Thankful

I had another rehearsal today with a drastically-reduced (5) orchestra; We put Dante’s Theme from Full Metal Alchemist on the lineup right away (I had just completed arranging it at 1AM that morning), as well as The Opened Way from Shadow of the Colossus, and of course, Woodcarving Partita from Castlevania.

We did The Opened Way first, which is the first time I will actually be conducting the piece, as opposed to playing someone’s part (double bass) while simultaneously directing someone else’s performance. Early in the piece there’s this section where the 1st and 2nd violins double each other an octave apart on top of a tempo I would have to describe as “insistent” – it’s a simple part with just half, quarter, and the occasional eighth note, but I got an immense feeling of pleasure listening to it: there’s really nothing like the live sound being generated by players you can actually see.

Dante’s Theme came about as a suggestion by one of the 1st violins – I must admit it took about 3 listenings before the piece grew on me. But grow it did, and I must say I have never arranged a piece as complex and as densely orchestrated as this one in one sitting. I gave a few pointers on how to get a crisp attack on the 1st violins opening 16th notes (spicatto), placated the whining cellos (the tenor clef was obfuscating them to no end), and finally getting the whole thing running. Even from our initial runthrough, the feel of the piece was already there – as one of the cellists put it: “The melody is so…haunting“.

Woodcarving Partita is not really something we will perform as a full orchestra – it’s written as chamber music for a piano quintet – but we rehearse it as an orchestra anyway, getting the frontliners and the understudies ready in one fell sweep. I have to admit I only really heard, for the first time, the difference between the “orchestral” and “chamber” sounds of a piece.

I realize that I am just rambling at the moment. It’s 2AM on a Sunday morning, I’m not really sleepy enough to shut down the computer – I just want to commit to this journal how thankful I am to God for allowing and enabling me to do what I do: my work with students and the orchestra and the music itself.  I am very, very privileged.

Thank You.

En peu musiquè

Alright, alright, I stink at French. I just thought something French-sounding in the least would be appropriate for this post.

Last night, a few members of The Orchestra (myself included) went to what is starting to become a yearly oddessey for us: the last concert of the season of the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra.

Unlike during the previous two years, the PPO did not embarrass itself this time – even though I felt the conductor (some French guy who’s name escapes me at the moment) was a little hard to follow sometimes (OK, OK, a lot of the time), apparently he was well-liked by the orchestra and they chose to follow him, so pizzicato sections were clear, cohesive, and “together”, there wasn’t much fuzziness in the sound, and the orchestra seemed reasonably happy to be onstage.

But it was also last night that I noticed how small the PPO is as a symphony orchestra: at only 60+ strong, everything seemed to sound rather small. Not small as in pathetically small – just small. They sounded big for their size, but 12 first violins is not 16, 10 second violins is not 14, 8 violas is not 12, 7 cellos is not 10, 5 double basses is not 8. This isn’t there fault, of course. I’m just saying I was looking for (and naturally didn’t get) that sound.

My students weren’t nitpicking this year – most of them were simply mesmerized by the coordinated bowings (which they are still learning to do themselves). Sure, the 30-minute pieces bored them somewhat, and one of them threatened to pull out an iPod, but it seemed like a positive experience for the most part – very much like going on a fieldtrip.

I noticed there were more black-haired heads in the orchestra (as opposed to gray-haired heads) this year than before. There were still a few mainstays, whom I’ve been seeing for years, but for the most part, the guard seems to be changing and this strikes me as a good thing – perhaps we can expect a younger, fresher sound from our national orchestra in the years to come.

Well, that’s that. Thanks to JT and Kyu Yeon for the ride which made this year’s trip to the CCP considerably less-stressful than before. We should do this again sometime

Dreaming…

I’m supposed to be working on the Guitar curriculum (and I am, I really am), but after going over some of the videos and video blog entries about the Youtube Symphony, I suppose I have to commit this to a journal entry before I can effectively work on that curriculum.

