okay so now i should better update about uk before i forget all the fun times we had. oh, and disclaimer: this is merely for michelle's entertainment. anyone attempting to look for interesting material or information about england should know that it is not advisable; otherwise they will be sorely disappointed. [because it's going to be long, wordy, and not exactly relevant. michelle likes stuff that's long, wordy and not exactly relevant, which is not particularly appealing to most people. or so she thinks.] umm, so here goes?
days1&2: plane ride + bridge(!!) + buckingham palace + rcm
plane ride is to be strictly ignored, because i mean, is there even anything interesting to talk about plane rides? other than perhaps the fact that sitting next to fls on a plane gives you magnificent insights as to her pre-sleep preparations, not that anyone needs to know them. oh, and michelle will, from now on, demand singapore airlines on extra long trips, because she has no intention of watching 'the incredibles' for another 3 more times.
we reached heathrow (yesyes now i know it's supposed to be pronounced hee-throw and nothing else) at around 5 in the morning? oh, heathrow has an intriguing conveyor belt system. (: and london taxi fares are plain expensive. like umm, we spent at least 45 pounds (which is almost equivalent to 135 singapore dollars -yes you are supposed to gasp in shock and horror) just getting from the airport to hotel. haha on the way fls was giving us audition pointers. like how to answer interview questions, and some of her responses were, let's just say, O.o.
hotel check-in time was around 1, and we reached the hotel at 6plus in the morning. -.-" but that equated to the great bridge teaching session. :D so from complete idiots we were transformed into lesser idiots. (: [or at least, i was. aidi went straight to the ranks of umm, pro bridge player.] and yay to the elderlies, we managed to play at every possible time, much to the disgruntlement of fls and our parents. [fls claims we're addicted gamblers, hmph.]
buckingham palace was a great let-down! 'cos they postponed the change of guards, so aidi and i didn't get a chance to watch, considering we had to practise at rcm from 11-1. [they postponed it to 1130, grawr.] so we just took a couple of photos and then we had to rush off to rcm. one good thing though: the british people are really nice / friendly / considerate. there was this nice stallowner that actually left his stall just to help us get a taxi. (:
rcm has cool pianos; like they have 2 steinways in the practice room! except one of the steinways - obviously the better one - was reserved for teaching purposes. and of course, the naughty michelle couldn't help but plonk her fingers on the keys just for fun. XD [oh and we got the keys to our practice rooms like any seasoned college student. yay us. (:]
[O.o if i'm going to continue at this rate i'll probably end up with a umm, 10,000 word essay?! ohwell nevermind it's not as if anyone's going to pore through this nonsense, so i shall just continue spouting tosh. X)]
day 3: concert @ rcm + the massive fish-and-chips takeaway!
masterclass in the afternoon was quite, uneventful? but i never knew that ravel was a precision engineer though. :D the reception was notable in one aspect: the chocolate biscuits! (: england has frightfully yummy chocolate biscuits. hmm should have smuggled some home. XD
the massive fish-and-chips takeaway took place in the evening! the restaurant couldn't seat 13 people, and umm, we were highly guilty of going on and on about bridge, therefore, a compromise! so we brought back the stuff to eat at the hotel lobby (which became some sort of uhh, gathering place for us), but uhh, i think i still prefer swensen's / fish and co's fish and chips. [at any rate, they have a shop along that same street that sells delicious chocolate pies! yes and it was entirely chocolate.]
day4: lessons + getting lost before nerve-wracking purcell auditions
back at rcm in the morning for lessons with the department head, who was the least threatening teacher out of the three, i would think. (the three being the heads of keyboard at rcm, purcell and wells.) oh and she has a fazioli in her room! :D michelle loves faziolis (and perhaps wants a fazioli more than she wants a steinway, but this is beside the point)! anyway, lesson learnt from lesson: always listen to fls, otherwise you'll waste time correcting the same old mistakes that fls has already once corrected. like my ahem tempo. and number two: learn how to read notes accurately. otherwise you land up in the embarrassing situation of having a college professor circling all your wrong notes for you on your score.
after the lessons the rest of the people went to the rcm museum while the 'audition trio' (aidi, shanjee and me) had to make our way, alone, to watford/purcell for well, auditions. the emphasis is on, alone. nothing much happened on our journey there, but as luck would have it, they just had to bring us to the wrong hotel. 'cos our hotel's called grove end hotel, but apparently it's not well known, so the taxi driver took us to this posh one known as the grove hotel. so at the reception we were like, 'can you check whether there has been a reservation made by a group of 13 singaporeans?' and umm, rather persistent about it. you can guess how embarrased we were when we realized we got the wrong hotel. [most importantly, grove end hotel's prices are around 50+pounds per night, but the grove hotel's prices are 300+ pounds per night. scary eh?]
shall not comment on auditions, but purcell's cp hall (constance pilkington hall, or something like that) is once again, equipped with a fazioli! :D though the touch wasn't as heavy as the usual fazioli, i think. ohwell. at any rate my sightreading was a total mess, thanks to my inherent lack of a sensibility of tempo, and i conveniently forgot what the opposite of diminished was. i am, i must say, brilliant in some ways.
