Friday, October 29, 2004

Rantings

From #band:

jA5oN> is tis year syf set piece singapura rhapsody ??
TakyPok> shld be
fAwN'fAwN> how your noe de
jA5oN> instructor say 1
* tear'sob_ is now known as pink'star
Lillix> its always some singapura dumbass song
jA5oN> [-Ya-] lar...
Lillix> hahahaha
Lillix> boring stuff
fAwN'fAwN> haa...they want us to be patriotic ma

Great. The Singapore Youth Festival is going to start all over again. The great biennial bitching season.

Why is there the need for the SYF? I seriously think it should be abolished. I was never really a keen supporter of the SYF anyway!

What's the point of spending half a year preparing a song that lasts not more than 10 minutes? Some would know all the notes in their piece to mechanical precision. Some memorise every single note in the score to the extent that I almost believe that they can play it from back to front. Is that still making music?

Up to this day, I still don't understand why certain conductors want to keep their choice piece a secret to the day of the competition, I'm sorry, I mean adjudication.

See? Most people, including me, see it as a competition, not adjudication. This is probably where all the trouble comes in. Wait, this is what's wrong with Singapore. Competition, competition and more competition. No wonder all the kids are getting more and more stressed out.

We have ranking for schools, and similarly, we have rankings for their bands. Is it really necessary to have ranking for that? Thankfully, the Ministry of Education is changing to the ranking system to a somewhat more subtle method of ranking.

The vicious cycle of bitching goes on forever and ever in #band.

Stage 1
As per above example.
Bitching of how horrible the set piece is and why the setting is local folksongs in recent years. I wonder if the English ever complain about Folksong Suite being boring?

Stage 2
The great hide and seek session.
The whole world would be comparing to see which bands are playing the same pieces and so on. There would be great vivid discussion online which half the time ends up in quarrelling/bitching session. And there's always the conductor who would want his kids to protect the identity of the choice piece that would put the FBI's witness protection programme to shame. Why? Beats me. Why don't they all just retreat to the mountains and practice for a few months? In that way, no one would know what they are playing except for the monkeys. Like they can understand it anyway.

Stage 3
Actual day
One can go to the competition hall and witness the numerous spiders jumping about nervously. At the same time, you see anxious people waiting for the results. You can almost imagine this scenario:

Person walking up: It's a boy! Oops! I mean, Silver.

Person waiting bursts into tears.

Stage 4
The aftermath
This is where all the serious bitching kicks in. Just go to #band during SYF season and you will know what I mean. Examples of typical comments.

XXXXX School don't deserve their gold!

ZZZZZ School played such a weird piece, of course the judges don't know the piece and give them gold lah.

And the one which irks me the most!

Wah lao! The judges cannot make it lah! Not qualified loh.

Excuse me! You're only a kid. What do you know about music? Perhaps I'm wrong if you are a child prodigy. But wait, if you're a child prodigy, what are you doing here? You should be studying at Julliard, Havard or *inserts appropriate college's name*!

Well, in a way, the local band scene would never take off in its current state. How many conductors actually know their stuff well? I'm glad to see there are a rising number of young aspiring conductors who actually conducts well. Let's hope this continues.

As for those who really cannot make it (like a certain individual whom I slammed some time ago), can we arrest all of them and exile them?

Why are some conductors so idolized? I seriously don't understand why. Take this very popular female conductor for example, she almost seems to have a fan club who turns up at every of her concerts. Is she very good? I don't think so.

While she's really quite a nice person, I just don't like her conducting, being under her before. It's just not good even though she has quite a few gold bands to her acclaim, including the "top" band of Singapore. Oops! Did I just give myself away?! Oh well, maybe it's her choice of music?

Oh my, I just went on and on! What's wrong with me?

Time to stop! Next time!
fjozn at 11:33 PM