For those of you who don’t know about the YT Symphony, a few months ago, YouTube announced it would be putting together a symphony orchestra via online audition. The music was posted online, and amateur and professional musicians from all over the world were encouraged to study, practice, and audition. In the end, more than 90 musicians were chosen, flown to America (Google, the owner of YouTube, footed the bill), and as I type this, are probably performing for the first time at none other than the New York’s revered Carnegie Hall.

I’m not going to gush about the innovative selection process – in the end, even the YT Symphony is still a symphony orchestra, albeit a very multicultural one. And besides, most of the internet news reports about the YT Symphony have already done a much better job in doing so that I really care to do at the moment.  Actually, this post was inspired by watching the many video reports posted by some of the participants themselves (you can view some of them here, here, and here, plus feed your ever-growing curiosity by going to the YT Symphony channel here and engorging yourself).

Some of the videos actually feature nothing more than the author talking about his or her experiences during the day, but if you take the time to watch and listen (they’re actually well-prepared – if their posts are improvised, it doesn’t show), you’ll see something – the look in their eyes, the twists of lip and tongue – that really shows they’re excited with what they are doing and well, that get’s me excited!

I found myself pining while watching the videos – not that I wanted to be there (although that would have been really cool – they could have used more Asians!), but that I want to put that kind of experience, that kind of excitement into the musicians in The Orchestra.

Dream with me a bit here: if you could get 90+ not-so-talented, willing-to-work-hard musicians together, all between age 11 and 25, teach them that music is in the end, all about God and not about us,  and then get them working together on music that they enjoy (or will eventually learn to enjoy). 10 months later, they’ve seen the face of God and they’ve become family: they laugh, they joke, they tease one another, they, respect one another, they bicker, they love (although that kind of love hasn’t happened yet – it’s always someone outside The Orchestra who doesn’t understand or really care about what’s going-on…or so I think). They enjoy the music, they appreciate the hard work necessary to perform it well, and they rareing to get onstage.

Now imagine being able to take this colossal  musical force and bring them to places they’ve never been to, to perform on stages they’ve never imagined standing on. Imagine giving them the opportunity to travel together, to eat (really eat!) together, to give the hotel staff headaches with their fun-loving antics together. Imagine them playing to full houses, moving themselves to tears, uplifting their own spirits, opening the eyes of their own imaginations with the music their very hands are creating. Imagine the squeals of joy and excitement backstage as they celebrate their achievement. Imagine the audience unable to restrain themselves in their seats, the peals of thunderous applause raining down from the balconies – imagine the pride of the parents, the ones who were somewhat skeptical about the whole affair but nevertheless gave their support. Imagine the glow on the musician’s faces as they prepare for the trip home, the tears as they part ways.

Imagine how a person can be changed by all that – the influence such an experience would have on them for the rest of their lives.

Sure, this happens in the professional ensembles (well, the younger ones, at least) where the musicians are trained and all. But my dream has a twist – it’s about giving the ordinary, the not-so-special ones a chance, an opportunity to prove to themselves and to the world that what they desire, what they work for, they will achieve. And it’s about inspiring the nameless everyman – that he or she can also achieve extraordinary things.

Of course, there are so many things that stand in the way – logistics, lack of parental support (believe it or not, there are parents who view what we do as a waste of time), lack of peer support (Aw, isn’t that cute? Kiddies playing onstage. So did you get the name of that cutie you saw yesterday?), and ultimately, lack of financial support (What you do is inspiring, but what’s in it for my company? Will it increase profits?). Yeah, sooner or later, it boils down to money…or the miserable lack of it. How I hate that.

(On a side note: the little company commentary about profit actually took place and ended with the well-known company dissolving their orchestra and fielding a basketball team. It’s just good business. Boo.)

But I…I must continue to dream…and to seek out dreams that in turn inspire me to dream, so that maybe someday, before I am old and gray and too dead to care, the dreams will come true, so that someone else, in turn, can dream.

