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I was feeling sentimental today, and switched to the symphonia playlist on my iPodmini. Big mistake. If I was at home I'd probably wail out buckets of sentimentality and nostalgia, not a good sight. So I held it all in for the whole one hour of goosebumps and shivers down my spine. Reliving as many songs as I could during that short period of time, get flashes of 'oh hey I remember doing a mistake here', and just feeling the immense electrical rush of performing on stage.
Wow, just WoWno this is not blatant World of Warcraft advertising.
Sometimes I find it hard to believe that I've been in a concert band for almost five years, and now actually being a fairly competent player as a result of that five years. To think that I got thrown into this whole world of music, and nearly not going for recruitment interviews... I can't imagine how my life would have turned out if I went into any other musical CCA, be it Choir (now we all know I can't sing for nuts) or Chinese Orchestra.
Just listening and remembering all those highlights of SNSB... I'd just give almost anything to go back and do it all over again. Promenade, Fluid Fusion, SYF 2003. Monday flag-raisings, fanfare-ing VIPS into school. National Day celebrations, standing out in the field in the hot sun and seeing people faint. Running along the track with boxes and boxes of scores for Mrs Wong, then Ms Sia. Nominations, PoPs... Kalaidephonia 2001, Jubilate 2005 watching SNSB GOLD take the stage.
And it all started with me running down to the band room one cloudy day when I was thirteen years old. Getting interviewed by omfgGrace Tan and (I think it was)Melissa was absolutely terrifying. I got interrogated like what instrument would you like to get ("Oboe?" "Oh you know what's an oboe?"), what was my musical background, and the foreboding classic "This is a military band. We do drills. Can you take hours under the hot sun? Are you willing to come down at least twice a week?". I remembered answering yes to all of it, and that's probably why they called me back and not Denise because she said "NO" to one of the questions. XD
First band prac, I remember Grace (the orange badge QM) drilling into our heads that our instruments are our husbands ("lao gong!!!") and that we had to keep them properly at all costs. What impressed me even more was the fact that SNSB QMs did small repairs by themselves. But yeah, this died out around my year. We got launched straight into drills and learnt the basic stuff like sediah, senang diri and rehakan diri (I'm taking liberties with the spelling here) and it was like torture being made to stand at attention for hours on end. We got introduced to pumping. Our first major punishment being a 100-pumps stint because some asshole moved when we were supposed to be in sediah position. Then when we started to hanta, even worse, another 70 added on to my row. The blisters and burnt palms and knees we all never forgot. Pumping got a bit lesser over the years.
Our first foray into actually playing an instrument was quite haphazard. There were auditions all over the place, the percussion have rolls-testing outside, brass and woodwind SLs grabbed random people to get them to try their instruments or just patiently waited amidst the long line of n00bs queueing up. Evidently the flute and clarinet was the most popular but uh, I couldn't play both haha. Ironically I could play the saxophone, or at least EMIT SOUNDS, or Jean (the orange badge SL) was kinda happy. I gave up my oboe dreams because they had a tradition of picking MEP students, something which I wasn't. Bah. Then omfgGrace (QM and trombone SL) grabbed me and Elaine Tham to try the trombone. It was traumatizing because I could play the trombone and she became like "YAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYY HAPPY" and signed me up for trombone even though I was down for saxophone? :D()() Anyway, I got posted to alto saxophone after like fighting over me. ;D
The squad's first meeting with our tutor Mr Yeh was.. I can't really remember. All I can remember is him teaching us the basic, and letting us play our first rather horrible sounding piece called the Cimarron Overture. I still remember its name because of how he pronounced it, 'qi ma long'. Then there was A Walk with McCauley (A Walk with Mangkali), It's My Party, Come on Over, Nagai Aida... He used to share ghost stories with us and left in 2002 with a promise he never got the chance to keep "I owe you all one very scary ghost story hor!". Everytime 0104squad meets, we joke about the fact that we never ever got to hear his ghost story.
Him leaving marked the end of the Mrs Wong era. Which meant the heavy exploration of songs, just playing piece after piece and getting the feel of as many as possible. It also meant that she wouldn't be there to see my squad through the four years.
Ms Sia Swee Suan took over, along with Mr Ong. I swear we really hated her (Ms Sia) when she first came because her style was so different. She made changes everywhere, too quickly and too abrupt. There was discord and nearly every band prac of the first few months, she made at least one person cry. She took us through 0104's first SYF. Silver. We cried so hard. We practiced A Springtime Celebration til our fingers nearly dropped off. The then Sec 4s were even more devastated.
