The Art of Being a Pianist, A Real One.

For more than 15 years of piano playing, passing grades one after another, being able to increase the velocity of scales over that period of time from Moderato to Vivace, diversifying the type of music played from simple Sonatina to Schubert, from easy Impromptus to exquisitely-craft Waltzes by Chopin, and more significantly, from an amateur pianist who was being forced to practice playing that Yamaha upright to someone who practices almost everyday till the person who used to force me to do so, gets irritated.

And I thought I know all about music.

Moving forward, I am going for a piano competition where I am competing in the post-grade 8 category, which ultimately means I am competing with music teachers, professional pianist, and other people who will arguably bring world peace in just a 13 note scale or a simple rendition of “Marry had a little lamb” that they slide across on a 10 feet concert grand piano. This would also mean that if I were to earn respect from these people and show them that I am worth competing with, I should practice tenacity of greater magnitude.

What I overlooked, was the essence of playing a piano in a live setting.

I did know how a live piano performance is different from plugging in a earphone to a music player and press the “Play” button. The difference is not just in terms of the audio experience, but also the visual experience that makes a live performance so unique, that keeps the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra so appealing despite performing songs that are easily available at the typing of a few letters and a click at your P2P software and also some waiting time (depending on the efficiency and quality of your internet service provider).

But what I know haven’t been well-defined until recently – when I am preparing to put on a live piano performance myself. I know why I chose to go for a live performance in lieu of buying a CD and listen to it over and over again. I still have to learn a lot when it comes to having to put forward a unique experience to my audiences so that what they felt would be what I felt when I watch performances from the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra and the like.

According to my piano teacher, a good live piano performer has the ability to do the following 3 things. First, excellent notation and techniques. Secondly, the ability to adapt to the different instrumental setting, as in the piano. Last but never the least, the ability to communicate with the audiences visually – body language.

Excellent notation and techniques comes with practice, lots of them. It basically mean not playing the wrong note, or at the very least, not playing a glaring mistake that will become a “ear sore” and raise eyebrow. It basically means playing well shaped melody line, well articulated notes, together with sheer clarity. It entails being able to play like a recording artist – the audio effect.

The ability to adapt to different kinds of instrumental setting means being able to play well in just all kinds of piano. Pianos vary in terms of sound quality, touching, intensity of sound, sustainability of notes, natural dynamics (as in loud or soft) and so on. Most live performance like a competition will not allow the applicants to try playing on the piano that will be used for the competition. Perhaps once or twice for rehearsal purposes, but it will not be the piano that you can practice playing on. Hence the piano that you practice playing on (i.e. your home piano) and the piano for the live performance will be two different pianos, which means they have different natural dynamics, touching, and sound quality. The ability to play well on just any piano and the skills to adapt in terms of touching and force applied, suddenly become one of the factors that make a great pianist.

Last but not the least, body language is the main thing that sets a CD and a live performance apart. Your posture, fingers’ movement, breathing, body movement, and so on, will all go to the attention of the audiences. It is a form of communication in a live performance. You can show plenty with your body movements. You can show intensity, climax, resolution, mood, dynamics and a lot more using body language. As of this point, I was suddenly reminded of the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra’s tagline that goes about few seasons back – Hear, and you will see.

The idea is that the music, together with the body language of the performer, has the ability to ignite imagination in the audiences, which leads them to define a musical experience that involves all senses – sight, sound, etc – , of their own.

For now, the Waltz 14 in E minor by Chopin still has a lot of notation to improve on. Touchings have to be refined further, notes have to be more precise with little margin for error, and phrasing has to be well conveyed. That’s the hearing part.

Upon completion of the hearing part, there will be a need to work on the seeing part, so that you can hear, and will also see.

Time to practice that super fast running notes on bars 33 to 40.

Student Council’s Election

Aaron Lo’s usually mundane life gets jazzed up a little today.

Today was Student Council’s Election, and like last semester, the spotlight is on students running for positions in the Student Council. The speech that was required by all participants in the election was a great chance to hear about the student’s credentials and past experiences, as well as to discern how diverse our student body is. Or so I thought.

