I really didn’t feel the piano was helping much musically. There were some nice bits but then there were only some.
Conclusion: Simone Osborne is young at her early 20s and her voice matches her age… maybe too well.

A Musicall Banquet by Andreas Scholl and Edin Karamazov

A counter tenor and a lute made a perfect evening yesterday. One great concert at City Hall concert hall. Great singer, great lute player – a perfect pair. Some people may not like counter tenors (I did notice some audience left after intermission last night) but being minority doesn’t mean they’re weird. One funny thing was that Andreas Scholl choked himself as he started singing Amarili. I noticed that he started at a faster tempo than he sang it in recordings and before he could finish the first phrase “Amarili, mia bella”, he had to stop, humbly apologized and restarted the song.

Thank God that He doesn’t see us this way

Maybe even the best is not good enough to some people’s ears…

The choir members did their best this morning to offer the best they could in service. I believe so.

We joked that there were fourteen of us in the choir and there were fourteen parts. It’s true but still I believe all of us have done our parts the best we could.

Someone asked why we didn’t have a pianist and used synthetic music as accompaniment instead – because we couldn’t find a pianist. “You can play the piano part.” – I have to sing.

“It makes no difference if they don’t sing.” (佢地唱唔唱都冇分別 – the speaker actually meant it’s better than they don’t sing.)

The same person said to me after I played the violin in church, “it sounded awful”.

The second time I played the violin in service, this same person said “you played so many wrong notes. It’s sounded so bad.” (Oh well, it was my own arrangement. Ain’t I supposed to have the final say on what notes to play?)

The third time I needed to play the violin in service… I simply avoided this person. I didn’t want to give this person a chance to say something that ought not be said. Music in church is an offering to God. It’s NEVER a performance to please man.

Maybe even the best is not good enough to some people’s ears… but thank God that He doesn’t see us this way.

My 5th Grade 8

Took ABRSM grade 8 in Singing on May 26: had never been so unsure about my own performance in an exam before. Singing in a sound-proof room is very different from singing in any other room. Everything sounded dry and nothing seemed right. And singing seems to be more tiring than doing other instruments (at least the instruments I do – probably not any worse than winds). I even got wrong in modulation (aural test C)… almost – corrected it right after giving my initial answer. Wasn’t sure what/how I did in Part D either.

Anyway, after waiting for six weeks, the result is finally here: I got merit with 126. Yay!

The program I chose for that day was:

Ridente la Calma by Mozart

Notre Amour by Faure

Love’s Philosophy by Quilter

Someone to Watch Over Me by Gershwin

with When I Survey the Wondrous Cross (to the music of The Water is Wide) as the traditional song.

The examiner that day was a singer herself. She majored in singing when she was in RCM (forgot from which part of UK). So, I feel kinda happier to get merit in this one than getting merit in my harp exam a few years back. The harp examiner was a pianist and obviously knew nothing about harp. I’m so sure coz I missed notes on one hand for like an octave in many scales (3-octave hands together) and still got it counted as correct.

Anyway, comments show that my “Italian pronunciation required more care” for the Mozart one and “diction needed more care” in Notre Amour. I speak a bit French but not so sure about how liaison works in singing – should have asked for help from my student’s mom who’s a native French. She also mentioned arm movements in two of the songs. Other than these, comments are generally positive.

General comments from the examiner: A pleasing “merit” at this challenging grade! I hope that you will continue to explore new songs and further develop those areas which stll need strengthening.

Oh! Certainly I will =P

So, I’ve now got grade 8 (or above) in Piano, Violin, Harp, Singing, and Theory. The next one should be guitar. Joseph, we needa work harder! LOL

P.S. Special thanks to my teacher, Roy, who tolerated my lack of punctuality; my cousin, Domanica, who took half day off to be my accompanist; my friend, Iris, who played the piano part for me during lessons (hey, it’s good sight-reading training LOL).

Awakening

I am awakening from a long dormancy.

Played violin in church. It went pretty good… a few people came up to me and said they’re touched. So I guess God did like it and made use of it. I’m again working with Anthony. I played the violin last Christmas also with Anthony being the praise team leader. But before the Christmas offertory music, the last time I played in church was… hmm.. probably 8 years ago maybe? I have been dormant for too long… 

But I am awakening… 

Different from what I played last time (I played Gavotte en Rondeau from Bach’s Partita No.3) , I played a hymn, It is well with my soul, which is easier than the Bach one. It proves again the most simple things are usually the things that most easily touch people people’s hearts. It also reminds me again playing music in church is really about for the greater glory of God but not for the glory of oneself. It’s  about worship, not showmanship. 

