Hawtdamn

With all the exam and broken finger, I won't be able to blog. Actually I could but it's really irritating to have to press backspace every 2 seconds. So until I can take off this stupid flint, which is coincidentally on the day of the last paper (AEP), I shall go on


HIATUS.



Again!
I'll be quite active on facebook though, so add me~!

Wow

in 1 day it's all gone.




Had my fun in VSchoir. Gold with honors for last SYF! nothing else to lose!


like Johnnie said, for the sec 3s, take this SYF not as an end, but as a new beggining for our journey in VSchoir. The next committee will be leading in the next AVoS.

Keep it up. Keep me up.

My

My my. SYF is tomorrow. The reality and logic behind SYF is stupid. Why spend 6 months practicing, only for that 5+ minutes on stage?





Because it feels good.

Singapore youth Fetival

Bored, stupefied and high.

What do I do?

Photoshop



Guess I'd do something choir related. Hmm let's photoshop all three songs.

White Horses
Sources:
Beach: Flickr
Horses: Poster.net

And as usual, blogger butchered my Beautiful artwork.


Mundi Renovatio
Sources:
The Alps : Flickr
Faultline: Flickr
Waterfall : Flickr
Lightning: Flickr
Fire : Flickr


Kucinta
Source:
Cat: Funnyville


Can't Really think of anything for kucinta so....






Yay Post finished.

SYF is in two days people!

Posting | Settings | Layout | Monetize

Ok gonna do a real update now about life and stuff, which I never actually do 'cause I don't think people will find my life interesting and how everything I blog about is in other people's blog. Will divide the stuff into three sections, Blog, School and Choir, in order of amount of content.

'Cause I've got OCD and I like it.

BLOG

Ever since the sec 3 camp, I really had no mood to blog, in other words, lazy. Also my skin (blogskin, duh) is getting boring so I shall change it soon. Gonna aim for bold colors this time, since I've been to subtle lately. Also, not only me but other people seem to be blogging less and less. I don't know why.
I've decided to not read blogs I'm not supposed to read. Well partially because people you don't know don't want you to read their blogs and I always have this urge to tag on that blog.

SCHOOL

Wow heck sec 3 life is more hectic than what I expected. At the start of the year, I decided not to slack anymore and actually study and do my homework. Well, that's not the case right now. Like everyone, my homework is snowballing. Especially maths homework. There's like 3 exercises, two of which are annoying steady hand graph questions which I totally hate.

Class deco is going quite nicely, although nobody wants to help do it and the simple task of cedric doing some vectoring on the white paper was said to "liven up the classroom" according to Ms Tan.

My L1R5 for last term was 11. Which means that I need to study more and facebook less. x_x. See if I can narrow it down to 1 digit for SA1. Although with all this crap about kinematics, I doubt it'd be easy for physics. Bio is also tough since Mr munir's going so quickly. Oh no I haven't started on the workbook. NAPFA season is around, which means more failing for standing broad jump and 2.4 for me. Malay is quite easy and chem is enjoyable. But everything about SS just wouldn't get into my head, principles what the hell.

Sometimes I wish that school is shorter. And why the hell am I studying SS anyway? Those Source Based questions is really annoying. I was glad that it left me after History last year but it struck back as SS. And not being unappreciative or anything but I don't see the point of studying about another country. I've learnt enough history about this country but not my own. I'd rather take SS about Indonesia than Singapore, since I need it more. Not that I have anything against singapore but I don't see a point in me doing it.

In conclusion school's not really the funnest thing in my life right now. I'll tell you what is.

CHOIR

To sum it up real quick, the choir has definitely improving and SYF is 4 days and 13 hours away.

Before the sec 3 camp, there was this Gala dinner where we got invited to sing in Ritz Carlton. One of the funnest moments before SYF, and a really relaxed performance. Although they stated that the dinner was worth 150 bucks, it tastes like hawker centre food. 'Cause I got the halal meal. Some people need to get that halal doesn't mean malay. I wanna eat chinese food too! Sung Iddem Dem Malida and Any Dream will do. With the (pro) Chengkan 'sight reading' any dream will do. Then sung the really weird victorian anthem. Don't smile! And Mr aw yong was like "I think it's in C major...wait F major" hahaha. The pianist plays some weird intro and none of us knew when to come in. So I just shutup until someone makes noise haha.

