Friday, March 05, 2010
Sunday, February 21, 2010
So, naïvely thinking they would be so nice as to give us time to warm-up, I got there only fifteen minutes before the auds, before I realized we were supposed to go there early to warm-up. Oh no.Thankfully my number was E15 (Sharon's was E18 because she forgot to take it, and had to go back afterwards -.-), so I still had some time to warm-up while the others went for auds first. But there were no mallets to practice on! So I just pretended I knew where the keys were. And yet the glissando was impossible because everytime I did it, there would be a huge gust of wind and all the papers would fly away!
Then I met my church friend from St. Margaret's Girls' School Symphonic Band, who introduced me to her perc friends, Angeline and Zhen Ni, who had long and difficult scores from Legend of somethingsomething Hero. And they looked so pro and intimidating. Wonderful.
Honestly, we thought we were the worst percussionists present! There was a girl called Marianne whom I auditioned with, and she was playing the snare drum score from Overture No. 1 for Wind Bands! And Angeline could play the snare drum score from Technology. Great. One is SYF standard and the other is Cadenza standard. Who are we to go for auditions against these percussionists! We contemplated going home - at least we would never know if we could have gotten in, then face the rejection. But I'm glad we just went ahead in the end, because of the pleasantly surprising results!
Anyway, we reasoned that we've already come so far, so we shouldn't give up. We even had the courage to come to Ang Mo Kio Secondary School! So we had to go on. And they were bound to notice the only two RGS girls sneaking out of the compound with their bags, so we had no choice but to stay hehh.
The suspense was building up as the minute hand of my watch ticked by! Oh yeah I took it off when I went into the classroom and my auditioners gave me the oO look - I thought we were supposed to do that? Anyway then we both started having breathing difficulty because I was hyperventilating, and Sharon had blocked nose
But then we received a heartwarming SMS, so our breathing returned to normal. Or mine, at least, because Sharon still had a blocked nose. Soon my turn came! I didn't even realize it was my turn until Marianne called me! Oh no oh no I fumbled around with my mallets and sticks and scores before I realized Marianne took her whole bag with her so I wasted more time trying to put everything back into my bag again before I decided to just carry the bag on my back and my sticks/scores in my hands. Bad start!
Then I walked up the stairs with Marianne, and we started chatting and arguing - nice way to make friends - about who to go first. When we reached our final destination - pun intended - the teacher WHOM I THOUGHT WAS GLORIA - you'll get what I mean after reading about the actual audition below - commented on how we looked like we knew each other from 10 years ago. Huh, so you argue a lot with people you know from 10 years ago?
Anyway then we walked to the classroom for our auds. And we heard the guy before us playing the drumset and crash cymbals and tambourine and we actually concluded that he had come for different auds. Little did we know, what the auditioners had prepared for us!
We talked a bit more outside, and then I found out that somebody had stepped on my paper. Now it had a huge shoe mark at the top ohmygoodness. What a great way to leave a good impression. I wonder if they'll mark me down, thinking I step all over my scores or something!
Anyway, after Marianne went in, I heard her playing tambourine/drumset/crash cymbals too. And that's when I realized what a horrifying situation I was in! So I started freaking out again, and suddenly needed to go to the toilet really urgently.
But then Marianne came out, gave me a horrified expression and then whispered, "Good luck!" and shuffled away. Thanks for the luck, but I'm quite sure I didn't need that horrified expression of yours to scare me even more...
NOTE: The following experience is too horrific to be repeated. It's better not to know.
Then Sharon and I sat at the staircase staring at our auditioner and taking photos. Before we made calls and decided to have dinner together! I can't remember what happened already - the only reason why the above is so specific is because I wrote it on the following day, except I forgot to post it - but I know that my mother, sister and I ran into the MRT, but darling Sharon was too slow and was trapped outside! So we had to waste time waiting for her to arrive on the next MRT hahaha.
Tuesday, February 02, 2010
Monday, January 25, 2010
I came up with very short song for PERC today during Food and Nutrition class!! :D
hahaha you know the song for Teen Titans? It's like:
T-E-E-N
T-I-T
A-N-S
Teen Titans,
Let's go!
Then I changed it to:
P-E-R-C
U-S-S
I-O-N
Percussion,
Let's go!!
AH OMG SO NICE. 8D the number of letters and syllables are so fitting! :D :D
heheh XD
<3 sharon
Saturday, January 23, 2010
So, on that very day during recess, I met this girl holding drumsticks in the canteen! So naturally I rushed up to her and started questioning her about joining band, or more specifically, percussion. And she wants to join perc 'cos she used to play perc in primary school! She seemed so keen on joining, and since she has the experience and will probably get in...YAY ALIZA AND XING ERN'S POTENTIAL DIRECT :D
Unfortunately, I didn't get to meet her again because our SB wasn't involved in Recruitment Drive! So sad...cannot see our juniors! Sharon can't see her mortal and I can't see my church junior :( Oh well. So we brought the tom-toms, snare drum and crash cymbal to the covered walkway (taking an unnecessarily long way because we were heading towards D-block at first, but then we match our batchmates on the way and changed our mind :D) and started indiving.
