Gold With (Honours)

I’m sure all of us are elated about the Gold with Honours. In fact, I feel rather apologetic for not posting about it sooner (SYF drained my energy and I had to sleep a lot). Well, one of the reason why I regret not blogging about it sooner is because this post will now be tainted with bad news. It wouldn’t be as memorable as it would have been.

This is the first time CHIJ St. Nicholas Girls’ School Symphonic Band attained a Gold With Honours. It is natural for all of us to be extremely delighted with our results since many of us slogged for it. Sometimes, our happiness may overwhelm us and we may end up behaving irrationally. Thus, people may see certain harmless actions that we do in a bad light. Us cheering when our results was announced may be deemed as selfish, possibly because everyone else had to wait for us to quieten down before they could continue. In such cases, it’s unavoidable and truly unintentional. All of us know that but other people may deem it as us being self-centered. Being harsh when handling criticism is understandable. Just try to control your emotions even though it hurts terribly to be accused. There is no need for us to defend ourselves if we know we did not do any wrong. 

However, cheering when AMKSS did not achieve a Gold With Honours is really lowly. I know majority of us were dumbstruck and uncertain about it. The very fact that many of us wanted to confirm the results once more in case of any misreading shows a lot about how we felt. Still, our image is tarnished by some others who were truly pleased that AMKSS did not get a Gold With Honours. What’s the point of getting better results than them when we actually know they deserve it more? No matter what, in the end it’s still the music that counts. Casting AMKSS aside, do you think it’s very upright to be smug about your results? Where’s your humility? Getting a Gold with Honours does not give you any right to be arrogant. It is downright disgusting if you were to go around flaunting to other bands who did not perform as well as we did. It is exceptionally immature and shallow of you to think of SYF as purely awards or central judging. If you do think it this way, you shouldn’t have taken part in the first place. 

SYF is not about competing with one another. It’s about accessing your music as a band. If it was a competition, why aren’t there 1st, 2nd and 3rd positions? The important part of SYF is not the end results but the process of it. Did you learn anything? If you tarnished our band image, I doubt you learned at all. 

In the very end, I’m certain that Ms Sia would be more proud of us if we were humble band members. We marred her image as a conductor, as an educationist. I doubt she’s glad about the results TK and us achieved now. Those who are guilty really ruined the celebratory mood of many seniors and Ms Sia.

I hope you will reflect on it. For now, I expect all of you to stay away from Bandfusion. We do not want any more troubles from you guys. Even if untruthful things were said about us, just let it be. Just feign ignorance. There isn’t a need for us to defend ourselves or to apologize anymore. Apologies can’t salvage the band’s image. Just let it be. It will die down sooner or later. 

In addition, please remember, complacency is not an option. Now isn’t the time for you to be complacent. Jubilate is up next and people will pay more attention to the Band. Seeing the fact that many schools doubt us, we need to strive and ensure that we perform like how we did on 31st march 2009. Don’t let the seniors down, don’t let ms sia down, don’t let the band down and most importantly, don’t let yourself down. 

To those who weren’t even willing to stay back and do the band cheer, it really reflects very badly on you. Wanting to rush back for the mere 15 minutes of lesson and being unwilling to do the band cheer just shows how limited your band spirit is. No matter what reasons you have, we just had our SYF and furthermore we did well, so wanting to celebrate is what band members with actual spirit and passion will do. Rushing back to class and forgetting about it just shows how little band means to you. This SYF is rather meaningless to many seniors because the spirit wasn’t there. Not even a single full band cheer was done on the last practice. Why? People left. Only some remained. 

To those in SNSB who are still doubting our Gold With Honours, you have to start believing if not it’ll be too late. Our Gold With Honours wasn’t all based on luck. It was so much more than that and I’m sure you’ll agree if you try to remember the way we played our pieces. We need you to start believing before all of us can prove to the rest that we are worthy of the Gold With Honours. 

We need to uphold the remnants of our glory. 

xoxo,

Li Wen. 

P.S. WE CAN DO IT!

Ho SNSB.

I think most of you are aware of the very unpleasant conflicts sparked off after the SYF results were announced. Well, we have no right to be complacent just because we attained GWH. The cheering thing was too much. I hope the ones guilty of the cheering matter will do a reflection. It is extremely mean and humiliating to others when you all did that. And please, stop posting on BF. Just stay away from that forum. The better our results are, the more we should be humble.