After the sec 3 camp, there was prac on monday. We went out for bowling. Originally we wanted to play in marine cove but there was some tournament thing so the lanes couldn't be booked until like 6. So we walked to burger king and ate there. When I reached BK, my throat was already killing me. I regret buying (and upsizing) barley, since I can't finish it 'cause of my throat. Then we went to Kallang leisure park to bowl. Eugene ownd us all.

But as I expected, I fell sick in the nights o I didn't go for that workshop with Mark Anthony, which according to many people, we didn't do well in. Must be 'cause I wasn't there. 1 lifeline gone. The rest of the week is just preparation for the saturday performance. Then came saturday's performance. A few choirs performed before us, including TKSS. It was my first time listening to their songs and I was like "ok...". Then sat beside Rifdi and his mat jacket.

Then came our turn. All I could see was bright light and the conductor's face. If I can remember our mundi was horrendous and our kucinta was ok. Then I went for friday prayers with rifdi while Johnlee and gang went to borders to read stuff. Johnlee's gang then went back to VJC to watch the second half choirs, which includes the JC choir. So me and Rifdi went there in the rain, lucky i got umbrella.

Went there, waited for the song to end and sat with johnlee and gang. Realized that the com is on the other side. Then Johnlee keep making sick remarks about the way clement was, ahem, "touching" his girlfriend. Fuhua's Pusikam song. Then there was commonwealth with their Echoey Yakobin. and Cat high with their Hana. We were starting to realize that it's not easy to get that Gold with honors. Then the joke about the commonwealth girl sitting directly in front of me and me opening my leg a liiittle too wide. Sherman conducted VJChoir. Cool.

The next week was I think the testing of the VCH. That was one of the only time when I felt the feeling of the white horse. I think the second time we sang it, the image came alive. But it was gone for the rest of the 2 hours. Mundi and Kucinta was good for a bit but it started to dull 'cause a lot of people were tired. Haha the way the pianist, Mr Chew I think, played during warmups was quite cool. With the chords during kucinta. On the way back the tenors (as always) are quite emo. Jun Yew emo 'cause of something caused by his absence during the march holidays and Rifdi pondering over his new love ♥

That same saturday (I think) was a 'friendly encounter' with TKchoir. Mass warmups was, I felt, Competitive. Because of this the sound was really raw and everyone's oversinging. Then performance time. Constant reminders NOT to do the choreo for Kucinta. Everybody was scared listening to their songs. And someone headbutted me on my shoulder. Geez.

With every practice comes an improvement. Although it may be little.

Then came the NYJC performance. After the mass warmups, NYJ choir sung. We immediately realized that the hall sucked balls so we came prepared. There were around 10 schools there. A few from the previous VJ performance. Mundi really sped up. With Joshua Chia oversinging beside me and everyone a little excited, our mundi sped up. And as usual the feeling won't be there if our timing isn't perfect. Kucinta was nice, with the audience laughing at our choreography. You know you made an impact when other people are singing your songs after the performance. (I heard a few miao here and there)

After that was TKchoir. I heard they didn't really put in effort for the second piece. Heard, I can't confirm the status. Not really much difference from their last performance. Second half had commonwealth and Cat High. Commonwealth sounded better there than on yesterday's performance. And cat high's first chord raised hairs. Talked a lot after that. Aaron gave scolded us for not performing that well, then Myo told me he's pissed with aaron for doing that. Tenor sectionals back in school. Half the tenors ate fried food (including me =P)

Then sectionals came. Enning spilt water on the floor. The hatred begins. I can see that Rifdi's really pissed with Enning. Yea me too but I can't show it. Even if I show it, they won't take me seriously. I've got to straighten up that kid.

The next week, this week, morning practice begun. Had one on wednesday. I remember during 2007 SYF we had morning practice like everyday for like 2 weeks before SYF. Compared to '07, there is much less stress this year.

Then came yesterday's performance. The four schools (Catholic High, Tanjong Katong, Victoria, Commonwealth) lined up. While waiting for Mr Chew to come, there was mass massaging. TK didn't do it 'cause they were in quartet, thus the risk of a bra being unbuttoned. Haha competed with cat high, unofficially, on who can chop the loudest.

We performed according to the days we are going to perform on the SYF period. Commonwealth started first. Being so close to the stage and the hall being dry, I can hear their mistakes quite clearly. Then we went up. We were screaming and speeding up during mundi, despite telling joshua not to oversing. TKchoir sung and me and Justin was trying to spot Joshua's alleged girlfriend. Not much difference from the last time. Same as cat high. Performance concluded with Mr Kwei saying that Cat high was the most stable in this performance. Went to parkway with Rifdi and Eugene afterwards and met up with the three sec 3 sops after that. Sat in borders while they ate reading MFK. Went home early so as not to be late for tuition.