Come, dream with me…yes, dream…

Conducting 103

To any professional conductors reading this, I would first like to point out that my experience with orchestras is limited to school orchestras, and only for a few years. That said, I have tried to bring as much professionalism as I possibly could to every conducting opportunity – I’ve tried very hard to learn the music, learn each instrument’s parts, and come to rehearsals with as clear an idea of how the music should go as I possibly could. This (and other posts) are really more of a reflection on what I’ve learned over the years. Should you have reason to disagree with anything written, I would greatly appreciate your comments…I can’t promise I’ll agree with you right away, but a different perspective is something I rarely get in my line of work, and as such, is an opportunity to learn.

Let’s say you’ve got the leadership thing down pat – what else does an aspiring conductor need?

Taking my cue from Dmitiri Mitroupoulos, music director of the New York Philhamonic right around during World War 2 (before Bernstein, who was before Solti, who was before Barenboim).

He once said, “There is nothing to conducting; absolutely nothing – it’s all in the music.” Well, I confess I do not possess his near-mythical abilities as to say there is indeed, nothing to conducting, but I do agree that pretty much 90% of what you need in order to conduct is right there in the score: In so many words, if you know the music inside out, conducting will not be so difficult.

But then, if you don’t love the music, you wouldn’t really bother learning it as thoroughly as you should.

This leads me to the second thing an aspiring conductor should have: He or she must love the music with a passion – indeed, you could say that he or she must be possessed by the music. Not just a generic love for music (nearly every adolescent boy and girl in the Western world would say they love music) – we’re talking starry-eyed, gazing-into-eternity, I-couldn’t-sleep-last-night love for the music to be conducted.

Love the music, and you will have (or start to have) musical conviction, which you will need in order to steer 80+ musicians in any particular direction. You will not be satisfied with a mediocre reading of the piece; you will start to push the musicians to become better; you will find yourself longing to communicate the essence of the piece with the listeners (which could include some of the musicians themselves); you will study hard, because you will want to give the music justice with a polished, informed performance.

Of course, this is not easy, especially if you’re trying to make a career out of conducting: it took me years of listening before I could even imagine the possibility of conducting the second movement of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony. There are four movements in all…so I need to learn to love the other three before I dare declare I can conduct his 9th.

Mind you, loving the music does not justify over-the-top, excessively-aggro interpretations of whatever music is being played – but frankly, I would prefer an impassioned performance, however misinformed the interpretation might be, over a “professional interpretation” that lacks fire. Of course, any conductor worth his or her salt will strive to strike a balance between the two.

In closing, my advice would be this: if you’re in a position to choose what music gets played in your orchestra, choose music that you love – nevermind if the orchestra doesn’t quite agree with you at first; if you love the music, they will see it, and if you persevere in leading them through it, before long, you will have the musicians loudly proclaiming the virtues of your lineup.

Conducting 102

Four years ago, I published a series of posts about how to conduct an orchestra. I had just been through a two week-long conducting masterclass with the French conductor Fabien Tehericsen (who I think is a fabulous conductor, even if the orchestra thought he took himself too seriously), and you could say my eyes had just been opened to the mystic art of conducting an orchestra.

Now, with four years of experience, I feel I can publish another installment on the matter.

First thing I would like to emphasize is that when all is said and done, conducting any kind of ensemble is about one thing only: leadership. It’s not about charisma, it’s not about how knowledgeable you are about the various orchestral instruments and the techniques involved in playing them, it’s not about how clear your beat is, and it’s not about your organizational skills. It’s about how well you can lead this group of musicians who, in the case of professional orchestras, don’t really need you.

I’m not saying any idiot with an excess of testosterone (and is thus very aggressive) can get up on the podium and lead an award-winning performance – you do have to know the music inside-out, since you can’t lead the musicians through something you yourself don’t know. I’m just emphasizing that even if you do know the music, if you’re not leading, you’re not conducting.

