Stravinsky Concerto for Strings in D
It has been one of a freakin HELL week… although it hasn’t end as more is to be expected. But all the burden dear ol’ Stravinsky has thrown upon my shoulders are now released. I can’t help grinning every time the words: "It’s OVER" crosses my mind.
Ever since 3 weeks ago I’ve been preparing this repertoire for my mid-term conducting examination. And since I’m a conducting student, of course this exam means A LOT to me compared to all the other subjects. And due to my VERY hectic schedule, I really didn’t have enough time to do everything slowly. Everything was going at such a fast pace (Allegro Vivace) that it really just sweeps me away at times.
The worst thing about Stravinsky Concerto for Strings in D is not conducting it during "exam". It’s the rehearsals and practices… since I had to conduct 2 pianos… I will need 2 PIANISTS. The "usual" and "easy" + "safe" way will be to let the two piano accompaniment teachers play. But my "LOVELY" conducting teacher - Yang Li, insist that it was played by his students. And there’s only 5 of us….
1) Ma Ding - year 5, impossible to ask her to play cuz she has to prepare for her graduation
2) ChenKe - Year 2… good piano technics, bad sight reading, slow reactions, but nice person larr. EXCEPT the fact that he JUST broke up with his 7 year gf … so, he’ll be having mood swings from time to time. Will be conducting Barber of Seville’s Overture…
3) Zhao HaoTing - Year 2… normal piano technics; okay sight reading; thinks he’s ZhaoHaoTing-al-mighty but is actually not so. Will also be conducting Stravinsky Concerto for Strings in D
4) Huang Yi - Year 1…good piano technics; good sight reading; nice person but very lazy to practice. Will be conducting Barber of Seville’s Overture…
Ah-hah. Who to choose???? The wiser choice between No.2 to No.4 will be "Huang Yi on the 2nd and Chen Ke on the 1st Piano" BUT Huang Yi is TOO lazy to practice 2nd piano (it IS the harder one). BUT if Chen Ke plays 2nd, he’ll probably have problems coping with the speed and rhythm and spinning his brain twice as fast.
So… Who did I end up with??? Well, Huang Yi as usual didn’t practice because nobody FORCED him to. Hao Ting practiced the first piano (easy larrr)… and NOBODY played the 2nd piano. So, during my 2nd class, I had to sing. And teacher got pretty mad… so he made ChenKe play the 2nd piano (Huang Yi was lucky NOT to be there at that specific moment… lucky for him, unlucky for me). SO… I ended up with Chen Ke on the 2nd and HaoTing on the 1st. You can also say … I ended up with a MASSIVE HEADACHE.
Problems occurred during practices:
1) RHYTHM - The rhythm ITSELF is hard, even for me. All the time changing just makes you dizzy. So, it took me like 5 to 6 practices to GET them to play the RIGHT Rhythm.
2) PLAYING TOGETHER - Honestly. They NEVER PLAYED together until LAST NIGHT. And that was a "ONE TIME" thing. I’m not saying play together until the end WITHOUT mistakes oh… It was the ONE TIME WITH SUPER LOTSA MISTAKE that I pretended not to see or hear because I was freakin’ worried that they will stop in the middle of the exam.
3) PRACTICING - They just DON’T practice. OKAY… maybe they DO play the piece… but not in DETAILS. You can tell larrr… You think you dealing with people that dunno music meh?? Their concept is this: As long as I can play in rhythm is okay geh, notes correct or not nevermind larr. It DROVE ME CRAZY. But what can I do??? Ask them to practice?? HELLO? I’m YOUNGER than them… and if I ask more, they’ll gimme the "face". Bloody right? I know… and IF I ask them to come for extra practices, they very nice geh… will say "ok" at first. Then LAST minute tell me either they have something else, or they are TOO TIRED.
4) ATTITUDE - Mr. al-mighty thinks he’s Mr. al-mighty larrr. So when ever he plays wrong and I tell him off he’ll be turning the table around and TELL ME OFF instead. @.@ And he Won’T admit his fault. (Yesh, I dun like him… lolx. SOrrry LARRR). Then Mr.Nice is BUSY having mood swings. GAH.
Well, in-return of their favor for being my accompanist, I am their accompanist as well. LUCKY them, I’m always in-time with my rhythm, and always react VERY quickly to everything they want. GAH. SO UNFAIR. I do my part and they what??? IGNORE me. *pukes*
But thankfully teacher adores me, so when it was obvious that they were bullying me, he totally STOOD UP FOR ME. *Touch*. Like yesterday during our last class before exam… I was up on the podium ready with my baton up in the air (sign of starting) to continue after the previous stop, and they kept on talking and talking and talking to each other… discussing about the previous mistake they made..
Mr.al-mighty: Aiyarrr, we practices ourselves larr. We always can do it ourselves geh.
Mr.nice in his weird mood: Ya lorr. We can always play once through without stopping when we play ourselves. When we see people conducting, then we sure cannot play already.
I was like thinking: What? So it’s my fault larrr??? They keep saying it was my problem, my problem, my problem… until at a point my teacher couldn’t stand it and went: "If you are BOTH in an Orchestra, I would have fired BOTH of you by now. If you want to talk about JiaYing’s conducting problems. Can you make it AFTERWARDS? Not when the conductor is READY and WAITING with the baton?? LEARN to pay respect for goodness sake."
