happy (early) birthday, rachy!!
It's Rachmaninoff's 137th birthday in 3 hours' time~!!!!!! :D
Having missed out on his birthday celebrations last year (I found out about his birthday one day after it had ended, wtf!), I was determined to remember it this year. So, I planned to play all his songs of which I have the score. The problem is, my parents want to drag me to Malaysia with them tomorrow! This means I can't play the piano at all tomorrow! No choice lor, I had to do it today. I dug up all my piano scores and played them one by one. Some of them I hadn't played for almost a year, some I had never even played before, so I had to sight-read. The songs included preludes, etudes tableaux, piano concerto #2 which I transcribed for piano solo,Vocalise (transcribed for piano solo too), Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, miscellaneous songs, variations, and of course Rach 3 (I saved it for last). Although I didn't play very well, I still hope that he'll appreciate it. He'd better! It took me 6 hours to finish playing everything!
I'm still going to celebrate his birthday tomorrow anyway! I'm going to listen only to his songs the whole day! All 164 of them!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY MY DEAR RACHY!!!!!! Wherever you are, Rachy, I hope that there are loads of Steinway D-274s and concert halls and cars and everything you love! Oh and did I tell you that I dreamt of you last night?! I dreamt that I was attending your concert and that I wanted you to sign on my Rach 3 score! You rock!!! ♥
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the lousiest prok 2 cadenza recording ever!!!
Remember what I said in the last post about me failing to record Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No.2's cadenza? Well, after dinner I thought I'd have another go and I managed to record a half-decent one! Of course, it is mistakes galore, especially the notorious colossale part, but what the heck! Also there's a part, I don't know how to call it, where I do 'glissando-like' scales and hit wrong notes along the way, that part is where I mess things up big time. Haha. But things get better towards the end, but the last few bars are also where I screwed up when I wasn't supposed to. Sigh. The score said 'pp' (very soft), and yet I somehow added an accent on the note. It must be that adrenaline still running through my veins! It's still inexcusable though... Despite that... you still want to listen to it?? Very well...
And here's a complete version of the cadenza...
You'll notice that they still play with mistakes... Not Ash though! His recording is abso-fucking-lutely perfect!!!!!!!!!
I'm afraid just clicking on the link won't work... You'll have to save it! Never mind, I won't be angry if you delete it afterwards!!
Oh, and excuse the fart-like sound at the beginning... I seriously don't know how it got there! I swear it wasn't in the original!!!
... Done listening? Now to rid your ears of that terrible playing, here's a video of the pro, Li Yundi, in action...
And here's a complete version of the cadenza...
You'll notice that they still play with mistakes... Not Ash though! His recording is abso-fucking-lutely perfect!!!!!!!!!
Respect!!!!!!!!
Right, time to delete that file from your comp, I guess! :D
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a not so quick update
For all you non-existent followers of my blog, it's been a while! You can't blame me though, it's been an uneventful week. Okay, not really. On Sunday 21st March, my dad's hospital had a charity show on TV. Thong Chai Hospital's charity night. I think you know about it. I had badly wanted to watch it live (my dad had tickets), but couldn't, as I'd bought tickets to a concert. More on that later.
Why had I wanted to watch the show? Well, apart from the obvious reason that it was my dad's hospital and I wanted to support them, the main reason was that he would be appearing on TV, and I wanted to witness him make a fool of himself in front of the camera.. well not really. Haha. I caught the replay though, and I must say that he didn't do badly at all! Basically, he was interviewed by the hosts of the show about a patient who had some kidney problems, and he talked about when the best time to receive kidney dialysis was. It lasted less than 5 minutes.
Then the next day at work, a patient requested to see 'the doc who spoke on TV' - my dad! Haha! And our neighbours even recognised him in the lift! And his hospital has seen a surge in patient numbers since the show, which is good and bad. There are just too many patients and not enough doctors. Just the other day a patient stormed into the hospital and ranted about the hospital being inefficient and such. However, there was also an anonymous guy who dropped 150 thousand-dollar notes into the donation box!
Okay, on to the concert. On the programme were Tchaikovsky's 'Romeo and Juliet', his Piano Concerto No.1 and Prokofiev's Symphony No.5. I found myself smack in the middle of the concert hall, so I couldn't see the pianist's fingers at all.
