In an ensemble/ company, 虽然谁都能少。。但其实谁都不能少。

Wang Jian Min - inspiration of the year

These few days' contact with Wang (22-25 June) has left quite a deep impression on me.. and it's probably going to be one of the most enriching and inspiring experience of the year, both for me as a performer and as a research student studying his works.
Despite his cold outlook, high musical expectations and bluntness (if u dont meet his expectations), he is actually very helpful and supportive of our ensemble. He attended all our practices and rehearsals since landing on Wed evening. His schedule the following day for instance all revolve around us - 10.30am (at NAFA giving lessons to all the solo items),12.30pm lunch (with prominent figures), 4.30pm (compo seminar at NYGH), 7pm (going on air and i heard he gave an amazing speech), 8pm rushed back to NAFA (to attend our rehearsals, even though he seemed so worn out by then).
Well and I'm extremely lucky to be given the chance to tag alongside him these 4 days, although on another level, it can be stressful!

Frankly speaking I hadn't slept well for the days leading up to his arrival in Singapore, but I realized that all my worries were unfounded after the first rehearsal session with him. He doesn't speak much, but when he does, it is "一言惊醒梦中人".. The piece (踏歌) he wrote specially for us to premiere in the concert became so much more colourful and enjoyable to perform and as he mentions, all his pieces have 画面性 and there are specific things that he is trying to depict at various sections. As he puts it, most of his pieces can easily be used for dance choreographing.

It was also only when chatting with him that we got to know why he gave us the privilege to hold his compositional recital. For the past years, many professional music groups in China has approached him about this idea, but he never agreed to any of those.. "没意思" he says. But for us he agreed almost immediately because he felt that we are a young and passionate group, 可朔性高 (he never forgot the impression left by our ensemble in the 2008 NCMC competition where he was an adjucator), and felt this opportunity will be extremely beneficial for us and he can "推你们一把 ".. Sure enough, what he spoke on air, or with journalist, has been extremely touching. He is the kind of person which u wont want to let down.

On the philosophy of life, Wang believes in 实在 and 实际的东西 rather than 虚无的形式. Like for instance he told me that him giving me his two main contact forms is the most 实际, namecard (which i still didn't get) is just a 虚无的形式.. hahaa
and when everyone else is getting his autograph (which includes me), he actually said to me "..你还要我的签名阿。。你就不必了吧，这些都是虚的。。。" These reflects his 用心良苦 and to me, these thoughts are really very true. Somehow it also dawned on me about our pursuits in life, do we really want to spend energy on 实际 or 虚无 things? I guess this also explained his dislikes for entertaining guests, there were so many famous performers/ prominent figures wanting to treat him to a meal or bring him for a tour for the days he was here, but he rejected all.. and he especially dislikes eating a long meal that last more than an hr.

His fav. food: sashimi, clams without much flavourings added, prefers plain rice to flavoured rice.. basically likes original tastes

There's now an added dimension for me to do well in my thesis.. hopefully in future there'll be opportunities to study under him

this is fun

Music For One Apartment And Six Drummers from Mister Magnus on Vimeo.

This is a song

For you alone,

Of childish fears

And fervent tears.

From dewy lawns it swings

On weightless wings,

And only you

This simple song

Shall move to rue.

- Stefan George

Miraculous Artist- Nobuyuki

Nobuyuki Tsujji shot to international fame since his gold medal achievement at the Cliburn's competition in 2009. I remembered watching his La Camp. performance through live webcast in amazement then, and today I found the video being uploaded! PLUS a rare video of his piano lesson at age 11. This guy is really brilliant.. amazingly brilliant. Only 1 year younger than me.. but he's really a role model and inspiration. Cliburn was even quoted saying his "performance had the power of a healing service. It was truly divine". Being touched by his playing is truly inevitable ~ Just watch his rach 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47TkYRxxe14&NR=1 He may be blind but his heart burns bright on stage... plus flawless technique Imagine those pieces are already so difficult to learn and this guy learns them by ear.. ~ He really has amazing memory. ~

I lost my wisdom!

Just went for a surgery to remove 2 wisdom teeth yesterday :( and im given 6 days of MC.. hopefully im well enough to go for class this coming Mon. I was advised not to talk if Im gg to attend classes.

Gdness... i'll never forget the surgical experience.. The local anesthesia (i was given 6 jabs) made my whole left jaw, gum, tongue, lips incapable of moving and feeling, the worst was that I was then asked to swallow 2 panadols and one other pill (Dexamethasone.. to reduce swelling).. wah and it felt as if I am suffering from stroke.. only the right side of the lip and cheek can move which made it doubly hard for me to swallow the pills or even speak! I can really emphatize with stroke patients now.

Anyway I was given 5-6 different pills to swallow 3 times a day. One antibiotic is so bitter and difficult to swallow because it melts immediately u put it in the mouth.. i wasted one of it today.. haha

and i seem to be suffering from an allergy from one of the drugs.. not sure which one.. my face is so red (wow natural make-up.. and super healthy look yea.. haha as if i ran 3km).. now my skin on the hands and legs are getting itchy and red.. AHH! am i gg to lose sleep again tonight?

surprise!

Just had a pleasant surprise finding many videos of Mr. Tiu's performances finally being uploaded onto youtube. And guess what, I found the video of the b'dae re-arrangements for 4-hands by Tiu and Hecht which I mentioned in one of my very early entries in this blog! This was super long ago in Oct 2006.. I was only in yr 1 sem 1 then!

(Oh mine, remember those times.. fond memories)

All thanks to the user "bowserpianist".. who uploaded quite a number of Tiu's performances just last month.

Will be gg to catch Tiu's "Chopin without Chopin" recital next Sat..

