FuN FuN FUN!!

I can't imagine life without God .. and i definitely can't imagine my own life without God's gift of music into my life ... rreally ... and also i wouldn't be able to to imagine how God works His way to put all the wonderful people i have now around me in my life too .. withou Him , nothing will work out , nothing will seem possible and all that i have now is meaningless.


This is the 2nd week into my new and final semester .. i'm feeling a little weird. Because i kept thinking that i'm still in my 2nd / 3rd semester sometimes when i'm in school or class .. then i keep forgetting the fact that i'll be graduating and getting my permanent holiday after January 2008. Each time i feel lazy to do homework or practice , i kept reminding myself ,


"TAN LEI CHING - this is the last time you'll be lazy to do homework and complaining about going for classs ... after this you won't have anymore chances to complain!"


That keeps me going.


Anyway , yeah ... today's a little of a chilling day ... everything went according to my plan , that's why i can afford to sit here and blog. Have already done what i planned to do and just waiting for mum to come home to go eat supper. The fun fun fun thing started yesterday .. with our first Instrumental Ens class at 9 30am , it kicked things off in a superb way! Mun Wei and i were the first to reach at 9 30am sharp ... and poor Den was trapped in the house because she forgotten to bring her house keys upstairs and locked it inside her car downstairs .. so she couldn't get out until lunch time i went to SAFE HER .. hahahaha sounds like superman / spiderman/ wonderwoman for a sec. Anyway .. Ting and Siang came late for their own reasons , so knowing that .. C.H went to photostat our first piece to play .


ELAN


I'ts an Irish Celtic music arranged by my favourite man .. Yoshihiro Andoh ... i knew about this song very long ago when i bought his original el book to play 2 years ago and played it myself at home after SPM last time ... so suddenly both of us thought about the song , and C.H asked me to bring the score for everyone yst .. and we started things off around almost 10am ... It seriously feels weird to be having so much fun early in the morning wei ... something ahs to be done about adjusting to the weird 9 30am timing for INST!!


Then we proceeded with the song , C.H did some arrangement spontaneously for Mun Wei's flute part ,... and also for Ting's piano part. While Siang and I played the electones for different parts of the piece. I have to backup Den on the violin coz the main melody is pretty important. The whole session was really fun coz we had some productive results shown at the end of the class .. after coming out with some brilliant ideas for Mun Wei's flute, we started practising the first 4 pages to make it tight ... then more and more ideas came in ... slowly while jamming , Siang was playing some scottish bagpipe instrument sound holding a note on his left hand and i thought of


"HEY! WHY NOT START OUR PIECE WITH A DRONE??"


I said these exact few words to C.H and he asked me for more details .. so after explaining what i know of , he started trying out on the stagea ...and i myself couldn't remember much about the drone (learnt it from Sedaya in WOrld Music class so couldn't remember how it sounds like) and just described as much as i can .. then he started showing us and we discussed more and came out with more ideas. The funniest thing is C.H suggested,'


"I will program some bird and water sounds for atmospheric reasons and play it on the CD on the concert day la huh .. to accompany this intro!"


and we all burst out ,


'AHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA!! SURE!!!"

*Ok i typed this yesterday night and couldn't continue after a very long supper sesssion .. so am continuing from here and see what happens.*

So we continued jamming and then we sat down to discuss some issues on what other songs should we play besides Elan .. so EVERYONE except me thought that we should play a CHINESE TRADITIONAL PIECE !!! C.H started experimenting on the stagea , showing us what we can do and then his suggestion of doing some chinese pop classic song wasn't likeable... So after much discussion, Pok insisted we should be playing some traditional chinese piece to show off on the stagea so that both Chin Siang and I can have something to show off instead of just playing an ensemble piece together. Then there came a point where the word 12 Girls BAnd came out ... and C.H's eyes were lighted up immediately with joy ... he went "high" and said ,

"AAAH!!! YES ... we can do that! I have the book and the data is all ready ... good .. but it's pretty western , not much of a traditional chinese thing to show off .... HMmm we shall see."

Well of course I couldn't say anything because EVERYONE seemed lighted up and very happy to want ot play a chinese piece while I being the ONLY ONE who wants to play a Malay song instead. ARRRGHHHH! C.H knows i don't want to play Chinese songs , but i have to compromise in the end. I mumbled to myself ,

"Why do i have to show off on a chinese song!?"

Anyway , there's no definite conclusion yet for now ... the only confirmed song we have now and is working on it is Elan ... the COOL arrangement on the el has made us all have goosebumps and with the latest arrangement of 5 people's collaboration has made it even COOLER,... so i hope this time i'm able to reuse my drums skills again on the acoustic drum set. Rather than just playing on the stagea.. how boring. Because of this , Mun Wei came out with this lame remark saying to C.H ,

"Eh he don't let you play drums we go tell Unc Charles!"

