Good work and keep it up

Hi all,

Sorry I couldn't make it for the whole of last week, was facing down an unusually heavy workload. Shall make this short. Good job today guys. It's heartening to see you all finally rarin' to go. We have almost come full circle, but not just yet: the endless naggings, scoldings, repetitions... All after a hard day's schoolwork too. Then comes the turning point, the point where your exhaustion turns into energy and your legs just carry you forward... the drastic improvement, the morale rising, everybody gearing up for the BIG DAY on Friday... then the Gold with Honours, the cheering that follows... the tears streaming down the faces of the people who have slaved their bones inside out for this day. Then my birthday on Saturday. Erm. Never mind the last point XD

Does anyone know if I can come for SYF?

EDIT: Forgot to sign in - venerable elder Wen-Bin.

Hi darlings, 3 days to go. Gotta give it all you've got okay? I can see it coming, please let the real music bloom on friday. I love the spirit that was burning in the room today.

Jotting down the times and stuff,
650am: Report to Music Room Two (Be really punctual, ie. 10 minutes earlier)
7-8am: Miss Ku will be doing a run through with you guys.
8-9am: Get changed.
920am: We leave for SCH.
10am: To reach SCH.

Please remember to bring your full attire by thursday, and all extra things, ie strings, tuners, hand warmers.

SE SE FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT.

Taxy. (Who doesnt eat much.)

I confess to losing my cool with a certain section this week on monday, but if you guys could see it from my point of view, it's really tiring to want to pull this heavy load up without it moving an inch. You guys have no idea how i badly i want everybody to do their best for SYF. You have no way of salvaging that regret that's gonna dig at your confidence for days, months and years to come should you not do your best on 20th april. Ironic when everyone's clawing their way to an honours, we're sitting in a room feeling 'sian'. Please. Dont. By the time you recover from the shock, SYF's gonna be over in a minute.

All the remedies and tips have been dished out by different people over the span of 22 posts in this blog. If you really mean to play well, i say go read the archives and take note of those things. Do whatever it takes to make you remember them. It's annoying, REALLY, to start from the bottomline every week.

Each time at sectionals, i always celebrate the little bit of improvement made over the few hours cause i can see the work. But you guys always manage to lose it bit by bit (by ignoring your instrument over 4 days? that's all it takes.), so much so that the next time you return, it's zero again. It's an absolute waste of time, when you guys could be building on from what was taught previously, and then learning how to play the piece musically instead of focusing on the technicalities.

On hindsight, sometimes i feel like i shouldnt have lost my temper with the section i was taking, but i really felt helpless at that point of time. I wanted to do so much, but the basics were not even there. Please do yourselves a huge favour and start remembering everything, AND PLEASE PRACTISE. Countless people are behind you guys so dont you ever dare to give up. Not now, when it's 7 days to SYF.

I really love SE, and i hope for everyone to do their best, because when you guys play from the heart, it truly touches.

Keep the goal in mind and go down for it. Hard. All the best.

Taxy.

Hi everybody-

It's down to only 8 days of proper practice, and if the sense of urgency hasn't yet set in, then I have nothing else to say.

It was disappointing to discover that some of you are still not practising your parts at home with a metronome and tuner. Either you feel that you don't need these trusty devices, or you simply can't be bothered to use them. Even if you generally have good intonation and rhythm sense, it doesn't hurt to double check once in a while. And for those of you who don't, all the more you should use them. The metronome and tuner are FAR more reliable than us seniors or teachers when it comes to pointing out such technical flaws, so I don't see why some of you simply don't make full use of them.