Ad majorem Dei gloriam – for the greater glory of God

Finding FANA

One of the goals of my Kansai trip is buying a guitar for myself. My friend gave me a website and told me to get a Kodaira AST-100 from a shop called FANA. So I copied the address from the website and made a trip there on the last second day of my trip. And here is how I found that “shop”: (hover over the pictures to see captions) To be honest, I only stayed in that shop for less than 30 minutes. There was the shop keeper and another young guy who seems to be a guitar student of the keeper. The keeper seems pretty nice. I tried out only two guitars of the same model and quickly decided to take the second one. My friend, who is also my guitar teacher, tried the new guitar last Thursday and said it’s good. In fact, he said I probably can use it even in diploma exams. It’s got good overtone and good intonation accuracy (referring to the frets). The one little problem is there’s some noise on D string especially on the second fret. We’re not sure if it’s a problem of the strings or a problem of the guitar itself (if so, most likely to be a problem of the fret which can be fixed). We’ll try out with another set of strings. Hope that it can pass the test =P

Andras Schiff Piano Recital

While Placido Domingo was singing at Asia Expo, Andras Schiff was playing the piano at City Hall. And I went to City Hall. 

The program that evening was: 

Schumann Papillions 

Beethoven “Tempest” Sonata 

Schumann Fantasie in C minor 

Beethoven “Waldstein” Sonata 

One intermission…and naturally everyone would think it’s placed right in the middle between Tempest and Fantasie. It is, however, placed right before Waldstein…much to my surprise. The Waldstein is long, 32 pages, but still…takes 25 minutes only. With an intermission placed right before it, that’d make the concert program kinda imbalanced in terms of length with the first half going over an hour and the second with 25 minutes only. 

The Schumann pieces were brilliant. I don’t mean that the Beethoven sonatas were not as good but there are certain little elements that I don’t really like that much but still…it’s splendid. 

As usual, encore is inevitable. And after the encore pieces, I understand how the program was designed so. 

The first encore piece was Italian Concerto by Bach…and it’s the complete Italian Concerto. 

Then first half of one of Bach’s Partitas. 

Then a Schubert piece. 

So, the program lasted for about 105 minutes, then encore for about 40 minutes, plus a 20-minute intermission…The whole concert started at 8pm and ended at 10:30pm. 

While most Hong Kong people know Lang Lang and Yundi Li, how many of them know Andras Schiff? Or how many of them would pay attention to any other pianists? One thing that I don’t like about Lang Lang is his extremely exaggerated body-movement – it’s so exaggerated as if he can’t play well without those movements. Typical American training. On the other hand, European pianists, like Andras Schiff, usually just sit cool on the stool and play through with minimal body-movement. It’s not like they don’t move, they do. But they only move when it’s necessary. 

Oh well, guess it’s just a matter of style. But… 

 

less is more.

充滿意外的天鵝湖

一年一度的藝術節又到了！今天晚上，我一生人第一次看天鵝湖，充滿意外… 

這套芭蕾舞劇，全套四幕，第二幕後和第三幕後都有小休各二十分鐘。先說座位，在我付出了接近五百元，並且在網上預購第一天晚上便訂票之下，座位好到不得了：堂座正中央控制室前。這個位置實在是非常的好，但我和朋友，並周圍的觀眾，在第一二幕期間，都頻頻往後看，因為大家都察覺到不時有強光從後照射，但又不是射向台上的射燈（當然不會是，能照到我們的光線，應該不可能照得到台上去），騷擾非常。到第一次小休，終於有人投訴，是坐在我後面的一位女士。有職員來跟進，但他只是描述了發生的原因（很簡單，就是控制室人員出入之間，導致有走廊燈光從控制室射出來），沒提出解決辦法，而且說起來，好像是那位投訴的女士個人的感覺，我忍不住回過頭去跟其中一位職員說，其實，我們這一帶的人都很有同感呀！解決方法很簡單，就是叫那個控制員不要走來走去嘛！長遠來說，應該多加一道門／幕，阻隔門外走廊的燈光。這是第一個意外。 

