Ryan Carter | Gravity Modulations

Gravity Modulations

Have a listen to it, for a piece of contemporary classical music it's pretty nice to listen to and easy on the ears too. In fact, I'd say most of the pieces he composed were gorgeous.

I had the luck to come across a concert and go in for free when I was in Heidelberg, Germany. They performed 4 pieces in the concert - one from Beethoven, another from Mozart, while the other two were compositions from featured young composers in the whole music festival.

Honestly, I was a bit apprehensive before actually listening to the piece, as the 2nd performance, also modern classical music, was crap (to me). I mean, I know you can argue that the composer knows the piece best and everything, but who writes a piece of music and insists on playing the solo himself? Especially for a composer - don't you have to make sure that other people are able to understand and perform your piece? Most of our applause were just given out of politeness (compare the polite clapping with the enthusiastic cheers and whistles given to the others), and even so, I think most part of the applause belonged to the orchestra who worked so hard to play your piece, the concert master to the extent of breaking his E string. And after the concert, when someone praised your composition, you had the nerve to go and say 'Yeah, I know (it's good).' Well, these are just the thoughts (and rants) from my puny, insignificant self who's unable to appreciate 'too elite' contemporary music.

Now, Carter's piece is a different story all together. The people playing it, the Szymanowski Quartet, already looked happy when they were seated on stage, even before playing the piece. The piece itself has a nice ring to it. Although there's still heavy use of dissonance and high pitches, it doesn't hurt the ears as everything converges beautifully together in the end between the four instruments. And the guy wasn't such a show off too. He didn't blow flying kisses to the players nor fake humbleness.

Anyway, I'm just saying - don't blow your own trumpet and praise it.

Insensitivity

http://thelintinmypocket.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/no-stupid-people1.jpg

A few days ago, the north-east of Japan was incapacitated by a monstrous calamity - a 8.9 magnitude earthquake that subsequently triggered giant waves (tsunami). After the incident, text messages were exchanged about the disaster.

Well, you'd expect the text messages to be about how serious the disaster was, how to help the Japanese and all those, but no.

They were jokes. Bad, tasteless jokes about the disaster. Sent by freaks who think that making jokes at someone's suffering and pain's expense is funny.

Two of the jokes I saw were something like these:

1...
'My Japanese girlfriend dumped me. I'm sad, but it's okay, there are still many more in the sea.'

2...
'The Japanese Olympics 2012 windsurfing team sure are enthusiastic. It's not even 2012 yet but they've already arrived on the shores of Dover'

One might argue that these jokes were harmless, just made for laughs with the opportunity of a subject. However, in truth it just shows the immaturity, insensitivity and incapability to empathise and sympathise of the sender. The people who came up with the jokes are the most to blame, but the senders too, have extremely bad taste.

Creating jokes out of something that brought death to thousands of people and massive destruction is just plain stupid. There's nothing to laugh about natural disasters. How would you feel if someone cracked a silly joke at your dad's funeral (putting aside cases where you don't love your own dad for any reason)?

Japan might be far away from England, but still, we are all people, we all live on the Earth, we all are humans. Is it too much to ask for, for one to show compassion and sympathy to another fellow human being who has done nothing wrong? Also, there are Japanese people in England too, how would they feel if their family or friends died in the tsunami, and they come across such a text?

If you have time to create and send stupid text messages, use the time to do something more worthwhile such as sending texts to ask people to donate money for the victims, or informing people about the magnitude of the disaster, or if you don't have the mental capacity to do that...

Just. Shut. Up.

Caledonia

I don't know if you can see
The changes that have come over me
In these last few days I've been afraid
That I might drift away
So I've been telling old stories, singing songs
That make me think about where I've came from
And that's the reason why I seem
So far away today

Let me tell you that I love you
That I think about you all the time
Caledonia you're calling me
And now I'm going home
But if I should become a stranger
You know that it would make me more than sad
Caledonia's been everything
I've ever had

Now I have moved and I've kept on moving
Proved the points that I needed proving
Lost the friends that I needed losing
Found others on the way
I have kissed the ladies and left them crying
Stolen dreams, yes there's no denying
I have travelled hard with coattails flying
Somewhere in the wind

Now I'm sitting here before the fire
The empty room, the forest choir
The flames that could not get any higher
They've withered now they've gone
But I'm steady thinking my way is clear
And I know what I will do tomorrow
When the hands are shaken and the kisses flow
Then I will disappear

***

I've had this song playing on loop on my laptop for a week now, and I never get tired of it. The original song was a Scottish folk ballad written by Dougie MacLean.

