breaking of the MUSIC/}!

Sunday, May 29, 2011

Hello! Over the weekend I participated in the Brass Explosion Festival Band thingamajig. Here's some advice from tubist Hidehiro Fujita (hahaha he's really cute and funny. Not in terms of looks, but yeah.) and trumpetist James Morrison (kay this one is like REALLY FUNNY. every sentence he says is a joke, but he makes lots of sense. and can speak really well.) both really pro players.

Starting Out Right

What should we do to improve our playing?

Breathing Exercises

Why? During normal breathing (when we are not playing out instruments), the percentage of lung usage is 20%. But obviously when we are playing, the most important thing is AIR. (and perhaps MOVING AIR, hence the name Winds) Hence we need 100% of our lungs to be filled.

How?

Do the following exercises (lift up your hands and draw a circle when breathing in, put back down when breathing out)

Breathe in 6 beats, breathe out 6 beats.

Breathe in 8 beats, breathe out 8 beats.

Breathe in 4 beats, breathe out 4 bests.

Breathe in 2 beats, breathe out 4 beats.

Breathe in 1 beats, breathe out 4 beats.

Breathe in 1/2 beats, breathe out 4 beats (repeat)

Breathe in 1/3 beats, breathe out 4 beats (repeat)

Breathe in 1/4 beats, breathe out 4 beats (repeat)

We also need to practise pp (pianissimo) playing, mp/mf playing and ff playing.

Stretching Exercises

Why? So that your lungs and neck and don’t know what are FLEXIBLE. : )

How? (Do this everyday)

Use one hand to hold the wrist of the other arm. Place at back of head. Lean to the right and to the left. Switch hands and repeat.

Stretch your neck. :) Like tilt your head up and down and left and right.

Pretend you are lifting weights and lift your hands up and like, well, pretend to be carrying heavy weights.

3. Warm-up

Why? So that you can prepare your embouchure to play.

How? Do the warm-ups you already know daily. Warmups help you to improve FASTER.

Mouthpiece exercises

Why? I forgot heh.

How?

Play with your mouthpiece (perhaps with piano aid): CDEFGFGFEDC, DEFGAGAGFED, etc. (go up by one note and do sequence)

DO THIS EVERYDAY! :)

Basics

Keep your mouth and body and shoulders and neck RELAXED when playing.
Practise different kinds of articulation too
Play like you sing.
Balance in your practice. Don’t just practise the stuff you like. Practise the stuff you don’t like too. Don’t just practise slow songs, practise fast ones too. Don’t just practise legato, practise staccato too,etc.

Every minute counts

If you practise 5 minutes less, that’s a lot of minutes in a mouth, and a year. Don’t waste your time when you get to practise. There’s a difference between 90% and 100% practice. Strive to be a 100% player! :)

We shouldn’t term practice as practice if you have a bad impression of practice. Whether something is termed as ‘practice” or not, obviously you are still practising it when you are playing it. There’s essentially no difference between playing and practising, and so don’t “practise”, PLAY!

Air is free

Breathe all you want. :)

Who are you?

You are the radio conveying the music made by the composers. You give a voice to the music so that people will hear it. When people hear good music coming from radios, have you ever heard them say “Hey that’s a good radio!”? Well the answer is no. It is the music which is good. So we are merely the players playing out the music so that others can hear them. :) Obviously you can have other interpretations of what it means to be playing an instrument, but this was James Morrison’s (famous saxophonist (is that what you call it?), trombonist, trumpeter, pianist, tubist, euphoniumist (hahaha), cornetist, flugelhorner (hahaha), and all other brass instruments. :) ) interpretation.

Musical Carnival
breaking the MUSIC.
~~11:13 PM~~

new band pieces!(x

Thursday, May 26, 2011

hihi my dear batchmates((:

these few band pracs had been so fun with the new pieces that we're starting to play! :D ok, my sight-reading skills suck but it is really refreshing hearing something new after practicing sagrada and singapore flyer for 5 months (but i won't mind playing sagrada as a band again!;D) ok so, here are the new songs we played so far((:

Folk Songs Suite - 1st and 3rd march (<--i think that's what it's called? forgot d:)
Ultra Music Power by Hey! Say! JUMP (the original version is down there v)

hehe jiayous everyone and have a great holiday!! (:

jEnNy(:
breaking the MUSIC.
~~9:51 PM~~

open house tomorrow :D

Friday, May 20, 2011

we're playing Singapore Flyer by Satoshi Yagisawa!

