DuckieDroplets

My Love. My baby. My heart. My blood. My soul. EVERYTHING.
Everything happened in primary. Everything started during primary school… when I first joined Tsun Jin’s primary school choir as a pianist in standard 3, when I was just 9 years old…a seed was planted deep down in my heart. I love singing. I started singing when I was barely 3, my mom said I sang "Happy Birthday" in front of public, on stage during my cousin’s 21st birthday party… WOW right? Lolx. That seed grew pretty healthy with the help of Tsun Jin’s Choir Year 2000 under the guidance of Mr. Chen Zi Ping. We went to various places to compete and won various glorious prizes, making our school, our parents, our teachers, us ourselves… very proud indeed. Then when I realize I had to graduate and leave all my "bestest" friends who were ALL choir maniacs, I thought… "Hey. Why not we ourselves form a choir?"

Co-incidently, my mom runs a small music school business and I can use her studio for practices. Considering getting free air-condition, free rooms, free piano… HAHA… and free advertising to increase choir members, it was no big deal if the choir’s name became "Simshen de Classic’s Youth Choir" instead of "Gan Jia Ying’s Youth Choir" Eh? Lolx. (Note: Simshen de Classic is the name of my mom’s small music school… which is currently expanding quite well. Lolx, and is no longer small.) So Simshen de Classic’s Youth Choir was formed in year 2001 among me and some of my friends from primary school. If I was not wrong, there were around 10+ of us at that time, barely reaching 15… so we sung small pieces for chamber choirs and had lots of fun growing up together. For annual activities, we performed small pieces in huge performances organized by Simshen de Classic, and for the rest of the days… we had fun singing together, and making our lives miserable by tackling with harder and harder and harder repertoires. But hahaha… we had fun.

Members came and went, the choir grew larger… and one day in December, year 2002. I heard from SOMEWHERE that there was going to be an INTERNATIONAL CHORAL COMPETITION held by the Singapore Arts Council HERE in GENTING, MALAYSIA… My first was of course "OH MY GAWD. There’s an INTERNATIONAL Choir Festival going ON HERE in MALAYSIA!" Then the next thing we know, is us heading to genting participating in the competition and winning ourselves a gold medal for folklore category and a silver medal for Junior Category. Oh, I missed a part. For the sake of the competition, the choir expanded quite a loud number and even named ourselves Simshen de Classic’s Junior Youth Choir - LittleNoise. Or in short, we’re known as "The LittleNoise Choir" where we had our very very very FIRST ever concert, organized by our patron of course…Simshen de Classic and performed by OURSELVES! YAY! Hahaha…

The next thing after winning the competition in year 2003? We were WHOOOSHHH to Singapore, June year 2004 and was the ONLY choir team representing Malaysia to WOOOO the Singapore Audience during the "Choir Jubilee" of their country’s art festival. THEN we got wilder. We started thinking of ways to attract the audiences back in our hometown. Because music isn’t very well developed here in Malaysia, and it’s VERY hard to get audiences’ support if you’re doing Classical all the way. PLUS we are all teenagers! Who would like to stand for 30 minutes singing JUST Bach, Handel, Messiah, Mozart…. PURCELL! Who wouldn’t prefer songs from now like… Disney, Musicals, Kelly Clarkson, WANG LEE HOM? Lolx. So I started re-arranging tunes for the choir to sing, and with the farnee and great guidance of Mr. Mulu Lau, one of the very reknowned choir masters in Malaysia who is also known to look like Elton John! HAHAHAHA~! The LittleNoise Choir fair really really well, and started to gain some fans around. Haha… bringing in more choir members of course.

Everything went from wacky to totally WILD when we staged our VERY VERY own Originally-scripted and re-arranged Musical. Haha. Well, it was only originally scripted with songs from all over the places, all kinds of genres, all sort of composers. But it was New… and the audiences loved it. No… WE LOVED IT. Lolx. Of course during the process of preparing ourselves for the HUGE thing, we had ups and downs… choir members threatening to leave, parents complaining, friends argueing, things turning upside down, the sky falling, earthquakes, volcano explosions… okay. Gone out of topic. Lolx. It was hard. Very hard. Especially when WE are doing everything ourselves: Renting the hall, printing tickets, selling tickets, counting ticket sales, backdrops, props, practice times, script, bla bla bla blabl abl bal… of course the singing part we have teachers to guide. But asides that, everything else was on our own! So when the concert was over, which, by luck… a small but great success (to us)… everybody was gleaming with pride, wishing that we could all do it again, and again and again! The pressed loved us too! Haha… Yay… that’s another great thing.

