My teacher just gave me the green light to learn tenor trombone! Should be fun! Hopefully I can start practising later after the orchestra concert. Need to be in decent shape on Wednesday for OMM! Alright, that's all for now. Lazy to type about anything else. Goodnight world!

Orchestra was really disappointing just now. Totally collapsed as a unit at certain areas. I really really really hope it turns around. It all must start with the individual.

This week definitely has been one that I should learn from. Hasn't been really good and time to know what should be done to make the subsequent weeks better. Probably need a slight rethink of plans, schedules and goals. Speaking of schedule adjustments, I now have to accommodate teaching time on Fridays. Really looking forward to becoming a regular tutor. Although my ultimate goal is to educate well, along the way I should do my best to find what is "me"; what are my ways, thoughts and concepts of brass playing, music and life. Right now I kinda feel lost in everything. I'm guessing finding what is "me" will take me to the next level in whatever I do. I just need to embrace it. Alright, rest time. Goodnight world!

Still haven't gotten back to planning my practice sessions!! Urgh! Cannot carry on like this! I did have some fundamental practice but without planning it's kinda less fulfilling. Practised the Brahms 1 excerpts too and along the way I (re)discovered a certain embouchure that improves efficiency, sound quality and evenness across the range, but at the expense of endurance and quite difficult to handle when articulation is put in. But it does seem something worthy of working on!

Mr. Hartung is back on the podium today for orchestra! Nice to see him again and I must say the music is taken to the next level with him at the helm. Of course Mr. Lim Yau has done a great job building up technical and teamwork aspects in the orchestra but to me, Mr. Hartung just turns it into music that means something. Gotta learn how to do that myself. Need to find my own musical voice! I guess time to collect more CDs of other instrumentalists. Alright, that's all for today. Goodbye!

The two public holidays of CNY now over and it's back to school! And what a way to be greeted: dusty rooms because they repainted the studios. Seriously, all these works should be done during the holidays!! School administration is really making less and less sense! Ok enough ranting. Life goes on.

I find that I've been playing a lot of high range recently. I covered the euphonium part in band, playing tenor trombone excerpts for fun and so on. Gotta turn that around! Need to get better at what I'm supposed to be good at: low range! Urgh! Discipline man!

Also need discipline to stick to my practice plans! Haven't been singing my intervals in a while now! C'mon!!!!!!!!!! Stop all these nonsense!!

Ok...need to compose myself once again. Time to turn in. Goodnight world!

Happy Lunar New Year everyone! Here's to wishing everyone good health and prosperity! Cheers!

Managed to get some cleaning up on my computer done. Arranged and organised my files and did a backup. Been long overdue! Soon enough, I'll need to organise my room as well. Oh well, now is a good time to review my practice plans and see what can be changed to further improve it. After that, get some practice done! Right, enjoy your new year everyone!

Slide That! gig went well! Really enjoyed playing just now despite the sleepiness caused by the rain! Hahaha! A good concert by the Southern Cross Soloists after that! Some really beautiful music in their repertoire and really good players and ensemble work! Was a good day! Now to enjoy some time with relatives because it's one more day to CNY! Also need to get some practice done! Quite an extensive list of repertoire to cover; complete Sachse Concertino, Bozza Prelude et Allegro, Sarabande from Bach Cello Suite No. 5 and 15 excerpts. Yup, quite a lot of stuff to prepare. Oh well, shall plan out what and how I shall be practising and performing for the next 2+ months before exams arrive. Right, time to get some rest! Bye!

Really can't find words to describe the week I've just gone through. Busy? Hectic? Tiring? Yeah, tiring should be the closest. I realise I haven't really planned a practice session this week and I'm not keeping my discipline of practising aural everyday. This just can't go on! I gotta take it to the next level! Now that there's a new system of studio bookings being tried out in school, it'll be interesting to find out if it's any good. Oh well, time to go sleep. Really tired. Gotta be fresh for Slide That!'s gig later. Goodnight world!

As if by luck, or rather, the lack of it, there's another item to add to the to-break list for this year: my Cronkhite gig bag's strap. Really can't imagine how such a thing could happen to supposedly one of the best built gig bags that's only 7 months old! Grrr!! Just fired an email to Mr. Cronkhite about it. Hopefully he can do something about it! Now it makes me wonder once again, what's next?! Oh well, for now I'll have to make do with my Eastman case.

Concerto competition heats went mostly alright. Definitely not my best performance though. Oh well, results will be out later. Don't really have high hopes for it though.

Gotta move on!!! Urgh!!

Quartet performance done, Concerto competition heats and more trombone ensemble to go for the week! Gonna get back into my exercise regime tomorrow. Finally can get on with it now that my left knee has recovered! Time to get fit! Alright, high time I go to bed, goodnight world!

Just got home from a fantastic concert by the Australian Brass Quintet and the YST Conservatory Brass students! Really cool to be on the other side of the bell and hearing all that resonance, kinda like woodwind players in the orchestra (bassoonists and clarinetists in particular). Of course they don't usually take it the same way as brass players do. Most of them place some sort of device in between their ears and our bells like Plexiglass shields or earplugs. For us, we just enjoy all the rawness of it. Was some really cool repertoire that ABQ brought to the concert and it was really engaging! Really glad I attended the concert!