Many of you come for sectionals unprepared, and when this happens, we have no choice but to stop the progress (if any) and fix each of you INDIVIDUALLY. What's the point of coming together in groups when your individual parts aren't taken care of? As a result, many of you find your time slowly slipping through your fingers, because all you can do is sit and watch while each person gets his or her flaws corrected. Right? WRONG. As Miss Ku has emphasized countless times, PRACTISE YOUR FINGERING (shifts, stretches etc) while waiting instead of watching your youth gradually wasting away with each passing second. I'm sure this would be more productive than say, watching a couple of fishes swimming in a tank. (you know who you are)

The main purpose of practising in small chamber groups is to work on the ensemble element of your playing: balance, coordination, group dynamics etc. If you do not come prepared individually, you will NOT benefit as you are too caught up with your own inability to play in tune or in time. If you have not been doing anything about it, now is the time to BUCK UP. Even though it is in fact much too late to get started, anything is better than nothing. Doing something the same way over and over again and expecting different results is a form of insanity! As Meihui has rightfully pointed out, practise SLOW, make sure you get everything right, then gradually work up to performance speed. Honestly, all this should have been done at least 8 weeks before the big day, as opposed to the 8 days that you are left with.

In spite of the seemingly small number of ensembles that you are up against, competition is VERY stiff. I've heard news about the ongoing band syf. 8 of the 14 bands who had previously gotten the gold with honours award have played: FIVE have been demoted to SILVER, TWO to gold, and only ONE managed to maintain the honours. Even though I don't quite know the cause of these shocking statistics, a possibility to consider is COMPLACENCY. For the benefit of some of you, a definition of COMPLACENCY as given by Websters' dictionary is as follows:

A feeling of quiet pleasure based on self-satisfaction, usually coupled with a lack of awareness of existing or potential problems.

I don't see the need to explain that any further. If you feel that the gold with honours will be magically bestowed upon us just because we have attained that standard before, you could not be more wrong. Consider the consequences if you do not maintain the honours. As much as Meihui, Yunshan, Taxy and I would like to play, all we can do is sit by the side, nag and hope that some of it enters some of your stubbornly thick skulls. It is certainly frustrating for us, so we have justifiable reasons for running on short fuses. While some of you might be silently fuming at us for this incessant nagging, the truth is we don't really care. To put it magnanimously, we would sacrifice our stellar reputations as long as it delivers results.

Now perhaps you could roll your eyes in the direction of your scores, tuner, metronome, and instruments and PRACTISE.

Aaron

Unity

The annonymous senior who wrote the stuff at the bottom...is right. I couldn't agree more.

You mustn't feel sian at this point when you haven't reached the targetted sound. DHSSE is not made up of losers.

But I want you guys to seriously take note of what's written by her/him. You have to realise why all this nagging, advice is directed at you. If you ignore it, roll your eyes at it and slack at your practice, the one who will be blamed (tho no one will say it), the one who will only realise it too late two years later when you will be struggling in your own SYF nightmare again, is you. Nobody else.

We won't say it, but it will always be remembered...for the next 365x2 days of everyone's lives...

nice thought isn't it?

So! To avoid feeling guilty, regretful, you need to work together.

Sure you feel frustrated, everybody does. Those who can play but can't becoz they are older. Those who are playing and who want to fight but can't do it alone. No battle is won by one man, it's won by a team, an army, an entire legion. All of fate is in your hands, all 32 of you, plus the entire legacy of sweat and hard work by past Dunman seniors. So easy to blame each other, and THIS is the archilles heel, the weakest part of the argument.

I have seen a rugby team made out of tiny players defeat a team made out of huge players.

It's all about practising SMART and working as a TEAM.

Guys, you need to bring out more cooperative spirit and action. The pressure is great, but if you can overcome this, you will realise how rewarding it is.

Areas judges will look out for: articulation, dynamics, rhythm, intonation, tone.

Expression, interpretation, style, phrasing, balance, blend, group dynamics

Slow practice was something we emphasised months ago. You have to take it up, and do it. It doesn't mean you are lousy, it just means you can do better. Impatience in practice marks you as immature in thinking and as a musician.

When you put in many hours, you don't practise blindly. Ask yourself what is the problem, and think on your own how to solve it.

SE students have a habit of doing the right thing, forget and go back to square one. Write things down. Take a pen and paper.

What a shame to go back to square one. After so many ppl have given you input.

You only have less than two weeks left, so just press on and grit your teeth. Hey, it's just as painful for those who are watching you!! but you are growing just keep going!!!!!!!! Don't stop!!

For everyone's info, DHSSE doesn't take in students who give up before the fight is done. That will be the policy of the SE from this year onwards.