Then this year, we brought ourselves to another level. "Okay, last year we had it originally scripted, bringing songs together from all over the place. This year, what are we going to do to show that we’ve improved?" It was a hard decision, but since we are totally insane and have no sense of logic or fear or well, we’re NUTZ. Because we decided to go FULL. Yea… FULLY ORIGINAL. "You must be mad…" yeap. We are. "Midnight Puppet - The Musical." The first 100% FULLY ORGINAL Malaysian Musical by TEENS. All songs, all lyrics, all scripts, all dance choreographing, all acting, all props, all costumes, all EVERYTHING. Was it tough? Nah…. How can it be… EASY??? It was HELL. Of course, not trying be modest. But I won’t hide what I can do, I am afterall the mastermind behind everything. But with it comes an AWFUL lot of stress. And handling stress, is stressful… but look on the bright side, I lost 7 KGs. Hahahahaha… On 29th and 30th July 2006, was two very very memorable nights that I believed No Noisemaker that had been part of Midnight Puppet would ever ever forget those experience.

It’s not just another "musical". It’s not MY musical. It’s OUR musical… It’s the musical that brought All LittleNoise members together. Everyone played an important part of it. With it brought friendship, love, fun, and of course "music". The LittleNoise Choir grew from just a choir that stood still and sing to one that can act, sing and dance at the same time. Think of it, how many choir does that? Okay… think it smaller. How many choir is Malaysia does that. Let me answer you, you don’t need that long to think. NONE. N.O.N.E. NONE. The musical was a TOTAL BOOM… GREAT success. We even have our OWN musical soundtrack recorded, and it’s selling now at RM19.90. Lolx. It’s not Professionally done, considering that we’re just a bunch of crazy students… but considering that, we actually professional. HAHAHAHA!

Now, I’m here in Beijing and the choir’s having a new captain. And I’m hearing all sorts of nonsense… like who’s quitting the choir, who’s hating the choir, who’s controlling, who’s stabbing behind backs, who’s not enjoying choir time, who’s fade up of littlenoise and littlenoise is going to die very soon. It’s just heartbreaking. All the promises I’ve got, all the passion all the love that I’ve seen in almost ALL of the choir members that claimed themselves to be part of The LittleNoise Choir is suddenly Gone. POOF. Like magic… vanishing into thin air. But this is not an object that vanished. It’s feelings… it’s memories! Some of them have been with the choir since they were 11? 12? And they’ve gone through every step, every hard work, every rock and stairs. Now just because there’s no one right on top to cling everybody together, it falls apart? I don’t believe that when I was captain, I was the ONLY one who loved the choir and the ONLY ONE to bring it together. Not that I don’t believe in myself, but if you tell me that I’m the one doing all work, I’d tell you "IMPOSSIBLE." I don’t have that strength, or energy or well, IMPOSSIBLE.

For those of you who had said that the choir was formed because of me, and now dies because I’m not there. Let me tell you this. The LittleNoise Choir existed because of me, true. But it wasn’t JUST for me. Or you guys won’t even be in choir, because if I am THAT greatly important, which I really don’t think so… I can sing the choir myself. Right?For those of you on top of the piramid, those having posts and doing all the work. If you do not love the choir: Number one — You WON"T be in it. If you’ve BEEN in it, you LOVE the choir. Who loves doing duties? Who loves being responsible for all the faults and all the troubles. But SOMEBODY’s GOTTA do it. And it isn’t FAIR if ONE PERSON does it all, right? SO… make that SOMEBODY EVERYBODY. If everybody shares the burden, then the work load wouldn’t be as much.

