Sunday, February 19, 2006
Choir prac today. Bright and early in the morning from 9 to 12. Luckily I slept (relatively) early last night.
I was almost late, because I went down to 6th avenue to get some coffee before going to NJ. Can't be helped - coffee is essential!
In any case I was hardly the latest to arrive. Many more were streaming in in 2s and 3s. Teachers starting collecting money, which took a good 40 minutes. Unbelivable, that simply collecting cheques can take so long. Nobody seemed in any urgency to start the practice.
I don't really understand the philosophy of Miss Lim and the teachers. They seem to subscribe to the "less is more" mentality. I would have thought that, given the "lesson" we had in Bremen, they would have learnt. Personally I believe one of the chief reasons why we didn't do well in Bremen was because we had too little practices, and towards the end the teachers and Miss Lim kept trying to keep practices less and less because they were afraid that we would tire out.
To me, hard work pays well.
Anyway I was rather uncomfortable during practice. I must say that most of the people were rather nice people. It's just that there's still this gap between us, which I hope to remedy soon.
It's the singing I am more concerned about.
Now, we didn't sound bad necessarily. But, anyone who knows me well enough knows that in choir, I simply cannot allow myself to just stand there and sing while not caring about the music of everyone else. So, I shall make a list of things that I don't like, so far.
1. I think generally everyone needs to be more focused towards the competition. Granted, it's still 2 months away. But speaking from experience it's really not too early to start being serious now.
2. Need more sectionals, I think. I'll have to try to make it for Wednesday sectionals.
3. SCs really can afford to do more. Both Cherie and Dewei. It's not how they conduct that I'm concerned about. It's the way they take the combined sessions. When I standing there singing can pick up twice as many mistakes as the SC, surely something is wrong somewhere. Currently they like to sing through the whole song, then make some general comments at the end, like "Sops need to be more musical" or "Tenors have split notes", then make us sing through the whole thing again. It really is not very helpful. I agree that singing through the whole song helps, and is necessary to get used to simply singing the whole piece through. But not now. Now we need to be stopped when there are mistakes, so that we can actually revise and remember and take note of the weak passages, and make sure we get what Miss Lim wants, which is the whole purpose of practicing with SCs when Miss Lim's not around anyway.
4. Need longer and more practices. Enough said.
Well well..it seems like I'm bitching about SCs again. Sometimes I think I just have something against SCs. I didn't like what Stef and Liting did, and I don't like what Cherie and Dewei are doing now. But it's not like I'm against them personally. Or that I hate all SCs. Remember Bingzhu from Huachong Voices? Now HE is what I call a really good SC. Conducts well and clearly, gives good musical advice, commands the respect of the rest, not boring in front, jokes around in good humor, strict enough when necessary. The best I've ever seen.
Everyone has a part to play. It's a team effort after all. I hope I can at least manage to bond relatively well with the rest of the singers before the trip.
I WANT TO WIN THIS TIME DAMNIT!!! =D
{/12:15 AM}
me