Only 4 days and 10 minutes left to SYF. Let's make awesome music and make everyone proud.

__
EDIT: I forgot to post this



way catchy!

Choir

With SYF drawing near and me getting lazier and lazier to post an actually decent and contentfully wonderful post, here's a post about choir, koped from cctay.blogspot and posted there about two years ago. This, so far, is the most complete version of the text.

For choir people, you know all these are true. Don't deny it.


"In any chorus, there are four voice parts: soprano, alto, tenor, and bass. Sometimes these are divided into first and second within each part, prompting endless jokes about first and second basses. There are also various other parts such as baritone, countertenor, contralto, mezzo soprano, etc., but these are mostly used by people who are either soloists, or belong to some excessively hotshot classical a cappella group (this applies especially to countertenors), or are trying to make excuses for not really fitting into any of the regular voice parts, so we will ignore them for now. Each voice part sings in a different range, and each one has a very different personality. You may ask, "Why should singing different notes make people act differently?", and indeed this is a mysterious question and has not been adequately studied, especially since scientists who study musicians tend to be musicians themselves and have all the peculiar complxes that go with being tenors, french horn players, timpanists, or whatever. However,this is beside the point; the fact remains that the four voice parts can be easily distinguished, and I will now explain how...

The SOPRANOS are the ones who sing the highest, and because of this they think they rule the world. They have longer hair, fancier jewellery, and swishier skirts than anyone else, and they consider themselves insulted if they are not allowed to go at least to a high F in every movement of any given piece. When they reach the high notes, they hold them for at least half again as long as the composer and/or conductor requires, and then complain that their throats are killing them and that the composer and conductor are sadists. Sopranos have varied attitudes toward the other sections of the chorus, though they consider all of them inferior. Altos are to sopranos rather like second violins to first violins - nice to harmonise with, but not really necessary. All sopranos have a secret feeling that the altos could drop out and the piece would sound essentially the same, and they don't understand why anybody would sing in that range in the first place - it's so boring. Tenors, on the other hand, can be very nice to have around; besides their flirtation possibilities (it is a well-known fact that sopranos never flirt with basses), sopranos like to sing duets with tenors because all the tenors are doing is working very hard to sing in a low-to-medium soprano range, while the sopranos are up there in the stratosphere showing off. To sopranos, basses are the scum of the earth - they sing too damn loud, are useless to tune because they're down in that low, low range - and there has to be something wrong with anyone who sings in the F clef, anyway.

Top Ten Reasons for Being a Soprano:
1. The rest of the choir exists just to make you look good.
2. You can entertain your friends by breaking their wineglasses.
3. Can you name an opera where an alto got the man?
4. When sopranos want to sing in the shower, they know the tune.
5. It's not like you are ever going to sing the alto part by accident.
6. Great costumes - like the hat with the horns on it.
7. How many world famous altos can you name?
8. When the fat lady sings, she's usually singing soprano.
9. When you get tired of singing the tune, you can sing the descant.
10. You can sing along with Michael Jackson.

The ALTOS are the salt of the earth - in their opinion, at least. Altos are unassuming people, who would wear jeans to concerts if they were allowed to.Altos are in a unique position in the chorus in that they are unable to complain about having to sing either very high or very low, and they know that all the other sections think their parts are pitifully easy. But the altos know otherwise. They know that while the sopranos are screeching way on a high A, they are being forced to sing elaborate passages full of sharps and flats and tricks of rhythm, and nobody is noticing because the sopranos are singing too loud (and the basses usually are too). Altos get a deep,secret pleasure out of conspiring together to tune the sopranos flat. Altos have an innate distrust of tenors, because the tenors sing in almost the same range and think they sound better. They like the basses, and enjoy singing duets with them - the basses just sound like a rumble anyway, and it's the only time the altos can really be heard. Altos' other complaint is that there are always too many of them and so they never get to sing really loud.

Top Ten Reasons for Being an Alto:
1. You get really good at singing E flat.
2. You get to sing the same note for 12 consecutive measures.
3. You don't really need to warm up to sing 12 consecutive bars of E-flat.
4. If the choir really stinks, it's unlikely the altos will be blamed.
5. You have lots of time to chat during soprano solos.
6. You get to pretend that you are better than the sopranos, because everybody knows that women only sing soprano so they don't have to learn to read music.
7. You can sometimes find part time work singing tenor.
8. Altos get all the great intervals.
9. When the sopranos are holding some outrageously high note at the end of a song, the altos always get the last words.
10. When the altos miss a note, nobody gets hurt.