'Caledonia' as a song is really relaxing and calming to listen to - I particularly like the version by Celtic Woman simply because the lead singer has such a soothing voice, and the background singers do a great job of supporting the vocal too.

But what really drawn me to this song is the lyrics. They are romantic, yes, but they're not mushy and sweet like marshmallows. The lyrics are more like matured wine, to be savoured and enjoyed slowly no matter how many times you sip it.

'Caledonia', if you don't know, means 'Scotland' in Roman. However, I think that everyone will have their own Caledonia, which makes the lyrics more meaningful. Thinking about it, Caledonia can also be a person, but that's probably massacring the lyrics a little :p

I know what and who my Caledonia is...do you?

Weird Dreams

People often say that dreams reflect something that might happen in reality. Some of us can remember our dreams quite well, some of us can't. I belong to the former category, since I could recount a number of dreams I've had for the past few days.

These few days, I've had several weird dreams, and for three days in a row, I dreamed about the same person. Let's just call the person...D.

Well, I see D almost every week, I don't know how to describe our relationship, we're probably friends I think, hopefully. Sometimes I can't help but wonder, since D and I come from quite different backgrounds, maybe D just sees me as a strange person. When we see each other, sometimes we greet each other and chat, sometimes we don't.

Well, I'd love to chat with D every time we meet, but I'm the sort of person who's too shy to initiate a conversation, well, unless I'm feeling hyper or tipsy or something. Usually, D will just go 'Hey, how are you?' or 'Hey, you all right?', which is a standard greeting here in the UK. And then we will chat for a bit.

However, recently, D seemed to be a little distant for some reason. Maybe I've done something to offend D, maybe D is just stressed out from life, studies, etc. And I feel like I haven't been myself in front of D, I'm usually more jumpy and quiet and nervous.

Why am I talking about all these? Let's move on to those weird dreams now...

Dream #1:
D was sitting on a windowsill, and I happened to go into the room. D saw me and said 'Hi', but D didn't smile, so I got annoyed and walked out of the room. The End.

Dream #2:
D, Alicia (my friend) and I were sitting in chairs in a room. We were casually chatting about various things, and suddenly I just talked about my assignment marks, which were quite high despite me doing them at the last minute. Suddenly, Alicia told D that 'she must have gotten quite high marks because she was looking at pictures of you while doing her assignments'. I choked on my drink, and D just laughed =.= The End.

Dream #3:
I went back to my secondary school, and D was somehow with me. We were in one classroom together, when I had to attend a function in the school hall, and D was left in the classroom with some of my friends. D borrowed one of my erasers to do something. I was then stuck in the function for two hours, and when I came out, D had already disappeared. However, D put my eraser in a big brown paper bag and passed it to my friends to return it to me. The End.

Now, how much weirder can dreams be? And how many times can the same person appear in a dream? :O

A Fruitful Day Indeed

29 January 2011

I woke up feeling pretty nervous, as I was going to play in the Viola Day afternoon concert at St Gregory Centre at 2pm. The two songs I played were both Dvorak's, and the second one was a bit difficult (imagine alternating 4 and 7 flats and slides from 1st position to 5/6/7th).

Anyway, I think I did an okay job for both songs (at least I didn't screw up too much and sound like a banshee). My hands were shaking slightly when I was playing the first song - nerves got the better of me, but I settled down fairly quickly. And the second song, Dvorak's Quintet in E flat major was just fantastic (thanks to all the other 4 players of course).

I managed to get some pictures with my dear friends too!


And then, Alicia, Daniel and I went to town and we took more pictures (on Facebook).

After that, I went to Dyana's house and had bihun soup (rice vermicelli soup) with Ruzel, Teha, Hans, Mira and Seha. It was soooooo delicious and sooooo Malaysian~ We then went to ASDA and bought some groceries in preparation for Chinese New Year.

My arms then tired themselves out making a batch of cookies. They're called Melting Moments, as they supposedly melt in your mouth XD It's just cornflakes, raisins, sugar, butter and flour though :D


I'm gonna bake batches and batches of them and pack them in decorated containers for my friends before Wednesday!

Ruzel, Dyana and the gang baked a chocolate cheese cake too!


And I'm almost 50% done digitally painting a chrysanthemum for a virtual CNY card for my family and friends.

I'm surprised that I could do so much and feel so satisfied and fulfilled in a day.

All together, it was a really productive day indeed, and it makes me cherish my dear friends and family more as without them, I wouldn't have been able to do all these!

xxxx