Romeo and Juliet was not bad, and I recognised the Love Theme from somewhere, though I couldn't put a finger to it. The piano concerto was well played, though with a few mistakes. For a noob like me, anyone who can play a concerto with an orchestra is genius. I think the concerto itself is overrated though. The reason for its fame lies in the opening lines, that played-to-death melody, and then what? The melody disappears into oblivion, never to reappear again. I swear, if you played that melody in front of most people, they'd recognise it from that concerto. Play them the next few lines, or something from the middle of the 2nd movement, and they'll be lost. Well, I tried that with my dad. He claims the concerto is his favourite, but he didn't know most of what I was playing when I played it for him the other day. Or maybe it's due to my lousy playing? I was after all sight-reading.
Sadly, there wasn't an encore! I clapped with all my might, trying to coax at least one encore from the pianist, Lim Yan. I clapped until my hands tingled and until my arms ached (I did that all the time in concerts), and imagine my disappointment when the concertmaster left the stage! Because when the concertmaster leaves, it means that the show's over.
Prokofiev's Symphony No.5 was awesome! It's the reason for which I bought tickets to this concert, without a second thought. I lost track of the time listening to the performance by the Orchestra of the Music Makers. How I envied them! It's one of my greatest dreams to play in an orchestra. After the performance, I clapped my hardest again, trying to get an encore. And we had one! I recognised it as Shostakovich's Jazz Suite Waltz or something like that. I remembered hearing it on 92.4.
As usual, I left the concert hall with a huge smile on my face. I always felt good after a concert!
Speaking of classical music, I really envy the Brits. Because they get to listen to BBC Radio 3, their classical music radio station. I stumbled upon its website the other day, and found a treasure trove of shows, all available for download (albeit only for a limited time). My favourite is 'Discovering Music', where a DJ (are they called that there?) breaks down and analyses a song in detail. It can be a sonata, a symphony, a concerto or a tone poem or whatever. The shows I downloaded are around 40 minutes, though I think the actual ones are longer. There was a note at the top though, saying that they were truncated (shortened) for copyright reasons.
However, 40 minutes was more than enough for me. Needless to say, I downloaded all the Rachmaninoff, Gershwin and Prokofiev shows, plus one about Ravel's piano concerto. And I stayed up until 4.30 in the morning listening to some of them. Had I listened to all in one go it'd have taken me the whole night.
The analyses are so deep and thought-provoking! I learnt more about my favourite songs than I ever did. For example, I had never thought much about Rach 3's main melody until the DJ pointed out that it consists of notes not more than a third apart, and that it rises and falls like a wave, and this wave-like characteristic is present in many parts of the concerto... And the opening chords in Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini give a clue to which keys are used in the piece (A minor, D minor, F major etc)... The melodies used in Symphony No.2 come from the introduction in the 1st movement... And so on, and so on. They also set aside an hour everyday for a week for the 'Composer of the Week', and have a whole bunch of other awesome shows that I didn't have the time to listen to. If only we had Radio 3 here!!
Still on the topic of classical music, a week ago I tried and failed to record myself playing Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No.2's cadenza. Haha. I had wanted to post the recording here for you people to listen, but I kept screwing up every few bars. Especially the 'colossale' part. Actually, it was only the 'colossale' part where I had a problems. (It's better now though) If you have no idea what I'm talking about, here's what Wikipedia has to say about it..
and that...
...However it's nowhere near the sheer difficulty of the 2nd movement. I tell you, superhuman fingers and concentration are needed to play it at actual speed and without a single mistake. (Therefore, Ash is not human! As well as all those crazy geniuses who can play it) Well I know because I've learnt it. And only my right hand can keep up with Ash, while my left hand just jumps hopelessly between keys, only managing a note here and there.
The colossale portion of the cadenza is profuse with giant runs and large chords.
and that...
Prokofiev himself describes this as one of the very hardest places in the concerto.