btw, check out the band booth! (x it's really pretty and there's a huge shiny trophy there :D

jEnNy(:
breaking the MUSIC.
~~8:28 PM~~

to the sec 1s

Saturday, May 14, 2011

just want to say a big 'THANK YOU!' for the card you've made for the main band, to congratulate us for the gold in syf(:

it was really sweet! zomg, now i feel bad for not having done anything for our seniors last year x.x and i really admire your courage to stand up during attendance-taking and present us with it O:

we were all touched (;

[after band prac that day]
Clara: let’s go check out the card
Me: ok(:
[walks happily to the golden card situated at the front]
Me: wait, why does it say ‘RECRUITS 11’?!
Clara: huh, 11?
Me: i thought they were...batch 14?
Clara: yeah, why ah? Maybe they ran out of '4' tiles?
Me: maybe.
[xinying comes along]
Xinying: what are you guys doing here?
Clara: looking at the card.
Me: do you know why they put ‘11’ there?
Xinying: because it’s 2011! Recruits ’11! Aiyo!
Clara: ...i knew that.

MOG I FEEL SO DUMB.

jEnNy(:
breaking the MUSIC.
~~11:07 PM~~

end of band break!

Thursday, May 12, 2011

Band is like a heroine! See...y'all are suffering from
withdrawal symptons already. Heh ;)
-clara tan, post on bandemonium facebook group

haha, so aren't we all glad that band has finally re-started? (x but ohmygoshohmygosh my playing standards deproved by a lot a lot after the super long break D; *gulp*

hurhur, after our bio/chem/physics exam today (hope you guys did well! :D) we had 5.5 hours to kill before band started. So we went for...

BANDEMONIUM BATCH BRUNCH! (BBB)
Seriously, how cool is that BD i bet we’re like the first batch to have batch ~~lunch~~ brunch (Y)
(though in the end, it turned out more like lunch o: )

we gathered at our dear batch corr by 10.30am, before setting off. [felt kind of paranoid about leaving our bags at the batch corr, but as long as we took our valuables along with us, it’s ok right? O:] we walked to the opposite bus stop and on our way there, we saw a 190 bus behind us so all of us started sprinting like mad. But in the end the bus just drove past the bus stop coz it was too full ):{

Anyways, we boarded another bus to far east, then took another bus to dhoby ghaut stn! :D we then went to the swensens in plaza sing for ~~lunch~~ brunch. Me and kylie went down to mos burger to buy food but when we sneaked it back and started eating there, we got told off by the waitress haiz ): so we went out and stood outside a random store to eat, while listening to a song by taylor swift playing from inside the store, lol.

When we came back, most of the main courses (i saw pizzas, pastas, macaroni) were served already, and the mango lychee fruit-blended we ordered beforehand had come(: so we settled down to eat! xD it took a long time for everyone to be finished lol. And then there was still DESSERT O:

Since kylie and i had already finished our food and was just watching them eat their sundaes, we borrowed huiru’s ipad (O:) to play the applications haha xD our oven break coordination is so pro lah! xDD oh, after the others finished their dessert they tried to mix different substances together (haha i’m reminded of chem. xP). These included whip cream, pepper, cheese powder, BIG LETTUCE LEAF, CHICKEN BONE O.O the ending product looked quite nice actually, just as long as you don’t think too much about the chicken bones.

Afterwards we paid the $126.40 with our...... MASTERCARD!! }:D MASTERCARD POWER! xD

We went down to the basement to visit smuggles! Haha the stuff in there are so cute xDD we were vandalising on the papers provided at the pen section with random stuff }:)

So after spending a long time in smuggles (and in the end not buying anything D: ), we took a bus back to school, ALMOST DYING IN A HORRIBLE CAR ACCIDENT. from the bus stop, we walked to sarah’s house! (me and huiru had to wait for you, si hui! YOU EVIL TRAITOR ):{ haha jk(: we’re not really mad at you ok! haha i sound bipolar zomg d:)

At sarah’s house, we drank ribena! :D and we went upstairs to play table soccer(x EPICNESS. At around 2.30pm, we went back down and just chilled, before setting off for school at around 2.45pm(:

I think this is a relatively successful batch outing, yay! :D

jEnNy(:
breaking the MUSIC.
~~12:27 AM~~

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