The spirit is dying. Where’s the spirit? Now all I hear is people complaining even to go for practices??? It’s not just any practice. It’s a GATHERING! A gathering for FRIENDS from all over KL, ALL OVER schools! Where can you find another place to know people from so many different places and different ages all at the same
time?? I understand it is hard work, but bringing people together has never been easy.
You do not take leaves because you have a sore throat. Being in LittleNoise isn’t about SINGING, for god’s sake! If you guys notice, it’s the spirit that matters. The thing that bounded us together isn’t HOW WE SING… it’s our spirits… it’s friendship, it’s LOVE. YES! It’s sharing the same passion, doing the same thing, having the same goals. It’s being US as young teens and having fun! If you’ve just been in LittleNoise for 2 days, I understand if you do not understand the LittleNoise culture. But if you’re a member for 3? 4 years? And you’re leaving because of your studies? because you think that the choir has too much work installed for you? because you don’t LOVE It? and you think that the choir has NO FUTURE at all?

Who sets a future? YOU. US. ALL members. Who’s fault is it if the choir has no future? YOURS. OURS. ALL MEMBERS. Don’t give up hope on LittleNoise, don’t give up hope on your friends, don’t give up HOPE on yourselves! Just because you have to do an extra paperwork won’t take you 50 hours off your week! Never say Never! Where’s "Yay, we go! Go littlenoise!" spirit? What’s happened to those wacky wild INSANE Noise-makers that I grew up loving all these years? There  is a saying in LittleNoise, "Once a LittleNoise, forever a LittleNoise."
Do not deny that, unless you tell me that you never liked every practice, every journey, every concert, every trip, everything LittleNoise does. And you’ve only been in that choir because you were forced to… by your parents. Hahaha… I’ll hang myself if you tell me that. Because if my memory is correct, you guys even had to REBEL your parents to let you come for choir. And now, after all those times? You’re just giving up? Like that? Are you satisfied? Are you happy? Would you not miss any members, any friends, any songs? YES? Okay, go ahead… quit. Let the choir die. *raises eyebrow* Eh???

If you are a noise maker, and you’re reading this. Pass it on to another member and let them take a look at what I’ve written. It may not be very well written, but every word is from my heart. Hoping that you’ll love the choir as much as I do. Before you close this page, I thank you VERY MUCH to finish reading
this. It’s a HUGE post I know… THANK you for reading! I’ve posted the lyrics to a song that I think you should sing, with your heart, to every word it says… then after that tell me: You’ve never liked the choir. And if you do, do that… I’ll shed a tear for you, because you’ve wasted so much time to love something that later on only you found out that it was useless.

Listen, hear our voices sing
The LittleNoise Choir is here
We are special
We are not the same
Together we will lit your days

Watch out, see our spirits fly
The LittleNoise Choir is here
We speak one language
We share one dream
Together we will sing our ways

We’re gonna get up
We’re gonna be stars
We’re gonna work hard
Together we are one
We’re gonna take off
We’re gonna stand strong
We’re gonna hold hands
And make our dreams come true

So Come on LittleNoise
Say Yes Say High
Show them what we’ve got
Yeah ~ Bulls eye!
Let’s Clap it hard and Sing it loud
Go! Go! Go!
Go ~ LittleNoise!

We’re gonna get up
We’re gonna be stars
We’re gonna work hard
Together we are one
We’re gonna take off
We’re gonna stand strong
We’re gonna hold hands
And make our dreams come true

"You can always leave LittleNoise, but LittleNoise never leaves you."

It was a special day today, considered quite important because there are lots of important things that was going to happen.

The three things are:
1) Masterclass
2) Score-reading Exam
3) Conducting lesson with Yang Li, first time conducting "Unfinished Symphony"

I slept the night before with a smile, thinking I’d be waking up to something sweet. But then, luckily I was ready to be dissapointed, or my day would be thrown in a total different direction. I seriously think that the way you wake up will determine how the rest of your day would be. Start your day with Nescafe… (commercial break). WAKAKAKA. Okay. My alarm went off at 7:10am and I jerked up from my bed, knowing that it was way passed the time that polar promised. But it was A-o-kay. It was later on replaced with a nice breakfast opposite school with some pao’s … a cup of hot tea… eggs and fish balls… Then it was time to practice score-reading because today was an important day for score-reading — EXAM.