I totally went into "angry-but-still-managing-to-keep-myself-together" to "totally-flooded-with-tears" and excused myself to the toilet. The two of them has been pushing it too hard and too far, every time I tell them something, they’ll have their excuse, their problems, and etc. I do get mad at them, and when I raise my tone a little, they DO quiet down. But of course larr, they don’t like me THAT way… And I CANNOT do it that way all the time. So everything they start doing the "Jia Ying is WRONG. Not our Fault" discussion, it just irritates me to HELL. The MOST iresponssible thing was what Mr.Nice said YESTERDAY. A day BEFORE exam… "I can GUARENTEE you I cannot play in time tomorrow. Because I will have stage frights, and I will DEFINITELY play wrong." I was totally blasted off again, of course. But I couldn’t do anything… and felt EXTREMELY helpless because I just couldn’t do anything at that time. HOW could people say SUCH irresponsible things?
This morning, they were SUPPOSED to REACH at 9am. Exam starts at 8:30am but there’s around 10 of them in front of me… 4 from high school and 6 of my year since I’m the last. Mr. Nice came at sharp 9… we played for Huang Yi first. Huang Yi’s exam went rather fine except for the last part where Mr.Nice on the 1st piano kept rushing and ALMOST made a total mess out of it.
Then after Huang Yi, they will be 4 more people to my turn. AND Mr. Al-mighty was NO WHERE to be seen. I was totally freaked out. If he comes any minute later, I might LOSE my chance to work with them at least ONE time before I go into the chamber of death. And that was already like what…. 10am??? Mr.Nice called him and he said: I’m ALMOST there. And I waited for 10 bloody minutes before he came in with some lousy excuse. I was SO freakin worried I was almost in tears.
Then during that ONE time practice, they COULDN’T MANAGE a one shot through the whole piece, stopping around 2 times. Both times, it was Mr. Al-mighty’s fault. I didn’t even want to say anything. Mr. Nice could see I was TOTALLY tensed. And this was a Crazy and FUNNY piece. YEA, thanks for all the mood ruining.
Stepping onto the podium in the exam room with A ZILLION pair (exagerating, but there’s a lot… like 7 teachers + students) of eyes watching you and with your orchestra that HASN’T exactly played the whole thing through without mistakes, and a score that is like HELL to memorize… how much confidence can you have??? ZERO~~~ SCORE! Yea… But you cannot show that you have no confidence and you feel like suiciding in the exam. You’re the conductor now… You’re the BOSS. So, work it out~ Everybody’s looking at you.
So I stood, tall and proud… With a light almost sly-ish smile (to match the song’s crazy mood) hanging on my lips. I would look totally confident… but once you lay eyes on my baton, everything would be given away. It was SHAKING like mad. I WAS SHAKING like mad. I could even feel my teeth trembling… After a few long moments singing the first few bars in my mind… I took a deep breath and WHOOSH my baton started the piece. In no time, it ended. There were CLASHES of uneven harmonies, splashes of wrong time-crossing, and even HORRIBLE co-ordination between pianos. But I didn’t care anymore, it was all done. I took a bow and stepped off the podium. There were smiles on a lot of people’s face that I couldn’t quite understand, and didn’t cared to understand. I went out, and thanked both my pianist for doing a "wonderful" job SINCERELY. Yea, at least they didn’t stop… and what more can you say larr? They DID play for you what.
NO. Not "The End" yet…
After me, it was Mr. Nice’s turn first… He’s Barber of Sevill’s Overture was much better because I was controlling the 1st piano this time, and there was no rushing. (Some times I wonder if he did it on purpose… both of them didn’t like Huang Yi. BUt think again, nah. He’s not evil.) After Mr. Nice, it was Mr.Al-mighty’s turn… his version of Stravinsky Concerto for Strings in D was near PERFECTION. Thanks TO ME lorrrrr… Because I always play in time and lead Chen Ke if he goes wrong. But the "Sweatest" thing was… when we stepped out of the exam room. THE FIRST THING THAT SoaB said was: "Did you know you PLAYED THE WRONG RHYTHM at bla bla bla???" Then I told him: No… I didn’t~! (I really DIDN’T. Both pianos were together, he HIMSELF was confused with his own conducting) And he kept on insisted. And when I said: "This is what you say to your accompanist when they finish playing for you?" He went sarcastically: "Thank You lorr." I was totally disgusted and turned to walk away immediately. *(@&#*&#%@#&^@%#!@%^
He’s got brain problems larr… BOTH of them. Make my life MISERABLE only.
Oh well, they are some nice things that happened also larr… Like Prof. Yang Hong Nian the… really really old conducting teacher (SUPER famous choir conductor) and also father to my conducting teacher, Yang Li, really likes me. Hehehe, he kinda has the idea of bringing me up under his guidance. And most of the teachers that saw me conduct today said I improved a lot… PLUS, I sound good vocally.. haha, I sang as mezzo-sop Solo, Verdi’s Requiem for my 师姐 Ma Ding’s graduation exam. And impressed almost everybody… okay… everybody. WAKAKAKAKA… (dun persan larr wei). Ehem Ehem.
AND the NICEST THING OF ALL IS….
Go on, guess..
…
…
…
YESH…YOU GOT IT~
I’m AGREE TO LEEHOM’S MARRIAGE PROPOSAL AND WE’RE GETTING MARRIED TOMORROW.
Hehehe, I’ll keep this NICE-THING a secret and tell you guys when I reach home on Saturday. *winks*