Let’s not embarrass Ms Sia anymore. The unfortunate saga was caused by those who cheered at the wrong moment, some of our people who posted insensible comments in BF and some of the non-snsb people out there. It’s not our conductor’s fault. She is a very nice conductor who have been guiding us and she did not ‘teach us to be complacent’. The complacence is our own folly. People out there, please STOP humiliating our conductor.

And we have to prove to everyone out there who doubts our ability by saying that we ‘dont deserve the GWH’. Continue working hard and do not start slacking again. We must show them that we ARE and DESERVE to be a GWH band. We are a GWH band!

Hope that you got the message. Stay away from that BF forum. Dont do silly and rude things to embarrass yourselves, the band, our seniors and the conductor. Dont be arrogant just because we got GWH. Be HUMBLE.  Continue working hard for everything and every event (eg Jubilate and MONDAY morning assemblies). We are proud of you all for working hard for the past few months especially the past 1 month.

In anyway,

SNSB BRAVO!

We’ve made history!

1st GWH in 39 years of SNSB history

/Forgot to leave my name. I’m Yiing Huey btw.

2 More Days

Only 2 more days!!!!! *rips out my hair*

Come on people! We can do it! Just bear with it for 2 more days. It’s going to be over soon and all of us can have our much deserved break. For now, just stay alert and watch out for those who are ill. 

To those who are really working hard (the majority of you.): 

No matter what the result is, you ought to feel proud of yourself. Things may not necessarily go your way and it does not really matter if it doesn’t. It’d be extremely superficial if everything is just about the results. *pats your back* Remember to tell yourself how awesome you are! 

To those who are still in dreamland (minority of you. This applies to those not in SYF but yet are still sleeping people too):

I hope you wake up. In the end, you’re just dragging everyone down. You are being exceptionally selfish. Some of you even have close friends who are extremely committed to Band and if you’re really concerned about your friend and you guys are such great BFFs and what not, you wouldn’t be so self centered and indifferent about it. Wake up if not you’ll just waste all of your time in SNSB. *Slaps your back* WAKE UP! 

 

Anyway, keep persevering people!!! Have faith in yourself and your fellow bandits. Now is not the time for you to start developing pessimistic thoughts about this. For the majority of us, it’s our last (/one and only) SYF so treasure it. Don’t leave SCH regretting. 

Remember, on 31st March 2009, you will report to school by 5.45 am fully dressed in the SNSB uniform. On 31st March 2009, you will not forget anything like scores, mutes, brushing of teeth etc. etc. On 31st March 2009, you will not freak out on stage and you’re going to be awesome in your playing. On 31st March 2009, you will not make too much noise and cause your juniors to lose the chance of staying back for the results in the future. On 31st March 2009, you are not going to leave SCH regretting.

WE ARE GOING TO BE SO (FUNNING) AWESOME! 

xoxo,

Consent form collector.

So, 11 more days.

Play with feelings!!

Continue to practise in the morning too.

24 days.

In this long and arduous race, if your senior or junior that you don’t like falls down, don’t ignore her. Take her hand and pull her up. No matter how much you don’t trust or dislike each other, grab her hand and pull her up and along.

“I’m sorry that I’ve treated you badly in the past. But let’s just bury the hatred and race on together.”

And run forward to the finishing line together as one.

Think about it yourselves

When you are supposed to play ff, don’t sound like you are playing mf.

When you are supposed to accent, please accent and tongue properly.

When you are supposed to play fff or sfffz or pp or p please JUST PLAY THE WAY YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO.

If the whole band is supposed to play fff together but only a few are following the dynamics, then the effect won’t be there. Use common sense: You must have the WHOLE BAND playing the fff TOGETHER!!!

During the performance what happened. How many of you all actually obeyed the dynamics?

Think about it.

//

For those who are still not bothered and didn’t do your best during the performance :

• Excuse me but the Gold will NOT drop from the sky for free
• Flaws and mistakes made will definitely lead to disastrous results.
• If you are still human, please be more bothered and come down for self-prac.
• If you keep thinking that you can play very well and you can get into SYF and then get the Gold, I’m so sorry but you’re like a frog living at the bottom of the well. Living in self-delusion.

For those who experienced bad stage fright-ness:

• There is really nothing to be scared of, there’s only the conductor and the band. Just treat it like a normal band practice except that you bring out your very best.
• It’s hard but nothing is impossible. You can definitely overcome your phobia and play really well onstage when SYF comes.