The TENORS are spoiled. That's all there is to it. For one thing, there are never enough of them, and choir directors would rather sell their souls than let a halfway decent tenor quit, while they're always ready to unload a few altos at half price. And then, for some reason, the few tenors are always really good - it's one of those annoying facts of life. So it's no wonder that tenors always get swollen heads - after all, who else can make sopranos swoon? The one thing that can make tenors insecure is the accusation (usually by the basses) that anyone singing that high couldn't possibly be a real man.. In their usual perverse fashion, the tenors never acknowledge this, but just complain louder about the composer being a sadist and making them sing so damn high. Tenors have a love-hate relationship with the conductor, too, because the conductor is always telling them to sing louder because there are so few of them. No conductor in recorded history has ever asked for less tenor in a forte passage. Tenors feel threatened in some way by all the other sections - the sopranos because they can hit those incredibly high notes; the altos because they have no trouble singing the notes the tenors kill themselves for; and the basses because, although they can't sing anything above an E, they sing it loud enough to drown the tenors out. Of course, the tenors would rather die than admit any of this. It is a little-known fact that tenors move their eyebrows more than anyone else while singing.

Top Ten Reasons for Being a Tenor:
1. Tenors get high - without drugs.
2. Name a musical where the bass got the girl.
3. You can show the sopranos how it SHOULD be sung.
4. Did you ever hear of anyone paying $1000 for a ticket to see 'The three Basses?'
5. Who needs brains when you've got resonance?
6. Tenors never have to waste time looking through the self-improvement section of the bookstore.
7. You get to sing along with John Denver singing "Aye Calypso."
8. When you get really good at falsetto, you can make tons of money doing voice-overs for cartoon characters.
9. Gregorian chant was practically invented for tenors. Nobody invented a genre for basses.
10. You can entertain your friends by impersonating Julia Child.

The BASSES sing the lowest of anybody. This basically explains everything. They are stolid, dependable people, and have more facial hair than anybody else. The basses feel perpetually unappreciated, but they have a deep conviction that they are actually the most important part (a view endorsed by musicologists, but certainly not by sopranos or tenors), despite the fact that they have the most boring part of anybody and often sing the same note(or in endless fifths) for an entire page. They compensate for this by singing as loudly as they can get away with - most basses are tuba players at heart. Basses are the only section that can regularly complain about how low their part is, and they make horrible faces when trying to hit very low notes. Basses are charitable people, but their charity does not extend so far as tenors, whom they consider effete poseurs. Basses hate tuning the tenors more than almost anything else. Basses like altos - except when they have duets and the altos get the good part. As for the sopranos, they are simply in an alternate universe which the basses don't understand at all. They can't imagine why anybody would ever want to sing that high and sound that bad when they make mistakes. When a bass makes a mistake, the other three parts will cover him, and he can continue on his merry way, knowing that sometime, somehow, he will end.

Top Ten Reasons for Being a Bass:
1. You don't have to tighten your shorts to reach your note.
2. You don't have to worry about a woman stealing your job.
3. Or a preadolescent boy stealing your job.
4. Action heroes are always basses. That is - if they ever sang, they would sing bass.
5. You get great memorable lyrics like bop, bop, bop, bop.
6.If the singing job doesn't work out, there's always broadcasting.
7. You never need to learn to read the treble clef.
8. If you get a cold, so what.
9. For fun, you can sing at the bottom of your range and fool people into thinking there's an earthquake.
10. If you belch while you're singing, the audience just thinks it is part of the score. "

Ignis

motivationmotivationmotivationrenovationRENOVATIO

Ok I was bored and searched for stuff on flickr and came up with this wonderful image.





























Molten earth by Brent Nelson.

Then i got bored and did
























This is kinda the image that I imagine everytime I sing Mundi Renovatio. Then to the end, the earth turns back to its beautiful blue self.

Although when sped up, none of these come up...


MOTIVATE YOURSELF PEOPLE! Only 12 days left to SYF. Do your best. Let's get back our Gold with honors.

Now I know what that hair rising experience that Aaron kept talking about.
If the choir is good, they WILL make hair raise. Make the audience smile and make them think "Wow".

That's what we want.

Mundi Renovatio.