...However it's nowhere near the sheer difficulty of the 2nd movement. I tell you, superhuman fingers and concentration are needed to play it at actual speed and without a single mistake. (Therefore, Ash is not human! As well as all those crazy geniuses who can play it) Well I know because I've learnt it. And only my right hand can keep up with Ash, while my left hand just jumps hopelessly between keys, only managing a note here and there.
The 3rd movement. I can't decide if it's my favourite one or the 1st. It just screams awesomeness. I don't know how to describe it. It's so unique. And awesome. And naturally I've tried to learn it. And failed, because I didn't have the patience. Because I found out about another song...
Ravel's Piano Concerto for the Left Hand. It's as kickass as it sounds. Come to think of it, keyboards are the only instruments that can played with one hand... right? Okay, percussion instruments. Anyway, I love songs written for the left hand only. Because it's an opportunity to train that lousy good-for-nothing left hand of mine! Seriously!
I think I've talked enough about music. Let's move on to another love of mine, photography. Though I think everyone has given up reading this abnormally long post. Haha. It's MY blog, so I get to type what I want!
So anyway, I had my 4th airshow photo rejected! So far I've had 3 photos rejected on the trot. I told you it was beginner's luck. Of the 4, 3 were rejected for motive. Sigh. Motive. Nothing I can do about them because I can't reposition the planes in the photo or something right? For one of the photos I got a personal note, 'motive for poor crop', because I had cut off the window of the plane, but I can't fix that because it's already cut off in the original! :( Cries. I feel so bad for the screener though. He took the time to add that comment, but I can't fix the photo!! :(
Oh, but did I tell you about the accepted shots? *Consults previous posts* Okay so I haven't told you about accepted shots #6 to #9! (Though you'd've known about #6 and #7 if you read my photography blog) Anyway, here they are...
That Apache shot is one of the more boring ones and I have no idea why it is more popular than my T-50 one, which I think is more exciting. Oh well. Different tastes I guess.
My poor G450 shot, my favourite of the lot, is languishing at the bottom with only 204 views!! D: Why don't people appreciate artistic shots?!!
Haha, here I go ranting again...
I have to stop now or I'll continue typing until goodness-knows-when!! I have more things to say though, like that fact that orientation is coming (I'm excited! - NOT!!!) and that I got tickets to Yo-Yo Ma's concert in April (!!!) and that I FINALLY found a poster of Arshavin in his Arsenal shirt (but his hair -yuck!!) and that I never knew Ash was in Asia for a concert until too late and that... that... that...
............
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damn...
Alright, so I tried connecting my monitor to my laptop and thank goodness the colour is okay. However this presents another problem. I had intended to bring my laptop with me when going overseas so I could edit photos for A.net on the go, but now it seems that I have to lug along my monitor too... Argh!
:(
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ambigram: andrei arshavin!
Continuing my tradition of designing an ambigram for each of my idols... Here's one for the awesome Andrei Arshavin!!!! I know that he prefers his name to be spelt 'Andrey' but I can't find a solution to it! So Andrei it is!
I don't really like the R/H solution but it's the only one I can think of!
I also tried a Russian version but failed spectacularly.
Oh, and if you search 'Alexander Lubiantsev' on Google, on the first page you'll see my ambigram! I really hope he Googles his name so he'll see it!
Come to think of it, Prokofiev and Henry are my idols too... Maybe I should design ambigrams for them?
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new laptop!
I just got my laptop this afternoon! And I'm happy with it except for the monitor and the speaker quality! The monitor has a strong blue colour cast to it and it is a problem when I'm editing photos for A.net because as you know, A.net has strict rules and will reject photos with colour casts. So how am I supposed to get the colour of my photos right when my monitor has a colour problem? I'm going to calibrate my monitor against my desktop computer's monitor tomorrow, and it if doesn't work, then I'll just have to do my photo editing on my old comp then... WTF.
Oh and if you're wondering, my laptop is a Lenovo Thinkpad W510 :)
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camera kid: accepted shots #4 and #5!
After an excruciating 3 and a half hour's wait, I had 2 of my 3 uploaded photos accepted! Check them out here! I have 2 more photos in the queue. And I'm going to add some more!
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camera kid: accepted shot #3 and some nature shots
Go to my photography blog to see my 3rd accepted shot on A.net and some photos taken at Bishan Park!
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