Band practice today! It's the first practice in 8 weeks since 12 September! I was so looking forward to it but it was not nice :( Yesterday Darryl said he won't be coming, but I thought Cheng Heng would come but he didn't, so I was all alone... :( I went to set up my trombone and I didn't wash my mouthpiece because the nearest toilet was on the first floor -.- Common sense should tell the building planners that every level needs a toilet right? Then by the time I went out of the instruments room, other people already set up the chairs. Then Ms Ong talked to us. That's not the band's room, that's the CO room -.- She said we have 2 places to practice - the music room (which is on the other side of the instruments room I think) and that CO room. Why does CO have their room but we don't have our room? Unfair. So the whole CO has to squeeze into that room. It felt like the M-Learning Room because it's not that big, but bigger than the M-Learning Room I think, and less cupboards taking up space.
We started with scales for warm ups. Brayton conducted the warm ups. We did B flat, E flat and F Major Scale. He said G Major Scale and I never heard of it before, I also never seen it in Standard Of Excellence, so I didn't know what notes there are in the scale. I asked Taufiq (Alumni) and he said it's G to G all the notes are naturals except for F sharp. Then we started playing but stopped after the first note, I think because it wasn't good. Then we did F Major Scale instead. Then, still with Brayton conducting, we played March "Blue Sky". It didn't sound good, sounded like only some people were playing. I didn't sound good also. Sometime in between, Liang Rong told us to go run one round around the level because we "sounded so dead". But we were all walking instead of running. So after walking that round, we had to do another round, and this time we ran. Liang Rong gave us 1min and said who doesn't reach back in the time limit will have a punishment. Then he changed it to 2min. Then when we just started running, he changed it to 1.5min. After which we returned and continued practice.
Then Ms Leong came and said she didn't want to focus on scores because we haven't played for a long time and she wanted to do scales, so we did scales again. She also trained our reaction. We play 4 crotchets for every note going up the scale, and she happened to stop at E flat scale so we kept using E flat scale. Then when she conducts faster we have to play faster. Then she decided to use B flat scale because it was a more comfortable scale. Then it was break time at about 9.50am. They gave us about 40min until 10.30am. I didn't go out of school as usual. I stayed inside and practiced. I oiled my slide, it's always rough at the top. Only half way I went to the toilet on the first floor then went back and continued practising. I also SMSed Darryl to ask very politely what G Major Scale is. He explained like how he would if he was here :) When I went back I saw 2 scores on my chair - the scores for Singapore Rhapsody Trombone 1 and Trombone 2. No Trombone 3. The 2 scores were not very different.
People returned late from the break and Ms Leong scolded them. But the Majors let them off because it was the first practice in a long time. Then I got 2 more scores - Singapura Suite and Singapura Medley. I've only heard Singapore Rhapsody before. The score for Singapura Suite was a thin book! It has a few pages! And they gave me the Trombone 1 score. For Singapura Medley also, Liang Rong asked wich trombone I take, I said third, but I think there was no third trombone so he asked me to "take this first". All the scores don't have third trombone. I was wondering why they suddenly gave us so many Singapore songs and Ms Leong said it was a requirement for the Genting competition that we have to play a song related to Singapore. We tried Singapura Medley first. My side-reading is not good :( So I didn't play well. Then we tried Singapura Suite. There is one part I still remember, it's nice. Then Ms Leong said "Let's drop this piece" and we moved on to Singapore rhapsody - the easiest of them all - the first part that is, there are 2 parts in the score. We only tried Part 1. And we decided to play that song. I think it was that song which was very weird, there's the melody then it stops suddenly and "even the ending is so funny" said Ms Leong. I found that song the easiest out of all 3. For all 3 songs, my side-reading was very bad, I got lost at the starting when the song just started, and then I couldn't find my way back into the song. I almost cried, I think there were tears in my eyes. How I wish my seniors were here, I still wouldn't play well but they will explain things to me :)
After the 3 songs, practice ended. We still haven't learnt the Japanese song yet. We only side-read it once months ago! I didn't really use the bowl for the saliva because when I blew into the instrument, nothing but air came out from the water key. So I took out the mouthpiece and shook it over the bowl, only a bit of saliva. I didn't wash the bowl and the mouthpiece, just wiped them with tissue paper. I kept my trombone and why is there other section's files and stands in my section cupboard?!?! -.- It's getting in the way when I want to take out and put in my trombone! -.- No space, yeah right, is it as big as the instrument?! Some small space at the side can fit it in right? I feel like throwing it out. In the old band room they can be kept separately from my section's stuff and in the new band room that's bigger, there's no space and have to hog up our space?! It doesn't make sense - nonsense.
After that, I went out of the band room to the practice room and we went through the CCA form where we write participations/performances/achievements ... that are not mentioned in the CCA Certificate, both given yesterday. Sec 1s only had 1 thing to write - National Day performance. The others have Ngee Ann Tapestry 3, 2nd National Band Competition with Silver award, Notional Day performance and another one I forgot. Cliff also mentioned Band Camp 2006 and 2007 which will be awarded 1 point each but later when listing all the things he only mentioned the 4, so I don't know if that's counted. I hope I get 1 more point for the National Day performance! :D Then we were dismissed. Some time while playing the Singapore songs, the air-con was snowing! :D People suddenly started laughing, then I looked up and saw that the air-con vent above the Flute Section was giving out something that looked like smoke! Then someone went "Is it snowing?" and right after that, some white things came out from it, and it really looked like it was snowing! Haha! It didn't immediately fall down, it fell slowly like snow! Then Cliff went to turn off that air-con, haha! Wow, we have snow in NAS :D
I went with Xue Qi to look for Ms Ong at the staff room. I wanted to ask if there was any subsidy for the Genting trip because $500 is "too much for a trip" as Darryl said. He said he may not go because it's too expensive. Actually when I asked yesterday "Tomorrow I ask Ms Ong" he said no need but I still asked anyway(although I'm afraid he might think I'm meddlesome), I also think that $500 is very expensive, but my parents already agreed. Xue Qi didn't have any question in particular I think. I asked Ms Ong whether there was any subsidy. She said there was 40% subsidy so we have to pay $300. Then Xue Qi asked her something (I think it's whether students under financial assistance plan get more subsidy) while I turned to the back and went "Yes!" with hand actions, hahaha! Then when I turned back, Ms Ong asked me with a puzzled expression "Why you suddenly so happy?" Then I explained that Darryl didn't want to go because he thought $500 was too much. I was so happy! :D We discussed a few more things then we Xue Qi and I went home. Bye!
Labels: Band, Break, Competitions, Concerts/Performances, Overseas, pissed, Seniors, Slide oil, songs, Trombone