musicstories; by OddityOfLife

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Plane Note

It's currently (Singapore time) 3:35am.... or something like that. I'm still in the air, no Internet so this is all in Ommwriter at the moment. 5 more hours of flight to go, and I can't sleep!

At least, maybe, thinking of what has transpired so far on my journey home would help me sleep. And be thankful that I'm even on this plane.

The very first hiccup was the weather. I checked my flight status repeatedly, and it said 'no delay'. But the weather brought on the first delay. My booked transport, via rideflyreservation.com, bailed out on me at the last minute. I waited for them to come, gave them a ring 5 minutes after the expected time. They told me that the transport would not arrive on time, because of the roads and the snow plows still working at clearing them. They advised me to get a cab. $18 down the drain. I was super-lucky, though. Nearby was a BU student who just flagged down a cab and offered to split the bill if I ride with her. I took the chance and got to the airport with minutes to spare for catching some relief and food.

Then the flight in Boston left late. There was already a hiccup where a Virgin Atlantic trainee gave me the incorrect pass and I had to run back to the desk and run back to the security checkpoint. And I sat next to an Indian fellow - no he didn't smell. He placed his elbows on the elbow rests and I kept jabbing myself into it throughout the flight. I slept well on that flight, though.

Upon reaching Heathrow, I had only 50 minutes to catch some breakfast and make my way to the Singapore Airlines gate. So I ran through the airport, fair enough to say. But, thank goodness, I got there in time, and everything went smoothly since.

I guess, in the future, I need to watch for longer transit times, more reliable transport services in snowy weather, window seats all the way (so I get a corner to myself), and probably go for Premium Economy on Virgin Atlantic. And bring my ethernet cable for the A380 leg so I can go online!

OK. Now, sleeptime. Or at least I'll try. Can't wait to be home to eat all the good food, play with Lucky and Kittychan, enjoy the warmth and cheaper clothes and things like that. XD

Labels: Rantings

Oddy played the keys | 5:39 PM | 0 comments

Thursday, November 26, 2009

Thanksgiving Holiday

Peace.

So, what am I to do?

It's Thanksgiving! And I'm over at the Manley's in New York, just resting after finishing most of the second Harmony assignment. Ought to work on Arranging soon. I just realized - with my teacher's help - that my C- on my test was ALL careless mistakes. I guess I was at fault for not writing quick enough to give the paper a proper check after I was done. I was rushing the paper out on the test date. *sigh*

Ommwriter is so pretty... You must try it for writing blog entries! :D http://www.ommwriter.com

Can't find the kitty in this house. There is one. Razzledazzle must be hunting for mice again. Bearskins looks dejected - no one gave her attention or fed her scraps from the kitchen. Can't be helped - the adults were busy cooking and preparing.

And the garden in this house is so big and pretty! I'll definitely be taking pictures.

Meow.

Labels: Rantings

Oddy played the keys | 11:47 AM | 0 comments

Monday, November 02, 2009

From Midterm Hell to Normal Life

I should stop complaining. I looked down at my posts and it is a long line of ravings. I'm worrying too much, or do I really have reason to worry?

My midterms... went all right, I suppose. I found it stressful. I can't believe there are people around me who say 'Oh, it wasn't bad. I didn't find it stressful.' I'm stabbing myself - and whoever the person at that time is - with musical-note-knives.

And I blew the stress away on a great shopping trip with Nat, Kat, and Nat's BF, Gage. Ran around Framingham, getting more creature comforts, especially clothes, for wear. It's gradually getting colder. It's weird to hear people say that 10 degrees (C) is STILL warm! I got used to that for a bit, until it got warm again, and got cold again. Brr-grr. But I can live! Now with more long-sleeves, thermal long-sleeves (from Gap!), layering shirts, and more stuff. And I got some presents! Presents always good!

Hmm... and food-wise. I'm eating lots of pasta. The cafeteria has lousy tomato sauce, but it has nice pesto! So right now it's pesto with garlic, mushrooms and whatever meat choice there is, but it's yum compared to the icky burgers, sandwiches and weird 'Mexican' food. And after the shopping spree, it's time to give my wallet a break.

My crazy piano teacher was at it again. I summed it up on FB to someone else.

The piano teaching rooms have this custom of knocking on the door at your lesson time, or else you won't get in.

So I knocked on the dot.

Waited 5 minutes.

No reply. Knock knock.

No reply again. 10 minutes now.

Contemplating of going home to practice instead of wasting time.

Knockknocknocknocknock!

Teacher pops his head out and says, 'Sorry, got caught up with something! Wait just one minute!'

And 10 minutes of a half hour lesson gone. XD

That's not all.

12:06amMabel

This teacher of mine has the habit of walking around the room ,checking his emails, fiddling with stuff while I played.

So he told me that day to play my final prepared piece

So I played. Then he got up and started going about his business.

I couldn't see where he went, I just kept playing.

When I was done, I turned to him - he was at the window, scratching his underwear.

Ewww.

12:08amMabel

Just the hem of it at the top of his jeans, but I still saw it!

He turned to me, blank face.

'What do you think?'

I took that as 'You really messed that one up.'

'I....... need to work on it, sir?'

'That was BRILLIANT!'

And I got the shock of my life. XD

12:10amMabel

He started ranting and ranting, 'That's really good! You surpassed my expectations of you! Yeah, it needs a little work, but you're already there!'

'Can I getcha mum's and dad's email? I gotta tell them how impressed I am of ya!'

And I'm o.o

12:11amMabel

Weird, weird teacher.

So many moods and reactions in one class

Now he's toned down to being bored or being slightly pissed because I'm not improving on my hardhard homework. XD

And that piece of homework is !@%^& hard! Swear-worthy! Because this is even work that the other teachers don't DARE to do! How weird is that!