haha the head of keyboard (ahem) entrusted me with remembering the password to access all the practice rooms and stuff, so i had the (ahemahem) valiant duty of punching in the code for everyone else [initially, because everyone caught on soon enough]. yay me! (:
[later addition: purcell's food standards are well, slightly questionable. give me rgs canteen food any time, nevermind if they can be grossly overpriced.]
day5: violin concert @ purcell + masterclasses with a drama queen + tales of faziolis, part 3.
the violin wasn't half as fun as any normal nafa concert would be, considering that all of us had to behave like cultured, civilized musicians since we were seated in the hall with the rest of the audience. [purcell, should, seriously, get, a, backstage, for, their, recital, hall.] and haha, musical chairs where you had to ensure that you didn't move too early, but that you were done moving by the time the next violinist was up on stage. that requires a great deal of umm, coordination, y'know?
masterclasses, as part of the piano course - according to frances it's where the head of department picks pieces for you to play and there'll be college professors coming in to give masterclasses on those pieces - in the afternoon. my horrendous rhythm / tempo was once again, (not surprisingly) expounded on, probably much to great anger of fls' part. the professor was rather, dramatic; apparently she's a very staunch supporter of physical involvement (in your music) helping you to bring it to a higher level. and i forgot to get autographs, grawr. anyway was freaking out before my turn. [i mean, after all you're playing in a specialist music school, in front of people who practise at least 2-3 hours a day, and you would be lucky to say that you practise even 1 hour a day.] thankfully there was an interval, and paranoid me went to practise on the nice steinway. (: then everyone else followed suit. and because the interval was absolutely too long to be wasted, the three of us scheduled to play after the break ended up practising thrice. -.-" and just to be incoherent, the 2nd great fls act of the trip would be in her 'speech' to the professor, where she overtly proclaimed that we were part-timers. such impressions that may lead to overly positive prejudgements should never have been given, seriously.
(more? O.o) practice sessions were next, and of course michelle took the room with the wonderful fazioli. (: tahaha i was like, "okay no one takes room 8 from me! no one takes room 8 from me!" when i saw the fazioli. and, to add to the brilliance of it all, it was a signed fazioli. entirely overwhelming, i must say, although in a positive sense, that is. hmm, imagine going to school everyday and practising on a fazioli. i command you to swoon.
day6: irrational fears of department heads + concert @ purcell!
individual lessons in the morning was a beethoven-chopin-chopin programme, which is much love. (: i think purcell's head of keyboard is an excellent pianist - how he does all the technical flourishes and his interpretational insights are truly beyond description. too bad i didn't catch on quickly enough, and that would be the best explanation for my (perhaps not so) irrational fears of department heads. anyway, i find it quite interesting to note that everyone has different opinions as to how the opening motif (dflat-e-e) should be played, and they all sound good, albeit carrying different shades and degrees of emotional intensity to them. point is, how to find a way to combine the plus points of them all.
concert with interval means a greater deal of fun for all involved, what with random huanghe parodies and attempts to sight-read each other's pieces. and O.o all of us had to make curtain calls, which was quite unexpected. oh, and let us all marvel at the boundless energy of the young ones, playing hide-and-seek amidst the practice rooms and the pianos. XD [irrelevant sidenote: apparently there was some misbehaviour at the concert, though we didn't spot anything wrong. ohwell, best not to anyway.]
day7: bath spa + more chocolate biscuits + good food (finally)
one last group photo to show that we've been to the purcell school! (:
left watford for bath spa. (and yes, fls was marvelling at how the place was called 'bath spa', and how it could very much have been the other way round - 'spa bath'.) had to get to paddington station first though, and much to our delight, there was a paddington bear stand at paddington station! and of course, being kids at heart, we just had to shop to our heart's content. (: sadly, paddington station didn't resemble platform 9 3/4 in the harry potter movies (well, wouldn't have expected it to be similar, actually), and waste disposal was made a great issue due to the lack of dustbins. so we had to return our trash back to the burger king outlet from which it came from.
[no prizes for guessing what we did on the train. for the uninitiated, it was an exceedingly addictive activity, played with a deck of 52 cards, and sharing similar linguistic roots with the phrase 'london bridge'.]
school tour of the wells cathedral compound was fun! considering we had to walk around a lot, since their campus is housed in various historical buildings that are spread around the city centre. haha it's as if the school owns the city or something. :D and to kill time we just had to start singing our favourite pieces, including the number-one hit, the great kabalevsky. XD (not mentioning chopin's scherzo, debussy's poisson d'ors, neatly interspersed with instances of name-calling such as 'AD' and 'shanj'. michelle was thankfully spared, except for a certain 'mish-mash'.)