//

We only have 29 days to SYF, which is also about 10 band practices. There are so many people who are still so arrogant and not bothered to come down everyday to practice and work on your own playing.

This group of people, please, have some common sense, have some humanity and do yourself and the band a favour by practising hard and practising the correct way.

I’m not trying to be harsh or blunt, I’m just stating facts. So let’s just face reality. We are still so far behind many schools. Especially the competitors who are playing the same songs as us.

Friends from a certain school playing the same song as us was still nice enough to comment on our playing so as to help us. PLAY WITH FEELINGS. Certain people at certain times didn’t watch Ms Sia and were not on beat/time. ‘Little’ things like this affect the song A LOT. SO DON’T THINK THAT your small little mistakes are nothing. Must play with much more feelings and also make the music flow and move. We sound like 木板s.

So please obey all dynamics and play with feelings. What did Ms Sia say? After the pause when we play Victory we discover a grand, beautiful city, not a banana tree. The way we sound currently obviously shows that we see nothing but a banana tree. Without fruits somemore.

-

No pain no gain.  We’ve promised our seniors that we’ll get the Gold back. Stop disappointing yourselves, stop disappointing those that have pinned hopes on you, stop disappointing those that have been putting in so much effort but you spoiled everything for them by not doing the same.

Better do something about your own playing. Only you can save yourself.

I don’t know whether you all will read this post. But I hope if you read it you will exit this page with the determination to work harder. Because if you don’t you are obviously going to let yourselves down. Next time you will receive your retribution and it’ll be worse.

Just continue pushing yourselves harder. Be focused. Practise the correct way. Ask if you don’t know how to play. Keep practising, start with slow tempo, then slowly increase speed. Aim for perfection. If we all, every single one of us, work hard together,  we can get the Gold back. Serious.

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO SNSB. DONT STOP HERE. WE MUST IMPROVE!

SYF 2009

Year 2007 SYF. Nanyang Girls’ played Jericho. You can go find their version of Jericho here.

Listen to their Part J. I’m sure your scores have ‘Con Tutti Forza’ written on it right? It means “with force” so you must SCREAM with force. Scream like you’re in war. In fact, we are, right? We are going for a war (SYF). If Nanyang Girls can play Jericho, WHY CAN’T WE? They girls’ school, we also girls’ school what! I’m sure with that extra effort and heart to get Gold, we can CONQUER THE WHOLE SCH AND OWN EVERYBODY and get Gold or even with with Honours.

You get what I mean.

In case you all don’t know, our band is damn lucky. Take woodwinds for example. You all are allowed how many reeds month? Three. A certain school out there (you know it, I shan’t name it) has only FOUR reeds per YEAR. Before SYF, we are kind of blessed with new instruments. Frankly speaking, we are quite lucky, really.

So we have everything to get GOLD(wHonours). We just lack… motivation.

We know that at this point of time, it’s really tiring for you all to cope with studies, band, tests, o levels. But since it’s SYF, our biggest hurdle, biggest jump, make it the most perfect one. Make our years in band worthwhile. Our energy and sweat used on band. Make them worthwhile. During 2007 when we got the Silver, it was so saddening. We knew we were so close to Gold. If only, if only we worked and pushed ourselves harder. Maybe we could have maintained the Gold then. So in other words, we shan’t let history repeat itself again. No. Let’s get back our Gold. Show the whole school, show the whole world, WE CAN DO IT. WE ARE A GOLD BAND. SHOW THEM WHO ARE REALLY ARE.

Push harder. We are only 41 days away from SYF. It’s either we rock SCH and get back our GOLD. Or we come back in grief.

JIAYOU! I’m sure we can do it. No joke. Just work harder, push harder and we’ll enjoy the fruits of our labour.
40/50 for choice piece, 45/50 for Overture.

Impossible is nothing, because

Impossible = I M POSSIBLE.

CHIONG AH!

Sec4 bandits: It’s our last hurdle;

Let’s leave a legacy behind.

GOLD WITH HONOURS, SNSB. VICTORY.

// Yiing Huey

Up high at the mountains and clouds with a Gold

Howdy people. Since Liwen mentioned about Genting Trip, let me do a short recount.