Um, yeah. So we indived.
And indived.
And indived.
Then we got a bit bored because there were no keyboard perc instrus...so we could only practice our techniques and try warm-ups at faster speeds and crash cymbals continuously (I still don't know how Mr. Oura can crash them 1000 times! My highest was 62 at one go, while Sharon's was...20/30something? And when I tried 100 times, I had to rest - without putting the cymbals down on the stand, but it isn't continuous anymore, no? - at least 3 times! D:).
Then Yi An came to find me to ask if the percs wanted to play Perseus with them! :D YESYES OF COURSE WE WOULD, so we moved to where they had gathered. But again, Lei-Chen couldn't play anything! Then how? We wanted her to play the beat, since if I was to clap my sticks together, I wouldn't be able to play the crash part, and it would also be conducting...? But she decided to just indiv, and the rest of the batch just tried their best to stay on time
Then some Sec Twos joined in! They kept coming to play then leaving, then coming back again. Maybe our playing was too messy for them? ><After that, we gave up at around Bar 110? I don't know the exact bar, but I know we didn't play the Grandioso part 'cos it was starting to get REALLY MESSY...Perina and Qian Yi gave up trying to play as a batch - they moved away to indiv. The rest of our batch wanted to continue playing together, except they chased us away, complaining that the crash cymbals were too loud! ><
Then Wanyi asked if we wanted to play Perseus! Everybody was fine with it, except Ying Qin. But under peer pressure she caved, and we started from...Bar 10? I don't think it was the beginning, right? Ö And Lei-Chen and I just hit the air with our sticks for our mallets part :/
Um, then at the very end of the song I came in too early. So before they ended I already choked the cymbals and it ended up sounding very very weird ><Thereafter, Sharon and I kept dropping our drumsticks accidentally, and finally we decided to wash them 'cos there was so much dirt on them ._. There were no perc seniors around, so we had to ask Vivian if we could go to the toilet, and she was very nice about it :) THEN OUR DRUMSTICKS TURNED BLACK WHEN IT TOUCHED WATER OMG ._. We quickly dried it, but it really turned black! As in, there were streaks of black running down our sticks. WHY?! ._.
Oh well, since we couldn't do anything about it, we just went back to indiv more. And that's when we started crashing cymbals continuously. It was so tiring I sat down (but it has nothing to do with legs right? I don't know why I sat down either oO) Then Sharon tried, just as Deborah came to ask us to move back to the band room.Then came section photos! We took a very long time to decide which instruments to include the photo and where to put them and how to stand...and I had the brilliant idea of removing the gong and sticking all our heads in the gong stand! But then I figured, where would we put the gong in the meanwhile oO Or sticking our heads out of the bottom of the keyboard perc instrus? But they sounded quite...ridiculous compared to our final idea, so I'm glad I didn't suggest them HEHH.
So we took a lot of photos with the three of us sitting in front of the tom-toms and our seniors standing behind, pretending to play? Or were they just standing? Hahaha and why does Aliza find it so difficult to smile :(In any case, can somebody pleeaase post the photos on the section blog? :D It's been so long since we had a post full of pictures! The last picture we had of was of...Bertrand (that's the orchid's name, right?)? oO
And nothing eventful happened after that. But the next day! When Sharon and I went to Far East together (I love Fridays 'cos we can go out as late as we want :D)! It was a lot of fun, eating Chippy's, spraying water, laughing until we...you-know-what, Sharon, and talking.And we used the instrus to make up our faces! The bass drum is our head, the cymbals are our ears, the keyboard perc instrus are our hair (or braces for me, according to Sharon), the timpani are our cheekbones and forehead (assuming our forehead is made up of two bumps), two gongs will make up our eyes and the gong stand is our nose. I don't think there's a mouth? Hm, I can't remember the rest, but I know we didn't use all the instrus. Hahaha OMG I want to use the next ICT lesson to photoshop a face according to this and see how atrocious it will look! :D Meanwhile, here's a rough draft (without the timpani part 'cos I can't find it on Google ><)
After uploading it I just realized how horrible the face looks ._. With no mouth and such messy hair and a strange nose and shiny ears o___O
And we went to TOM N TOMS COFFEE! :D They should just remove the N from their name :D Unfortunately, we already going home, so we decided not to try their coffee. Haha one day we should go there for section...coffee time or something? :D
Yup, that's all that happened the past few days. And Sharon pleasestopsinging ._.Here it goes:
The section blog is so super dea-ad,
The section blog is so super dead,
The section blog is so super dea-ad,
Oh make the section blog alive!
A-live, oh a-live, oh make the section blog alive, alive!
A-live, oh a-live, oh make the section blog alive!