Resilience.

-

Hello to everyone:

Took a couple of sectionals today, and disturbingly, I realised that the whole progress is getting rather stagnant. Intonation still in a bad shape...

Perhaps it's because you're in chamber groups and sections, as this problem is minimized a little when you play as an ensemble, but nevertheless, you should sound the same whether as a whole or in groups.

In addition, strings crossing is another problem that is contributing to the messy-ness.

You want to know whats the solution? It's simple.

Practice slow. Even the most famous pianists and violinists and cellists and violists (you get the drift) cannot neglect slow practice. The virtuosically-impossible passages you hear them playing on stage do not just crystallize out of nowhere. There is no short cut. I don't doubt that most of you are practicising, but I believe most of you, on encountering a problematic passage, try to solve it by playing it over and over again--at performance speed.

You can continue doing so for 10 hours, but you achieve nothing.

Or perhaps, some do practice slow, but often you don't sustain it. After a few rounds, you get impatient and return to the usual fast speed.

I shall stress it again. PLEASE TRUST THE POWER OF SLOW PRACTICE.
if you have intonation problems, practice it SLOWLY, and make sure you give yourself enough time to hear yourself, and check your intonation.

when you feel secure enough, that's when you can up your speed GRADUALLY. (you play so much games, treat it like game levels. you can only proceed when you've passed and conquered each level of speed)

besides that, if you encounter other problems, instead of struggling over it, pause, stop and think. HOW CAN YOU SOLVE IT. there must exist a self-corrective mechanism in you. if not, please approach your teachers or sectional leaders.

oh yes, another problem is that you all sound really "SIAN" when playing walters and romanze. if you are SIAN, it shows in your music. I took joel's and jiahui's chamber today, and everyone sounded so tired. But it's really ironic, if you are so sick and tired of it, why is it still in such a shape? You should only be sick and tired of it when you've mastered it to a point where everything is near perfect.

For people who are relatively stable intonation and rhythm wise, as the saying goes, "strive on until the good is better and the better is the best". Please think of furthur ways to improve on aspects such as producing a good sound, how to move, how to phrase your melodies beautifully, what character or scene can you picture in your mind at certain parts.

Agreed with what taxy said, we dont want to come back every sectionals to return back to square 1. Nowadays I feel like I'm repeating myself over and over again. I don't want to grow old! Don't make me feel old! You know it makes us feel very lousy too, if we have to repeat ourselves over and over again, and i will start thinking, "ohmygosh am i lacking creativity. is my thinking so limited.". I feel stagnant too. And I'm sure some of you have been thinking, "cheh. isn't it all those stuff again? what thin sound. what listen to each other. what dont accent in the middle of your melodies."

omg im getting really naggy. ok i shall attempt for a rushed ending, thing is, practice SMART and practice HONESTLY. treat music sincerely ok. you think music is stupid is it. how much you give in is how much it will produce for you. YOU TRY TO CHEAT, then it will also AP you.

I'm sure the other schools are furiously practicising at this point in time. And some, fuelled by their failure to get GoldWithHonours the previous competition, how hard do you think they will work? The answer is obvious.

Competitions are always based on relativity. If other schools improve, but you are still at your previous standard, then ..

ok im really getting rather tired, can't even bother to finish my previous sentence.

so everyone. work hard. we're all in this together. the only thing we as year5s and the teachers can do is to coach you, give you advice, encourage, push, .. and we don't want to feel like we've achieved nothing, especially when it returns back to square one. but ultimately, the most important thing is that in the end, we don't want you to disappoint yourselves.

okay i forgot to sign off: MEIHUI.

new graphic by briankotzen

hey guys, linghong here! ;D

new graphic's up! :D
done by gloria's friend, briankotzen.
:)

i hope all of you are practising! ;D
for the lower strings,
practise the entry chords one hundred times EACH -_-

we should feel the music and then we'll be able to play our dynamics better! :D

JIAYOU! :D

18 MORE DAYS! GWH!~

p.s. because publishing many entries on the page will make the template seem long and unproportionate, so i changed the settings and if you want to see the previous entries, click on the archive! ;D

LOTSA LOVE!