I ran for Publicity Officer, which is primarily like a PR person, although I’ve always interpret it as an advertising job. At some point of time before deciding on the PR job, I thought of running for President, but upon much deliberation, I decided that I do not want to repeat my mistake in Grade 11 of holding too much leadership positions and do just little (that have always made me feel like a jerk). Much to my surprise, I won uncontested, which grants me a little ambivalence. For one, it feels darn good to win uncontested. On the other side of the coin however, no competition exists, which took away all the fun, excitement and risk.

So my speech basically covers my past experiences in the field, rather that trying hard in desperation to beg people out there to vote for me. My speech went like this:

-Introduction, greetings, etc
-Illustrate the role of Publicity Officer (just a little bit)
-Why Student Council needs an advertising or publicity person to do the job
-Explain why I am in a unique position to take on the job
-My winning of that competition organized by Ogilvy & Mather
-Ads appearing in national newspaper recently as case study of a good ad
-Was in Student Council last semester, did posters last semester
-Did copywriting work and issue press statements for NGOs (publicity related stuffs)
-Made an ad presentation in front of the Education Minister of Malaysia, posters available in all secondary school in KL, coz’ that’s where sex is rampant..
-My advertising club (did some advertising too, asking people who are interested to join)

After I gave mine, there were a few other speeches from those running for Vice President and President. Some speeches were really short and succint, while some were as lame as that of Hao-Wei. Some goes extra miles to stress how many presidential positions they hold in high school.

Pardon my expression, but I personally have cynical views about people who boast how many presidential positions they hold. I mean, it doesn’t really show anything about you, apart from manifesting your audacity to stalk the teacher in charge to grant you a presidential position. I believe the most important thing to share, is what have you done and what impact and legacy have you left behind during your tenure as the president, not how many presidents you have in your resume. It is a typical quality over quantity notion.

Those who did not ask people to vote for them but insist that people only vote for them only if the people have confidence in them, have total reverence from me. I believe the most noble thing is to leverage on strengths, credentials, and experiences to win something, not through campaigning and asking friends to vote for you. Here, I can’t help comparing this situation with our government. Why do the Member of Parliament even want to appear to campaign for the election? Do a good job and people will judge for themselves, not appearing only when the general election is coming. The roads near my house were recently resurfaced, perhaps an indication an upcoming general election?

During the voting session, everyone is free to move around, so I was walking around with these lecturers telling me that I made a good speech, which sounded a little superficial to me. I mean, I know what I did. I screwed up the first part of my speech. I was totally tired after playing the piano till 1am the night before for some competition. Some lecturers were asking me about the Education Minister. First it was Miss Woi, then Miss Najjar and another new male teacher, Mr La Voie I think. Mr Welch too came to talk to me about it. So did Puan Dzura. And all of a sudden my otherwise mundane life turns wow.

The most memorable thing, however, is when the Program Director aka Principal Mr Terry Butcher (Bu-Shey) came to tell me that he hoped I can contribute in a profound manner to the Student Council. Ok, that was fairly expected. But what was not expected, was when he told me that he’d heard a lot about me, good things. I must admit that I am a little flattered, but hey, HOW? I mean the program director had just arrive a month ago and today was my first contact with him (Insert random enigmatic theme). He also opined that I am an “articulate young man”, much to my surprise.

Enigma and mysteries aside, today is a fun day for me, but probably not-so-fun for Hao-Wei. He claimed he screwed up his speech, which I thought he kind of did too. As a person who values remarkable friendship a lot and whose purpose of existence is to bring joy and alleviate sufferings of the people around (that’s me), I decided to use my new-found philosophical problem solving technique to help him. This week’s reading materials are all about Philosophy.

I told him that he screwed things up because God wants to teach him a lesson on the importance of preparation (he did not prepare his speech before hand), so that he will get it right the next time, where the stakes could possibily be higher, like running for a position in Donald Trump’s company. He called me in return to tell me he felt better, albeit he did it in a subtle manner (he’s too afraid and shy to admit that I am the nicest friend he ever had..)

[ I might have interpret his words wrongly though]

I shall call this a day. A great day.

Ok, this is hilarious.

For some obvious reasons, I believe Google didn’t think Paris Hilton is a whore (coz’ I tried it on Google search), and that it is completely made-up by some photoshop savvy people out there. But the idea itself is crazy though.