Music Diary

Bach piece

2005-09-10T12:47:00.000+08:00

performed a piece of Bach's composition yesterday during Performance Lesson. We got to rehearse until 3.15pm. So, my group ( Lydia, TianHwee and Jas) went to Studio A and practiced. It was alright during the practice time. We increased the tempo to 90 because it's rrly boring when the tempo is slow. 3 keyboardist and 1 recorder player.
When it comes to performing, I was quite well intially but when i wanted to repeat the piece again, i played the wrong note, so i quickly get back to the right note and continue playing. Tim R says we did quite well.

31 Aug performance

2005-08-31T21:19:00.000+08:00

just finished our Performance today. Our item was the 2nd one. So it started quite early. Had rehearsal at 3.30pm. It did not turn out well and we were wasting quite a lot time. When it was our turn up the stage, there was feedback when the vocals were singing. It was quite irritating but we carried on performing. Quite afraid that it will affect our whole performance and grades.

rehearsal

2005-08-27T22:19:00.000+08:00

had practice yesterday during performance lesson..was being filmed by Jimmy. He wrote down comments and pointed out our mistakes.. that was good.wasn't really good at bass yet. I kept playing wrong chords.. Tian Hwee was asked to do improvisation on her pads. the vocals were asked to sing louder, more audible. The recorder was asked not to play when the vocals were singing. I had to play louder on my bass.

31 Aug performance

2005-08-20T09:51:00.000+08:00

had our first group practice yesterday. Didn't do much because everybody wasn't sure what to do. So after deciding we came up with - Weijie piano, TianHwee pads, Lydia and Ryu singing, Zigang recorder and mi playing bass guitar. It's weird without guitar but no one wants to play it. First time playing bass, so not very sure what to play luckily Clef and Royston offered to teach me. We will be performing Right Here Waiting For you. Quite an old English song.
Noticed that for this performance, quite a few people tried to do new stuffs instead of their major instrument. Like Joyce, Puay Chin will be singing, Qiu Tsia will be playing the piano, Hazel drumming, Lydia singing, Me playing bass.

Improvisation

2005-08-13T17:59:00.000+08:00

had improvisation yesterday...grouped with Clef and Lydia..we used Clef's backing track...overall was okie..I was not very good at improvisation..in fact..yesterday was the first time i improvised. Clef was really good at it as he started improvising two years ago because of his work. Clef and i played the piano while Lydia played on the recorder.

Graduation Performance

2005-08-02T20:14:00.000+08:00

Had our Graduation Performance last Wednesday. It was lucky that it didn't rain. I came in the afternoon as I was in the afternoon slot. We had our vocal training at the cafe near the Plaza and sang the songs that we were be performing for a few times. My throat wasn't in a good state that day so had to take a break from more singing. Listened to other groups' performances, they were quite good, especially Esther's item. I liked her voice. Was quite nervous as the lecturers were sitting on the 2nd floor and busying writing down comments, also with the video filming us.
When it was our turn, had a little problem as there were not enough microphones and we started singing without me having a mic. I wasn't really tensed after I saw Meihui below the stage singing with us. It's kind of encouraging.

Practice

2005-07-21T22:39:00.000+08:00

Had our last few practices during MIDI lesson in the Control Room C. Again, some members were not there. So, we only sang a few times and slacked there. We wanted to improve our pieces by adding dynamics but didn't know how to go about doing it. Discussed about our dresscode too. Finalised that everyone in my group wear long pants or jeans with bright T-shirt, because we do not want to wear dull colour T-shirts on that day.

Yesterday, we had our practice in Studio A. Wee Kiat was nice, he conducted a vocal training. Taught us how to use diaphragm to sing and how to hold our breath longer.

Aims and goals

2005-07-16T23:41:00.000+08:00

I was told that this diary will be graded and we also have to include our short and long terms aims and goals.

Short term goals:
- To get good result for my REMT assignment

- To do well in my MUSP assignment (have not started yet)

- Put up a good performance for Graduation Night and one more performance in August.

Long term goals:

- To be able to find a job in the music industry

- To be able to know the mixer well and all those techniques that were taught in class

Yesterday, our performance lesson was used to let us practice our songs that we will be putting up at the Graduation Night. We went to Control Room B I think to practice. Songs that we will be singing - At the Beginning and Xi Shui Chang Liu. There's still some part that I did not do well in At the Beginning. I was out of breath when it came to some part. My group mates suggested me using diaphragm to sing, I tried but couldn't know if I'd done it correctly. For Xi Shui Chang Liu, it was ok for me. Only that I had to increase my volume. Or I could let the mixer by pushing up those buttons and the gain. Edwin thought that we were not quite up to standard, so suggested we have more practices. But some group mates were not free and some were not even serious about it. Had a hard time getting all the people together and sing.

Chord progression

2005-07-10T19:00:00.000+08:00

Last friday, as usual we formed our group. Our group name was Rascal. Instruments we used were piano, viola, recorders and vocal music. We came up or own melody, composed by Lydia. The piano played the melody, the recorders played the pads, the vocals sang the arpeggio and the viola played the bass. Overall was average, Michael said our timing was out and we had no bass. Maybe they couldn't hear our bass so they assumed that we did not have a bass.

Party piece

2005-06-29T09:20:00.000+08:00

I had an individual performance last friday. I was supposed to play a party piece in front of the whole class.
As I had stopped playing piano for about 1 year plus, so I don't know what could i play. In the end i chose a piece that i used to play in the past. It's a Chinese Song.
I wasn't really well prepared. When it was my turn, I totally freaked out. I was trembling until I couldn't play well enough. Also, I was sort of distracted by the sounds/noises people made.
Have to brush up my skills.

Rhythm performance

2005-06-18T12:05:00.000+08:00

We had our Rhythm performance yesterday at one of the studio. Again we were split in groups. My group consisted of Lydia, Tian Hwee, Ian, Kaiwen, Winnie, Jiayi, Edwin, Meihui and Jemie. The instruments we had was recorders, harmonica,drum, bells and the pianica. We grouped ourselves according to the instruments we are playing. The two harmonicas played at the same time but with different rhythm and melody. Different recorders played different pitch and rhythm as well. One played thrill one the recorder too. The pianica, bells and drum were grouped together. Winnie played the pianica in triplets, while Meihui played the bells in crotchet beats.
At the beginning, we were going at a steady speed, but when it came into the middle part, we began to accelerate. That's something we had to improve because we only had our actual rehearsal just before the performance.

Texture

2005-06-11T16:50:00.000+08:00

Yesterday, my group did a performance on texture. We had to bring out a number of sounds like monophonic, duophonic, polyphonic, octave unison, melody and accompaniment. Basically, my group had performed well. Edwin and me did the octave unison on the keyboard. But unfortunately the volume was too soft.
We started with Nic playing the bass guitar, followed by Chinese flute, keyboard, acoustic guitar, snare drums and also clapping of the hands.