I remembered him as one of the earliest pianist who has really inspired me, at that time when I was still struggling to overcome certain mental hurdles..

it is hard to believe that i once stopped touching the instruments for at least 2 full years..

and then he came to give a masterclass in tj... although i couldnt rem the details now, but i rem listening to his music was amazing.. rich in possibilities

~
1.15am.. lets listen to one of Piazolla's piece "Oblivion"

and one other of my fav, Rachmaninov's Paganini Rhapsody 16th Var to end (segment here)

Fallacies of educational reform

Just a short entry about Prof. Andy Hargreaves's lecture I attended today..

I thought it is rather interesting to attend something of this sort as I had never been to any of such lectures or exposed to thoughts pertaining to educational management issues from a macro perspective.

In short he pointed out the 5 fallacies of educational reforms as that of:

1) Speed

2) Replacement

3) Numbers

4) Prescription

5) Competition

~

I was particularly occupied with point 5), where he draws our attention to 'on-field competition' and 'off-field collaboration', both of which produces friendly rivalry that increases performance and results. This 2 entities arent necessary opposite. Well, and he quizzed about how much exactly is 'off-field collaboration' happening between our schools even within our cluster level. By collaboration, he actually referred to not just verbal advices but real concrete (directly beneficial) actions that to certain extent, MAY 'jeopardise' the school which offered help in terms lowering their competitive edge.

I know as a country, our govt do apply this strategy by providing various kinds of aid to our neighboring countries to help them grow economically, resulting in a win-win situation because stability and peace in neighboring countries also meant stability and peace for us, similarly for many other issues including economical growth. So for schools, might it work too? collaboration much more than the sharing of certain resources will not really pull down ur competitive edge against others in national exams?

In a certain sense, I think this sort of points us to the famous quote that, "人不为己天诛地灭!", but perhaps we should re-consider this ancient saying from a broader perspective and not just understanding it from the face-value implication.

~

Apropos point 4), the conclusion was that mediocre educational practice is defined by standardization and prescription. Of course I think this is also dependent on the level of operational stage the schools are at... certain degree of standardization does have its pros... else many things will go haywire. We all know about the dangers of prescribing (or overly-prescribing), but in fact 'prescription' does have its usage too, especially at the point of taking off.. Prescription is probably an out-of-date concept in our current society, but I do know that for instance, Chinese traditional 'prescription' to learning is that you memorize the texts you are given first (e.g. poem in ancient Chinese etc.), and usually you wont even know what you are memorizing about, and it's after the memorization that the teacher will then delve into the interpretation and understanding of the texts. U'll maybe only slowly appreciate and understand the memorized facts after months or years. Dont be surprised that such 'prescriptive' mode of learning (if we might put it) is still very much adhered to today, especially certain facets in the study of TCM and higher level Chinese language so to speak. I think it does have its own reasons for close adherance through dynasties up till now. Does it really imply that we'll have brighter physicians if such prescriptive mode of learning is alleviated? maybe yes, maybe not.

But of course I do agree that for later-stage development (considering individuality and other factors), overly prescribing will hamper further advancements

~

Anyway just some after-thoughts... Listening to this lecture does remind me of certain strategies that has roots from history... just like for instance many ppl are now applying Sun Tze's 'art of war' to various forms of management... im not too familiar with these kind of strategies to be truth, so im not too sure if there are any connecting points across all this different theories of effective managements that is everywhere (or so it seems to a layman like me).

sidetracking abit, recently I've been watch the 郑和下西洋 tv series every Sat night on Chan U, this particular version is really gd. Now its still showing the preceeding stage before 郑和 was sent to sail the oceans, about how 燕王 was forced to start a war with the current emperor. It's a long story, but anyway what really impressed me about 燕王 was that even as a leader, he managed to win the hearts of all his soldiers, the great respect, loyalty and willingness to follow him and sacrifice for him throughout the years.. i think thats really amazing. To me its an ideal reflection of good leadership. A great leader is not someone who only knows how to talk and operate at the 'high-up' level.. but someone who can be also function at the most basic level, do the most menial job, respecting ppl under his care, be the first person to lead and try out new implementations etc. 燕王 was always in the lead at any wars, instead of getting the soldiers to sacrifice first while he waits at the last line... although his life is so precious and if he dies, there goes the ppl who joined him in the 'rebel'.

he once said, "本王虽是王，但也是兵，也是将".

9 down! 1 more to go!

I completed 3 observations today.. making up to a total of 9 completed observations in all! YAY~
This should be worthy of celebration right? haha
But somehow I feel a little sad.. not that I regret.. I gave a 110% for everything already... I think that will be comforting enough... and stories behind should remain untold to uphold peace...

That aside, I have been receiving so many emails about performances in school and I so wish I could go.. Just a few days back, I saw this NIE pop band poster about the upcoming performance... Really reminds me of the life I used to lead for the past 4 years... really really fond memories. For one thing, I can wake up later than 6am generally and take my own sweet time, relaxing while travelling 1.5hr to the extreme west everyday. To worry about the food to eat for lunch, my own modules to clear and going out with friends only... But now demands are much higher.. everyday seems an endless breathless race. Hope everyone is doing great for this final assessment.. Actually throughout the attachment period, I have gone back to ntu a number of times. It indeed feels good to be there again, breathing the familiar chocolate-filled air...

In the sea of greenery lies the lion
the 'zion' of knowledge?
where our hearts beat as one,
a form of comradship.
To the left, lies the Yellow tees, Viva la vida...
we tell ourselves... I will Survive.
we did.
But sometimes, it cant be helped and Tear drops on the guitar
there is no need to Apologise.
we learned.

The memories... we hold dear..

The process that counts...