9am sharp, I reached the first conducting classroom and got to know Professor Gibson from the music school, University of Ciccinati, USA. The 2nd important thing happening today -Masterclass. It was very fun, Professor Gibson was VERY humorous and made us laugh from start to end. I was the translator again, haha.. I really like this job. Because you’ll have to translate every phrase. And I was kinda getting naughty doing it…
Gibson: "Don’t beat your beats too much! (With A LOT of Expression) CARE FOR THE MUSIC"
Me: (Immitating the exact tone and hand actions "别老是打拍子！*raises eyebrows, widen eyes, inhales heavily, raises hands into air* 要关爱音乐多一些！"
Gibson: (Laughs whilst pointing at me) "Hahahahaha…"
Me: (Laughs whilst pointing at him, immitating) "Hahahahaha…"
- Whole class laughs -

He’s point of views was very similiar to my teacher, Yang Li… and often says the same thing. Here are some quotes from him that I myself pretty much enjoyed.
1) If you live with the beat, you’ll die with the beat.
2) Be an empty cup. Let the soul of the music fill you.
3) Forget about your feelings, forget about your thoughts, forget you. In music, you do not exist.
4) Never lie. Never lie to your orchestra, never lie to the composer, and never lie to yourself.
5) From Leonard Berstein who once said it to Gibson when he was studying under him: "Conducting is all about believing. Believing in sound."

It was a nice masterclass and I learned a lot and it made me think a lot. Usually when I interprate music, it was through how I feel, what I think the music should sound like and how I want the music to be. But he totally woke me up today. When I hold the baton and stand on the roastrum, I am no longer myself. My body is a tool. A tool for the composer’s soul to run through and later bring music to its life form. I am but the eyes. And he was quite right about how chinese … asians teach. "Do you want to bring up another conductor, or do you want to bring up another you?"

At 2pm, I had my score-reading exam. It went pretty smoothly, like what I had expected. Although there are slight slips here and there, but it was 95% correct. Pretty happy with myself. =]

Then I had conducting lessons. It was kinda torturing. Because knowing that I’ll be conducting the same piece - Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony- for my mid-year exam with HuangYi just gives me a lot of EXTRA un-needed stress. Well, he IS much better than me in many ways. One thing is "confidence". It just keeps ray-ing from him like sunshine~! And no matter how much I try, I just couldn’t transfer that pile of energy from the inner-me onto my baton and into the music. And it really feels bad when all I get from teacher Yang Li is "Wrong." "No." "C’mon." "Nope." "Don’t." "Please." and after his first attempt, it was "GREAT." "Very well." "Good." "Exactly." "Yeap." …… sigh …… ""That’s very confident-building."" And Unfinished Symphony is REALLY REALLY hard to conduct, musically and physically. It is so sad, so tragic, so UGH! And I’ve only endured 18 years of life… as though I’ve been through anything THAT tragedic. But this is the good part, I can do it better than HuangYi. LOL. Although teacher didn’t praise me, he didn’t comment about my feeling towards the music either… which probably means I’m going at the right direction. Sigh, I just wish my hands and my body would listen to my heart and not my mind.

That’s about it. Haven’t blogged about my normal life for some time, just thought I’d update a little.

Uncertainty in your tone
Her name I have known
Beneath the mystery you’ve shown
Every time she phones

Running to her aid
The minute your phone is laid
Funny excuses made
Dissapearing before said

Why did you ring my bell
I really couldn’t tell
Why make my joyous heart yell
later drop it down the well

How important her part plays
rain storm, snow flakes or sun rays
How far away do I stay
from your frontdoor up your way

My mind’s in a bundle
tossed, turned and crumpled
Are you blunt or am I blunder
Either one or both unsure

Tell me that it isn’t true
In your world she doesn’t rule
and I am not but a fool
to think there’s something in us too

But who am I to judge
But who am I to fudge

For I am but the one you’ve name
to play this guessing game

Didn’t know when I started guessing

How many times I’d see you smiling

Didn’t know when I started wondering

What flows in your mind, keeps you thinking

I wonder why it matters as much

The way you walk, talk, feel and such

As days pass and time ticks away

Along with your shadows my puzzle heart sways

Imagining your every movement

Picturing your every days

Repeating the same question my blunder mind names

Are you too, playing this guessing game

This is my second attempt to blog because my first VERY long and nice post had decided to commit-suicide by refreshing itself. (I also dunno what I pressed… probably enter or something.) So, instead of that paragraph-formed long long story-like post, I’ll just blog everything in point form.