第二個意外，是第三幕王子選公主時，四個來自不同地方公主，和自與隨從跳「民族舞」，說實在，以芭蕾舞方式演譯民族舞，其實有一點點怪，但這完全是演譯的選擇，而且也合乎故事背境。不過，來自我右後方的一名女子，明顯為此感到非常憤怒。大慨是到第二或第三個公主跳舞的情節吧，從右後方傳來一把女聲，然後聽到有人很大聲的「噓」，再之後就是： 

「我當然要出聲啦！這是芭蕾舞嗎？這不是芭蕾舞！This is not ballet…我要投訴呢個production…you （指所有觀眾）are all idiots…我要去消費者委員會投訴…」 

然後聲音逐漸隱去，相信是場地職員強行將該名女子帶走，不知後話如何… 

第三個意外，也是第三幕，在四名公主跳完「民族舞」後，巫師的「女兒」Odile身穿黑天鵝服跳舞，跳著跳著，轉著轉著，咦，不是整件跳舞衣都是黑色的嗎？怎麼背部腰間有一點肉色的呢？咦，那片肉色好像越來越大了？咦，這個時候，巫師不用揚起斗蓬遮著Odile的吧…咦Odile背後的那片肉色好像小了一點啊！然後Odile退場，王子獨舞，之後Odile再出場，咦，整個背部都是黑色的啊！不得不佩服各舞蹈員的臨場應對，他們自然的演出，連我身旁眼力比我好很多的朋友，都完全沒察覺舞衣的問題。 

第四個意外，還是第三幕，今次輪到樂團。在某一個地方，突然聽到小提琴聲部發出一下走音怪叫的C八度雙音，一個專業樂團走音走得這麼離譜，已經很奇怪，更奇怪的是，那個怪叫的走音雙音，很明顯是由一個人所發出，而其他小提琴，是以撥弦演奏那個C八度雙音的…顯而易見，應該有人在回到後台後被眾人圍毆。而即場所見，指揮即時把頭轉向小提琴聲部…我相信他應該在嘗試當場用凌厲的眼光，把該名小提琴手殺死。順帶一提，演出樂團，是香港管弦樂團…唉… 

最後一個意外，在第四幕開場時發生。由於第四幕前有小休，故第四幕開場時，需要把全院燈光關掉，意外就在此發生了。全院燈光關掉，布幕應該向上升，音樂就應該開始，不過…布幕沒有向上升，音樂沒有開始…樂團席發出笑聲，觀眾間也有笑聲，因為…指揮在哪兒？指揮不在啊！然後…全院燈光全開，然後，全院燈光又再全關，今次指揮終於出場，終於可以開始第四幕的演出。究竟是誰發出關掉全院燈光的指令的呀？ 

於是，我一生第一次看的天鵝湖，就在場地職員、觀眾、舞衣和後台成員所做成的意外之間，走向一個令我覺得很予盾的悲劇結局。當然，很多芭蕾舞團都把天鵝湖製作為悲劇結局的，不過，天鵝湖最出名的那段雙簧管旋律，是B小調的，而這個王子獨自被淹死而天鵝公主被巫師帶走的悲劇結局，卻是在雄壯而光亮的B大調中發生的，令我覺得很不協調。老實說，天鵝湖這故事，作為愛情故事來說，其實爛得很。王子本來就是看上天鵝公主Odette的外表（一夜之間發生的情感，不要跟我說是愛上其內在美），那麼，王子會在選親大會上看上跟Odette一模一樣的Odile，不過是理所當然，合情合理的吧，怎能說他背叛了愛情呢？他還是忠於那一見鐘情的愛呀！最後還要王子被淹死，Odette被巫師帶走，根本是巫師很毒吧！要不，你試試跟一個人相處八小時（一夜的時間），然後放兩個一模一樣的他在你眼前，你夠膽說你一定認得出來？這樣的愛情故事，如果是喜劇收場，大家還會因為大團圓結局而高高興興，從而忘了故事的無厘頭愛情發展過程（其實是沒有過程），但悲劇收場，就變成爛愛情故事了。不過話雖如此，這畢竟是芭蕾舞劇，我想，故事如何根本不是重點吧！ 

很多意外，但不能說有驚喜，繼續期待之後的五場節目…