I just realised I'll be performing thrice next week. Just updated my upcoming performance section on the left. Besides the quartet performance, I'll be participating in NAFA's concerto competition and the heats are next Tuesday. Not sure if it's open to the public though. Then on Saturday, I'll be playing with Slide That! again but with different players at Artist Academy. Gonna be an interesting week before we break for Chinese New Year. Hopefully it'll be good!

I've got a new addition to my recordings library and it's Stefan Schulz's new CD, Around the World! Amazing stuff in it! Out of the world bass trombone playing (also saxophone, piano and orchestra playing!), fantastic new music written by Daniel Schnyder complemented by extraordinary musicianship from the musicians in the CD! Really a must get! Get it even if you're not a brass player! You'll not regret it!

Alright, another day to get through tomorrow. A talk for NAFA Open House, SYO sectionals and need to get some good practice done too! So till next time, bye!

Long days aplenty this week! Glad today was cut shorter. Would really like the rest so that tomorrow's practice will be better. I also need more discipline when in the practice room! Urgh, have to tell myself not to start playing instead of practising. Really wastes time and energy that can be done improving my playing. Oh well, something else to take note about. By the way, I got a surprise at wind band rehearsal today:

I played this piece 5 years ago with Dunearn for SYF. Memories of the preparation and performance we did then just came back. It occurred to me that when I played it 5 years ago, I alternated between the bass part and the 2nd part. Also, at that time, I couldn't nail the melody that the tenor trombones play at bar 88. I remember being all so stressed about it till I actually cried one day. But still, till this day, I love this piece! I had lots of fun sight-reading this piece once more with the NAFA Wind Band. Well technically, I'm not sight-reading; I know how the piece goes. I hope the band will perform it! Will be really nice to perform it again! 

First week of school is over! It does feel good to be back actually. Nice to be up early in the morning to get some focused practice and afternoons can be spent doing other things. Really looking forward to ensemble rehearsals starting again, especially orchestra. With a new head of Orchestral Studies, the orchestral experience is going to be so different. I have this feeling he will not be the same conductor as he is at TPO. But oh well, that remains to be seen.

I just attended a masterclass yesterday by tuba virtuoso, Sergio Carolino. A fantastic musician indeed! I must say I was intimidated by his teaching. I haven't been out of my comfort zone in such a long time and yesterday I was really out of it. But his masterclass was a really good wake up call for me especially on my air usage. I realised I haven't been using the right air all these while and when I became conscious of it while practising today, my sound just became so much better! So definitely a worthwhile lesson from the master.

Something else I attended yesterday was OMM's performance of Mahler 5. I must say it was very brave of OMM to even choose the work. It is huge and requires high levels of technical ability from every musician. Nevertheless, they did pull through the 80-minute work with many fantastic and magical moments within. However, I really do hope they proceed with caution when thinking about doing more of such works as it is treading on dangerous ground when these works demand such high technical ability and coordination of phrase-passing. Too many lapses and the performance will just take a turn for the worst. I do have faith in the orchestra and hopefully many more interesting projects will come along in the future. This year is definitely full of them as they prepare to go on tour to London, Bratislava and Prague. Hopefully I'll be joining them on tour!

Alright, shall find other ways to kill time before tonight's SSO performance of Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique. Till next time, bye!

What a start to 2012 so far. Gotten my leg and my horn dented in the first half of the week! I really wonder what else is gonna happen. What more do I have to deal with? Guess a good walk will help clear my mind of things so that's what I'll do tomorrow morning. Really hope things will start turning around and soon. My playing hasn't exactly been good as well this week, especially in front of an audience. Really have to start getting more out of myself. Less time in my comfort zone! Oh well, it's time for sleep. Hopefully my next post will be about something positive! Goodnight!

Back to school! First day was quite good I must say! Accomplished quite a few things in practice and had a good PS. Brass class wasn't so good. Really didn't feel in control of my performance at all. Oh well, gained awareness, now time to work on it! 2 weeks to the concerto competition heats so lots of work to be done! Well, really looking forward to ensembles starting again. That shall happen next week. Right now I'm looking forward to the Sergio Carolino masterclass and OMM's Mahler 5 on Friday and SSO's Symphonie Fantastique on Saturday. Right, that's all, goodnight!

Happy new year everyone! Was really a blast of a concert last night. Congratulations to TPO and maestro Lim! Music, friends and champagne; what a way to start the new year! Right now I'm pondering what I should do for today. Watching TV will be on the list because my place just got a nice new addition: A Hubstation HD! Time to watch Nat Geo and Discovery on HD. Oh and HBO too! Today will be pretty much one of the only days I can watch because school is starting on Tuesday! Really am looking forward to the new term. Changes in staff, timetable have mixed up things a bit. Time to plan what I can and just go with the flow. Should practice be on my to-do list today? It probably should. Need to start diving into my concerto and know it inside out including the piano part. Other than that, I should also start planning a practice routine that I'll stick to every week. Consistency is much needed. Oh well, that's enough for one day. I'm quite sure I'll take it easy today. Work starts full speed on Tuesday. For now, enjoy what's left of your holidays everyone!