It's 'Giant Steps' by Coltrane. Arguably one of the ugliest, weirdest, and most technically challenging piece in jazz, it is now transcribed - chords only, not melody - in all 12 major keys and I'm whacked with the task of playing different chord types to all the keys. Not easy at all. It's a lot more brainwork than just playing 4 notes on the left hand and one easy note on the right. I'm dyiiing...

So that'll be another episode of me stabbing the weird teacher in the back with said musical-note-knives, and slicing my hands off with said knives and swearing off the piano. But, that's only in the mind theatre. No slicing of hands for me. Ever.

Andandand... andandand... I didn't celebrate any Halloween-ish stuff! Yay!

And I miss seafood. And sushi. And sashimi. And Crystal Jade. And Soup Restaurant. And Soup Spoon. And having favourite meals spread out before me. I shall pig out when I come back! >:D And drag Kevin along! :D

And I finally got rid of the problem of our dorm room smelling like food. Kat and I had been on an instant-ramen and cup-ramen phase, and our room kept smelling of food. Prior to that, we still ate stuff in the room and our third roommate, now moved out, remarked that our room smelt of food - many kinds of food at once. I looked for some odor-removal agent, and found a cheap kind that's like Hippo, but for odors. Seems to be working fine, even if it's a bit slow in taking effect.

OK, now I need to find time to move into the apartment for a weekend to try it out, get Internet to the apartment before that, and decide if I want to live there, or live in the dorms, or live like Jimmy. XD

Labels: Music, Rantings, The Academy

Oddy played the keys | 8:48 PM | 0 comments

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Surely Berklee must be right in accepting me, right?

Because things are so overwhelming, so many classes I'm struggling in. Natalie echoed the same sentiments as I do now: things here are INTENSE. And we're not joking at all.

I wonder if SP was partly to blame. Compared to Berklee, it's a walk in the park. The classes were no doubt longer, but the pace easier and the work and leniency simpler. And people graduate from there and go to work?! Without feeling the stress that I feel now as a Berklee student?! And I thought DMAT wouldn't degrade their work or course just to make the students pass. Now I think they did.

And I know, challenges are there to put us to the test and see if we make it, or we don't. I'm feeling like I'm losing my grip here. I'm the worst in Comping, even if it's at Level 2. With everyone spear-heading forward and me struggling to get everything into memory or paper, it's hard. And Ear Training 4 is just painful. It's fun, until the difficulty sets in. And the practice hours, I feel I'm not doing enough.

And the midterms are the week after next.

I'm trying my best not to cower and hide, but it hurts. I feel stressed - not by the workload, but by my falling grades, or average grades (It's Bs at the moment. I'm already scared.), and, worst of all, if my future here would be of worse things to come and I just collapse and die from the sheer difficulty of things.

I need a moment of peace. Thank goodness there are no classes till 4:30, and that's Jeff Covell. I don't want to think about it.

God, give me the strength to tide through this, to pick up and stop falling behind. Please.

Labels: Rantings, The Academy

Oddy played the keys | 8:12 AM | 0 comments

Monday, September 28, 2009

One Word

GRAAAAAHHHH!!!!

This Jeff Covell is making my life a living hell!!!!!

Berklee is getting stressful. As Jo put it: Why do I have to take Gen Eds/Cores? Why so many of them? Can't I just take the stuff that applies to my major!?

Piano. It's a love-hate relationship. I'm content playing songs that I like on the piano, but forcing things down is hard, especially hard if the stress is placed on you with things like money and grades hanging on the line. I'm not exactly happy about it, but I can only buck up and do something about it.

I practised last night. It was fruitful.

I wanted to practise today, and clear forgot. >.< This is not a good start. Arguing that it was to do an assignment post may be a worthy argument, but I'd be going soft on myself. I can't afford that.

Harmony and Arranging are fine so far. Ear Training is hard! I'm minor-deaf. The lecturer says too that it's against us, that we only had 3 lessons to sit into it, then head straight to the deep-end about it. Some others can do it (Kath is very good at it), but some others (me) can't. Yet.

Stress. Stress. Stress.

Labels: Rantings

Oddy played the keys | 9:31 PM | 0 comments

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Time Management Needed

Classes so far are fine, with wonderful lecturers and some nice classmates whom I talk to. I still don't know about 95% of my classmates, but it's only the second week of classes.

I already have a big to-do list, and I feel bad for focusing too much on the theoretical stuff and not enough on the practical stuff. I've been on top of my theory work, but I've only spent an hour this week in the piano room, not enough for practising everything else that needs attention - I need to pick up my jazz books and try a few tunes in them. The instructor has already told me what I needed to do - root chords and melody, easy as that. And with my own really thick real book, I have more than enough pieces to try.

And I haven't talked about sight-reading yet. In my defense, I've printed out two FF scores (very easy, though) and sight-read those. I failed miserably at the funny chords Suteki Da Ne had. Haven't analyzed it properly, me thinks.

The rest of my time was devoted to Harmony, Arranging and Ear Training. Maybe it's because I know that there are books to be filled for those, actual paperwork that had to be done that I attacked it first.

Guess I need to find a balance between the two. Music has to work both theoretically and practically, after all. And to think that I hated music theory about 4 to 5 years back. XD

Now I'm really, really glad that I have kept my Tuesday free. An opportunity to do work, and there's no excuse for not being able to practise on a totally free day.

And now I need to kickstart my GTD system somehow. A sync-able one between my leisure laptop and my work laptop.

That's my to-do list for the week, and the week ahead. Time for me to scoot!

Labels: The Academy

Oddy played the keys | 7:39 AM | 0 comments

Monday, September 14, 2009

Big Mama and Dance? Oooh.