I have to say that Ms Sia grew on us. She challenged us to be better musicians and I believe that under her and Mr Ong's tutelege, we really did improve by leaps if not bounds. Thanks Ms Sia and Mr Ong.
The year she joined also marked the year when instead of the original Saxes Three of me, Nana and Ally, it became the Saxes Five with Joanne and Sheryln joining us. All five of us went through a lot, the coordination, the intonation, all the sectionals...
Sec 3 Comm was one of my closest groups of friends. Me, Nana, Lilin, Rachel, Yizhen, (and Trinetta and Nga Yee) were inseperable during band and I guess we did carry out our assistant duties efficiently. We all got promoted to full-posts the next year. We always arrived early and were the latest to leave. We had the luxury, or the bane of holding the band-room keys and had to run from the forum to the music room to the band room just to unlock or lock doors for people. All the meetings we had at Burger King, planning the PoP, arranging the BEST PIECE EVER KNOWN TO MAN (which I've lost a copy off :x), organizing band camps...
When I was made librarian after a year of assitant librarianship, I cringed. Another year of scores? Even worse, Trinetta and me (Lilin had been promoted to be Band Major) had to continue with reorganizing the whole library. Now that I'm librarian again, with another library to sort out, it's... LIKE A NEVER ENDING CURSE. I bet you my kids, if they ever joined band, will be made librarian fo'shore.
The red badges leaving meant that Nana and I could finally do solos by ourselves. Her being the SL (I was only the assistant) with the mucho better tone and sight-reading, almost always got to do the solos which I only did when she wasn't around. Still, we were like the rockin' saxophone 1st chairs, it was lovely. Our best moment was probably the last lunch-time concert we did as a band and we organized it such that she's play the solo for one piece, I'd play the solo for the next and then I suggested that to kill everyone in the audience and shock Ms Sia, we'd alternate the last solo together. Mindblowing, absolutely. Possibly my best moment in SNSB. I admit that I love applause and hearing it after working hard at solos is just... woah.
Leaving SNSB was a sad affair. I think I spent most of my whole secondary school time there, which probably explains the dismal marks and I kinda was apprehensive about CJCSB. I don't regret joining it though. It's the closest thing that will probably ever come to SNSBalbeit the rockin' close section I had back there and yeah, we'll make it through.
I'm tired of writing this 1420 and more worded piece of nostalgia.
I'll end by saying that I wish I could find someone out there, friend or foe that could understand my sense of humor sometimes.
Wow, just WoW
Sometimes I find it hard to believe that I've been in a concert band for almost five years, and now actually being a fairly competent player as a result of that five years. To think that I got thrown into this whole world of music, and nearly not going for recruitment interviews... I can't imagine how my life would have turned out if I went into any other musical CCA, be it Choir (now we all know I can't sing for nuts) or Chinese Orchestra.
Just listening and remembering all those highlights of SNSB... I'd just give almost anything to go back and do it all over again. Promenade, Fluid Fusion, SYF 2003. Monday flag-raisings, fanfare-ing VIPS into school. National Day celebrations, standing out in the field in the hot sun and seeing people faint. Running along the track with boxes and boxes of scores for Mrs Wong, then Ms Sia. Nominations, PoPs... Kalaidephonia 2001, Jubilate 2005 watching SNSB GOLD take the stage.
And it all started with me running down to the band room one cloudy day when I was thirteen years old. Getting interviewed by omfgGrace Tan and (I think it was)Melissa was absolutely terrifying. I got interrogated like what instrument would you like to get ("Oboe?" "Oh you know what's an oboe?"), what was my musical background, and the foreboding classic "This is a military band. We do drills. Can you take hours under the hot sun? Are you willing to come down at least twice a week?". I remembered answering yes to all of it, and that's probably why they called me back and not Denise because she said "NO" to one of the questions. XD
First band prac, I remember Grace (the orange badge QM) drilling into our heads that our instruments are our husbands ("lao gong!!!") and that we had to keep them properly at all costs. What impressed me even more was the fact that SNSB QMs did small repairs by themselves. But yeah, this died out around my year. We got launched straight into drills and learnt the basic stuff like sediah, senang diri and rehakan diri (I'm taking liberties with the spelling here) and it was like torture being made to stand at attention for hours on end. We got introduced to pumping. Our first major punishment being a 100-pumps stint because some asshole moved when we were supposed to be in sediah position. Then when we started to hanta, even worse, another 70 added on to my row. The blisters and burnt palms and knees we all never forgot. Pumping got a bit lesser over the years.