He burst out ,

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!

OK that was it ... 11 30am came and we all boringly went for our Harmony and ANalysis class... yawning and trying hard to keep ourselves awake at the same time starving our way through. I picked up Den after that and told her all about the excitement of our working together with our "new" instrumental tutor. But the thing is .. dearest C.H feels a little regretful for taking up the class and i had to say this to comfort him ,

"NO ! Don't be regretful! You're doing fine! We had so much fun yesterday in your class!! It was just the first class but it was so productive and things are working out well! I'll pray for you ok.. I pray that God will give you strength to go through ... don't worry!"

That was yesterday .. but today guess what . I couldn't believe it myself ,but 2-1plus3+1 actually spent half hour from 3 - 3 30pm practising Elan together ! Hahahhaha ... Siang was the one who initiated it , asking me before lunch if we wanted to practice .. but since Eden hasn't heard the song before , and coincidently I am helping C.H to keep his pendrive which contains the data for the song ... so we tried it out and worked on our tempo and finally we are able to play in the fast speed! But things are still messy though ... i have to practice my bass parts well enough.

The sad thing is though , just when i've decided to play Libertango for my solo performance on the concert day .... the group came out with the same suggestion to play it for ensemble instead.. so sadly i dare not say anything and just kept it to myself. Nevermind guys , we shall all play together .. priority given to the group and there'll be MORE fun playing it together anyway! So yeah , am going to scratch my head what to play now ... sob sob ..

Oh gosh ... Mun Wei and Chin Siang just sent me this YouTube link to watch the SPring Festival Overture from the Chinese traditional orchestra ... and i can't help but LAUGH each time i hear it! HAHAHHHAH .. how would it sound like after Siang arrange it .. interesting .. HAHHAHHH!!

Oh i actually wanted to say this. I think it's a testimony that God is amazing .. He knows what we need ,and He loves us so much that He answers our prayers. Considering how things kicked off last sem with all the misery ... now He has provided us with a great and fun tutor like C.H but i only notice that God is even more good after i spoke to him yesterday .

C.H : Wah i think i'm going to die la.. my time is so packed .. cannot cannot , if i continue to live like this my life will be shorter. Need to do something.
Lily : Come on .. you're still young ok . Well , reschedule again loh ...
C.H : I know ... but whenever Academy new sem start , i get headache. Cannot la .. i'm so stressed! When you're my age you will understand .. not now... you're still young.
Lily : Well that's why ppl say life begans at 30! Hahhahha ..
C.H : I tell you , really lucky this sem no F1 students... i don't have to teach Impro F1 . Otherwise i really DIE!!
Lily : Eh another 1 half hour right ?
C.H : No la if only 1 student is 1 hour only. But still , i will really DIE.

After thinking about it , i thought to myself . God is amazing don't you think so ? He knew how to arrange the best for all of us and for C.H himself. Extra 2 hours of his time for Instrumental, but no F1 students this sem. At least for this sem , things are looking OK. =)
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Today ALL of us from Academy stayed back at 7 pm to join YYO ... can you believe it ? Julie flew to UK to attend my senior's convocation for a few days trip .. and she is not around this whole week so things are actually looking pretty screwed up whenever she's not around . But after much persuasion , my classmates decided to stay back this time .. Wei Tieng after more than 3 sems' No Action Talk Only "I will join YYO this sem" statement , has finally redeemed herself by bringing her violin today and staying back with us. Evelyn and Mun Ka who were hardly seen throughout occasions like these , instead made the effort to be with us too throughout the whole sem . GUess what , the EMO Siang who has a missing partner (You la Teck!) didn't bring his score today and didn't join us.

So yeah .. since it's our last sem , we want to make it the most happening one of all .. and it turned out that the whole academy joined YYO instead! HAHAHAHHA

Not only that , there were also a lot of outsiders who signed up for YYO this time .. so the woodwind sections are back , with Mun Wei and Jess on the flute plus another girl from outside who seems to be really good .. i heard her today. Then also my girl Poh Yee who blowed the oboe!! Salute her man , after attempting to blow the oboe just now , i gave up after my 2nd try .. i never knew blowing hte oboe is really that HARD and tough! No sound came out after trying so hard ,collecting all my breathe and using my diapragph to support! NO technique at all.. =(

With at least 6-7 violin 1 , and another 4-5 violin 2 , plus some violin 3 and 3 cellists , and some woodwind players , plus 6 electone players (there are even SIX electone players now!) with 1 pianist (Mun Ka you're great!) ... the total comes up to about 31 if everyone comes .. BUT Dr Chong said they'll be more violinsts coming in the following weeks ...

I have a feeling this sem's going to be another happening one . DOn't know about vocal though. AHAHHAHAHAHH!