highlight of reception = chocolate biscuits, and nothing else. :D the gala concert in the evening was (take your pick from the following list) splendid / fantabulous / excellent / great / wonderful / absoutely spiffing / mind-blowing / fantastic. (: i still marvel at how the guy does his octave glissandos. read: octave glissandos. and ahh, the glazunov violin concerto. [but michelle shall not attempt to comment, for fear of sounding like an uninformed idiot.]
post-concert reception (because wells loves to give receptions, much to our excitement) = more good food. although it was all cold, so it wasn't all that enjoyable. i mean, hey it's already like 4-5degrees outside and you still expect me to savour cold food?! but the duck in plum sauce was yummy. (:
day8: lessons with a no-photography, no-videography teacher + concert @ wells + yet another post-concert reception
no faziolis this time, sadly. was reduced to practising on an upright piano for the first half of the morning (because the teacher using one of the grand piano rooms very smartly brought home the key and deprived me of my chance), with the magnificent window view of an alley. chanced upon a lalo score though (symphonie espagnole :D), and spent 5 minutes playing the violin part just for fun. and because of the great boredom arising from piano practice with a, well, not-so-nice piano, tried to sight-read grade 4 exam pieces for fun. (: it's funny to see what teachers leave in their rooms, really. [and uhm, freaky cellos left in cupboards behind pianos.]
shanjee & i in one of the well, nicer practice rooms at wells. (:
the head of keyboard at wells is a nice and friendly teacher, though it's sad that he doesn't allow photography and videography of any sort. and he didn't enlighten me on the art of doing octave glissandos either. ohwell. must try and find pollini's recording of the chopin op.35 though; from what he tells me, it's a splendid rendition of the piece. (special mention of the 2nd page with all those out-of-place accents!) but can't seem to find it anywhere, grawr. and haha, he didn't know what our heat packs were for. :D
wells backstage was, chaotic but peaceful, if such a situation could ever exist. jessica's a wonderful improviser. :D and well, going around in your winter jackets, because you didn't have anything less stupid to keep yourself warm with, is a bad idea. weird, but i was still fooling around until i realized lynette was already playing her last chord, and i went up on stage just like that, without going through any bouts of hyperventilation and self-doubt and nervousness; yet somehow it turned out to be one of my better performances. maybe that's a good excuse to use when we're supposed to remain silent backstage. oh, and finally we get to see the kabalevsky score, teehee. (: [uhm, more like we took it without asking for permission, but don't think it really matters though. XD]
post-concert reception = deluge of chocolates, chips, and fried tempura prawns. need i say more? wells is an exceedingly hospitable school, i must say. (:
day9&10: shopping at heathrow + home sweet home
nothing much on day10, except to get to heathrow by 7pm to check-in for our flight. thankfully we had enough sense to arrive much earlier (say, around 3?), 'cos the security check took a whole half-hour. rest of the time was spent playing bridge and shopping! [heathrow is equipped with great shops, by the way. harrods!] and don't ask us why, but shanjee&aidi&i spent at least half an hour stuck in borders, choosing books. (3 for 18 pounds sounds reasonable, no?) :D
on the flight back home i finally got to watch happy feet! (yeah, finally. after half a year.) and the flight wasn't full, so our shopping bags occupied a seat for free on their way back home to singapore.
8degrees to 28degrees isn't exactly the most enjoyable of transitions, but well we made it through, so yay for us. (:
-and this ends michelle's long (almost grandma-ish) recount of the uk trip. :D
random thoughts: must say this was one of the best overseas trips in my life (on par with prague&vienna), considering it gave us lots of bonding time and allowed me to find the connection with music that i had lost, to quite a large extent, before the trip. i mean, before that the environment doesn't really allow you to immerse yourself in the beauties of melodies and harmonies, because there are just so many other distractions and so many other commitments you have to attend to, most of which would take up a higher priority than music. but plunging yourself into a full week of intensive music-making, within the confines of specialist music schools where people your age spend weeks, months and years practising and perfecting their art, gives you an entirely different perspective on music, and what music truly is. perhaps it's because you're forced to concentrate on nothing but the sounds produced from the ivory keys beneath your fingers, so you begin to pay more attention to what you're doing. and somehow, it just feels good. :D it might be that you're compelled because you're in such a music-saturated atmosphere, but in a way you can't exactly put it down to a case of compulsion when you enjoy it so much with your heart and soul.
haha like i told my mum, if you want me to practise properly, put me in such an environment! XD but then, i can't exactly visualize myself practising 8-10 hours a day in the near future and going around playing to the applause of people day after day as a career (even then, that's wishful thinking), so well, yeah.
and i've really found much greater friends in everyone who came along on the trip. :D we might have been divided in some ways or another, subtle or otherwise, but i think we've gotten to know each other loads better, such that we can speak of some sort of batch-bonding now. (: i'm thankful for having known each and every one of you, and here's a great big thankyou to all of you for making this trip such a wonderful memory for me. (granted, no one's going to read it, but i ought to put it down all the same.)
till we meet again, goodbye england: rcm, purcell, wells, and all! :D