Day 1:
Reached the school when the sky wasn’t even bright yet. I shall skip the part on what we were told before we left school. Oh well, count us unlucky, bus 2 met with an accident barely 10 minutes after leaving the school. So we were kind of delayed for an hour or so. Eek. After arriving at Genting (late) we went to our rooms, then dinner which the food was ahem, then a rather lame opening ceremony. I thought they would have a real grand opening ceremony with many people performing and have long boring talks by VIP people, so I was flabbergasted when they just had 2 bands performing and the emcee simply said “ALRIGHT EVERYBODY, RUN AROUND AND GO UP TO SOMEONE FROM ANY OTHER SCHOOL AND SAY HI!!” O.O

Oops. Then the opening ceremony ended.

Day 2:
Competition day. Rehearsal in the morning, which we sounded quite ‘raw’ and not very prepared. After lunch and before competition was a time of worry and fear D: Haha okay sounds like some disaster. I think we played better during the competition (I hope) But I think we can project more and of course play better. Watched the 2 or 3 remaining bands after our turn. CCHYSB played Movement for Rosa, which was nice.

Day 3:
Boring video screening in the morning. Okay the TKWO and the conductor are too pro, so after 2 songs of staring at their pro-ness we got kind of bored. Then afternoon, mainly individual workshops and Friendship Concert at night. Eh not bad, we played Grease and it was fun playing Except for the fact that the audience, despite being mostly made up of band members, didn’t know how to clap and clapped off beat. Eeks. Oh but some schools played nice songs such as Mamma Mia, Can’t Take My Eyes Off You and Mission Impossible (which could be faster ). Oooh and the brass quintet B5 was good! Haha they’re damn cool and the tuba guy has seriously big lungs.

Then it was the announcement of results. As usual we joined hands. I realised whenever they are going to announce a Gold band the emcees would say a bit slower. So when the emcees took a pause after announcing our band name, my heart was like beating freaking fast. Then finally they showed the score!

Band no. 10, CHIJ ST NICHOLAS SYMPHONIC BAND, 80.0%, Gold, 3rd.

Day 4:
Day supposedly meant for playtime. In the morning there was this last-minute set piece workshop conducted by Prof John Howard (I hope I spelled his name correctly), so some of us didn’t go. The whole stage was crammed with approximately, say, 90 people. I think there were 10 horns, 11 euphoniums, many many clarinets and perhaps about 18 saxes :O Haha Clarice, you’re good.  Whoa, Overture 1 is quite nice actually. But I’d say it’s quite hard. We definitely need to work on it A LOT.

Meanwhile, the rest of the band went to the theme park I guess. Haha more playtime for them.

Top 3 bands’ performance at night during the closing ceremony. I personally think (most of us as well) we didn’t play as well as the competition itself. But heard comments saying that the band played well :O Well, hmm…

Finally it was the award ceremony. Yowch! Liwen, I look like shit in the photo below D: Haha. Yay the band earned another Gold, regardless of whether it was by luck or not… But yes the band did a good job and put in quite a lot of effort.
Day 5:
Time to go home. Once everyone plopped down in the bus they fell asleep. So sleepy. I guess it must be too much partying the night before Oh well, arrived at Singapore at about 3 or 4. Home sweet home!
To the band (including Sec1s):
Thank you for your effort put in, and thanks for the Gold we achieved. But we must NOT be complacent because we still have SYF (and other competitions in the future), which is a even higher, and more difficult barrier. Genting trip and competition was just a warm up. So we must put in even MORE effort if we want to achieve a Gold (/w honours) in SYF’09, and all the other competitions in the future. So please, do NOT be complacent and continue working hard.

And sec1s 08, you must start bucking up and practise even harder! It will be your first chance to take part in a competition next year. You are all in main band already. Don’t slack during when you’re in sectionals. We know many of you are slacking and to the point which you are even breaking rules. Start practising really very hard, build up your basics, do your fundamentals and after you master your basics (tone, pitch, rhythm etc) you will be able to play the songs the main band plays.

Okay, that wasn’t exactly a SHORT recount. But anyway, work harder for next year, WE MUST GET AT LEAST A GOLD FOR SYF 2009!

[Yiing Huey]

Band Genting Highlands Trip 2008

WE GOT GOLD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I only took photos of PORNETs (Percs, Horns & ET)… :/ Sorry! Will upload the band photo once I get it from the teachers…

P.S. Somebody please post about the trip!

XOXO,

Nyx.