Our first foray into actually playing an instrument was quite haphazard. There were auditions all over the place, the percussion have rolls-testing outside, brass and woodwind SLs grabbed random people to get them to try their instruments or just patiently waited amidst the long line of n00bs queueing up. Evidently the flute and clarinet was the most popular but uh, I couldn't play both haha. Ironically I could play the saxophone, or at least EMIT SOUNDS, or Jean (the orange badge SL) was kinda happy. I gave up my oboe dreams because they had a tradition of picking MEP students, something which I wasn't. Bah. Then omfgGrace (QM and trombone SL) grabbed me and Elaine Tham to try the trombone. It was traumatizing because I could play the trombone and she became like "YAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYY HAPPY" and signed me up for trombone even though I was down for saxophone? :D()() Anyway, I got posted to alto saxophone after like fighting over me. ;D
The squad's first meeting with our tutor Mr Yeh was.. I can't really remember. All I can remember is him teaching us the basic, and letting us play our first rather horrible sounding piece called the Cimarron Overture. I still remember its name because of how he pronounced it, 'qi ma long'. Then there was A Walk with McCauley (A Walk with Mangkali), It's My Party, Come on Over, Nagai Aida... He used to share ghost stories with us and left in 2002 with a promise he never got the chance to keep "I owe you all one very scary ghost story hor!". Everytime 0104squad meets, we joke about the fact that we never ever got to hear his ghost story.
Him leaving marked the end of the Mrs Wong era. Which meant the heavy exploration of songs, just playing piece after piece and getting the feel of as many as possible. It also meant that she wouldn't be there to see my squad through the four years.
Ms Sia Swee Suan took over, along with Mr Ong. I swear we really hated her (Ms Sia) when she first came because her style was so different. She made changes everywhere, too quickly and too abrupt. There was discord and nearly every band prac of the first few months, she made at least one person cry. She took us through 0104's first SYF. Silver. We cried so hard. We practiced A Springtime Celebration til our fingers nearly dropped off. The then Sec 4s were even more devastated.
I have to say that Ms Sia grew on us. She challenged us to be better musicians and I believe that under her and Mr Ong's tutelege, we really did improve by leaps if not bounds. Thanks Ms Sia and Mr Ong.
The year she joined also marked the year when instead of the original Saxes Three of me, Nana and Ally, it became the Saxes Five with Joanne and Sheryln joining us. All five of us went through a lot, the coordination, the intonation, all the sectionals...
Sec 3 Comm was one of my closest groups of friends. Me, Nana, Lilin, Rachel, Yizhen, (and Trinetta and Nga Yee) were inseperable during band and I guess we did carry out our assistant duties efficiently. We all got promoted to full-posts the next year. We always arrived early and were the latest to leave. We had the luxury, or the bane of holding the band-room keys and had to run from the forum to the music room to the band room just to unlock or lock doors for people. All the meetings we had at Burger King, planning the PoP, arranging the BEST PIECE EVER KNOWN TO MAN (which I've lost a copy off :x), organizing band camps...
When I was made librarian after a year of assitant librarianship, I cringed. Another year of scores? Even worse, Trinetta and me (Lilin had been promoted to be Band Major) had to continue with reorganizing the whole library. Now that I'm librarian again, with another library to sort out, it's... LIKE A NEVER ENDING CURSE. I bet you my kids, if they ever joined band, will be made librarian fo'shore.
The red badges leaving meant that Nana and I could finally do solos by ourselves. Her being the SL (I was only the assistant) with the mucho better tone and sight-reading, almost always got to do the solos which I only did when she wasn't around. Still, we were like the rockin' saxophone 1st chairs, it was lovely. Our best moment was probably the last lunch-time concert we did as a band and we organized it such that she's play the solo for one piece, I'd play the solo for the next and then I suggested that to kill everyone in the audience and shock Ms Sia, we'd alternate the last solo together. Mindblowing, absolutely. Possibly my best moment in SNSB. I admit that I love applause and hearing it after working hard at solos is just... woah.
Leaving SNSB was a sad affair. I think I spent most of my whole secondary school time there, which probably explains the dismal marks and I kinda was apprehensive about CJCSB. I don't regret joining it though. It's the closest thing that will probably ever come to SNSB
I'm tired of writing this 1420 and more worded piece of nostalgia.
I'll end by saying that I wish I could find someone out there, friend or foe that could understand my sense of humor sometimes.