6:45am - Woke up, excited because today was my first official mid-term conducting examination. Attempted to bath at -1 Celcius degrees and found out that no hot water was provided until 7:30am so gave up bathing.
7:20am - Changed into my new Vera-Moda blouse I bought at XiDan, and dressed up formally. Looked great. LOL. Made breakfast that consists of meat balls, noodles, ham, cabbage and egg.
7:45am - Visited Conducting Classroom’s hallway and saw a whole row of teachers standing outside chatting.
8:30am - Exam started with some youngsters from CCOM’s high school
. I started walking to and fro my hostel and the classroom (same floor), helped people get some stuffs.
8:45am - My baton DISSAPEARED. Some fellow from CCOM high school accidently took it with him. (Only found out in the afternoon that he took it. Went nuts in the morning)
9:00am - 3 more people and it’s HuangYi’s turn, then it’s my turn. And one of our piano teacher ain’t here yet. If she doesn’t come in 5 minutes, either I have to play her part for Huang Yi and he plays for me OR we’re disqualified.
9:05am - Still no sign of piano teacher
9:10am - 2 more people to HuangYi’d turn, I’m playing for him… and will be using his baton.
9:15am - SHE FINALLY TURNED UP. OH MY GAWD!!!
9:20am - HuangYi’s round to conduct (Beethoven 2nd Symphony 3rd Movement). He board the platform before the pianists entered… lolx. Conductor very bagi muka.
9:26am - My turn. Conducting "Arabian Dance" from Edward Grieg’s Peer Gynt. Expected myself to shake non-stop until baton also cannot hold properly, but turned out rather well. Rather pleased with myself.
9:35am
- It’s OVER. I cannot believe it.

—————————————————

Lunch hour - Went to Canteen with ZhaoXingHua
2PM - Sight singing and hearing Class. Was FUN… and stressful. Lolx… Scariest lessons of all time.
4PM - Went to the Conducting Departments’ office to check out the results:

1) ZhaoXingHua - 89.75
2) HuangYi - 89
3) ZhouHaoYu//LiYingJiao
- 88.75
4) ME - 88.25
5) GaoXing//ZhouXiaoShi - 87.75

WAKAKAKAA. Quite happy with the results~ Considered not bad geh larrr, cuz the higest mark for first years are below 90. Some c2pid rule about not giving 90 and above for first years.

—————————————————–

At night went to CELEBRATE… wakakka. Had dinner with ZhouHaoYu, LiYingJiao and ZhaoXingHua at Huang Rong Lao Ma Huo Guo - Steamboat. Hehehe. Then headed on to meet with DingYi and HuangYi to go watch movies. End up at the theatre not watching anything because the movies were boring. So we headed to RBT and played police and murderer. Sweat! Hahaha…After that went to K-box and sang till morning. WAKAKAKA. Going with the Conducting department is FUN because everyone sounds good. LOL. LiYingJiao sounds SO MUCH like Jay Chou! (Not that I like Jay Chou lar) HuangYi sounds like JJLim…ZhouHaoYu sounds like YanZi, YangYi is THE most hilarious: "Songs after 1998 I dunno how to sing" So if you see cows, goats, fields, seas on the screen, you’ll know who’s song is it. LOLX. The K-box here in Beijing is really nice because if you come during weekdays and sing from 11pm till morning, it’s only at RMB59… PLUS buffet which is available from 12am to 4am. So… eat and sing, eat and sing. Things didn’t go quite well in the beginning… the room was too small, DingYi felt like throwing up because of the tea she drank earlier, everyone who promised to come didn’t turn up (yet). But after a while, things became normal. DingYi’s change was dramatic: Sick cat to Jumping Monkey. LOL

Had fun. =]