COOL SONG EH! 8D heheheh. Actually the blog is not that dead, just needed more syllables haha. XD Paiseh just wanted to make the blog alive. :P
Oh and thank you xin hui for helping me post! ;D
<3 sharon
Friday, November 27, 2009
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Sunday, October 18, 2009
- Percussion 101! haha it has links to playing techniques, general characteristics, maintenance, rolls, etcetc for most percussion instruments :D, and videos which explain and demonstrate :D.
- Rudiments! ALL 40 OF THEM :D. haha and they included recordings for various speeds, which is quite fun :D. The simpler flam, drag and paradiddle rudiments are quite useful for stick control and all. Yeah, essentially you start slow, make sure you get everything right, the sound, wherever your stick is supposed to be, etc, then you speed up.
- Rhythmic reading? I think this is supposed to teach you how to read rhythms oO. You don't have to start from the start, you can try those at the back :D. Really fun! :D. And they have recordings at different speeds too, so it's quite exciting :D. Especially things like mixed and changing meters? :D
Monday, October 12, 2009
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Thursday, September 24, 2009
i shall write more than 5 words. i promise.
kinda sad that it's band break now, but then again, when EYAs are over i guess it'll be cool to finally go back. let's just enjoy the break for now!
sorry, i really have nothing to say, so i'm just gonna say that the sec ones are really very luo suo. no offence, but you guys are talkative in a funny way. haha :D yup, but i agree that you all can really talk too much sometimes. and maybe talk alot of rubbish. i may or may not be referring to the section blog.
oh yup, WATCH YOUR BACK.
i'm watching. haha. im bored, paiseh sorry. ^.^
Monday, September 21, 2009
Friday, September 18, 2009
Not everyone has so much time to tag/post everyday right -.- but it's good that yall are trying to keep the blog alive. I appreciate it(: though I dunno if you'll have as much time next year, or the year after that, for that matter. But I'm trying, so you should too! (when you get to sec2/3, that is)
These are talking about all the funny things about you guys. x) Sorry if it is offensive, but it is meant to be funny. :P
There are parts about Aliza, Xing Ern, Deborah and Samantha. :P I did not say the names but I am sure you can guess (:
Remember...
How someone(s) came up with a great idea,
Of making me drink water from your bottle.
Saliva all over, (yucks!)
That’s so forced-able. (don't know what word this is but nevermind) ><
Remember...
How someone cleaned me with a mallet stick full of saliva,
Furious,
I smacked her on the shoulder,
But got smacked back instead. ><
Remember...
I asked someone,
Whether she would piggyback me,
If I jump on her back. :P
But sadly, she said 'no.' :'(
Remember...
How random I was,
When we were practising,
And then I turned around,
Telling someone her hair was weird. o.O
Remember...
That funny expression on her face,
Seems like she’s smiling.
Or rather frowning? o.O
Remember...
Everytime I walk past,
You give me that irritated sound,
Or give me a look as if you’re gonna smile.
Remember...
How you used to be strict,
But now I realise you’re very nice (:
You’re almost so perfect in every warm-up,
How I wish I can be like you. *cries*
o.O I really don’t know how to write poems. I anyhow write one x). So random. Haha. Really, no offence ah! :P Have fun guessing! o.O This is just for fun one. x) Do NOT take it seriously okay?
love,
sharon
Percussion, my passion.
Percussion,
My passion.
Although a snare drum hit me on the head
And made me feel like I was going to be dead,
I still want to learn how to play the timpani.
My seniors are very funny –
They play weird games (the martial arts thing!)
And have different names (sorry, I just had to find something that rhymes :/).
I remember during band camp,
Sharon was such a lamb (oO!)
She had to drink out of Aliza’s waterbottle
Which made her want to throttle
Er, our seniors.
Who are very fierce.
Not actually they’re not fierce, just strict but nice
"I just couldn’t find anything to rhyme!" Xin Hui cries.
I’m really bad at poems, so perhaps I should stop writing now before it goes completely off-topic just for the sake of finding words that rhyme. But, wait.
And back to the whole point of this
Which I have completely…missed.
Percussion
Is my passion.
:D
Nothing rhymes with an emoticon :(
A pity we didn't get to...
:(
There's so little stuff happening now that there's hardly anything to post about! But not posting for a week makes it feel near-dead to me (although what Deborah said is still, er, "seeping in" oO) :/ Especially when the tagboard has died for a whole day as well D:
Oh, and I told Lei-Chen about the section blog but she says she only uses the computer for watching drama serials (oO) so she doesn't visit blogs nor check her emails (explaining why she didn't know about the band photo-taking thing ><). Er, so how do we get her to tag/post? :( And about the emails thing, updates about band are sent through emails so...how do we encourage her to, er, use the computer for other things? Ö
I can't wait for Band Break to be over :D But then it'll be Inunion soon, and we are definitely not prepared! D: We only have one song and we haven't even mastered it yet...how? :(
Cheers,
Xin Hui :)