And to show that my dad’s extensive research into the field of leadership has indeed made an influence on me, I would like to point out that effective leadership is  built primarily on relationships. Who are you to the ensemble? Do you care about the musicians (let’s stop fooling ourselves – Beethoven doesn’t make the music; the musicians do)? Do you really want them to give their best? What for? So that you can take all the glory?

I’ve read accounts by conductors who say (or said, being dead) that the music is the priority. I disagree. Soldiers do not follow their sergeants to the death simply because they love war; they follow because (strange as it may sound) they love their sergeants. And they love their sergeants because their sergeants are one of them: face-down in the mud and muck, giving directions, lending a hand, leading. I see no difference when it comes to orchestras.

Michael Hovnanian, bassist of a very famous American orchestra once wrote in his blog:

As everyone knows, orchestra musicians are feckless and lazy. Naturally we would prefer any conductor who treated us nicely over one who might attempt to lead us to a higher level of artistry.

It’s really a simple case of human nature: would you be willing to be led by a buffoon whose mere purpose for existence is to make you feel bad about yourself? Of course not – not even if it were in the name of greater artistry.

By all means, possess a clear beat, a broad knowledge of orchestral instruments and their techniques, and explore every nook and cranny of the score, but do not forget that if you want an experience that leaves both audience and musicians changed, it will start with your relationships with them.

Only then will you be in a position to convince them that the crescendo at bar 145 is not supposed to be taken too fast…

I smell cinnamon, I smell myrrh.

Yes, yes, I know its the middle of March – snow has barely begun to melt in some places on the globe – but I’m already thinking Christmas!

And this being my web journal, can The Orchestra really be far behind? Unthinkable. So naturally, I’m conceptualizing a Christmas Concert for The Orchestra this year. I suggested this over dinner to my assistant and the principal percussionist – his eyes just lit up. He commented on how it was almost impossible to play Christmas music without making people smile…including oneself. I agree; I guess Christmas music is one of the few genres left which one cannot approach with anything less than a selfless attitude – you have to do it for others…to make others happy. Doing it any other way makes you look like a fool…and leaves you feeling like a first-class cad.

The last time we played anything Christmas-y was 5 years ago, when we first started – we played one song: Carol of the Bells. This time, I would like to see what 5 years of experience can bring to the table. I was thinking maybe a bunch of less-familiar-yet-tuneful carols, interspersed with more familiar ones. I have a good idea of where we will perform, so it eliminates the possibility of performing large-scale works (Interestingly enough, Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus is more closely-associated with Christmas than it is with Easter, which is what it was originally intended for). I’ve got two already in mind: Bring a Torch, Jeanette, Isabella and Ding Dong Merrily on High. I’ll gladly take a swing at Little Drummer Boy…but only if I can arrange it as to break your heart.

Speaking of heartbreak, have a listen to Enya’s One Toy Soldier from her And Winter Came album – all it took was one listen and I just wanted to weep.

Excuse me now. I need to go look for bells…

Fureai

I really hate that word as a song title – I think I mentioned in an earlier post that it sounds like you mispronounced “furry” or “fry” (or a very disturbing combination of both).

Be that as it may, the term is used to describe the formation of emotional connections between different classes of people – for example, the connection between teachers and their students. The definition on Wikipedia isn’t explicit on this, but I suppose the term could be used to describe (but not necessarily) connections of the more romantic sort.

I am not Japanese, nor a linguist, so I will leave the definition of the word at that. I turn my attention now to the piece The Orchestra performed last Saturday.

In case anyone might be getting the wrong idea, I’ll not be talking about The Orchestra’s rendition of the piece – it is what it is, and we will have to wait for another opportunity to improve on our performance. But I just want to talk (or rather, soliloquize, since nobody seems interested in discussing it as it is) about the music itself for a moment.

I’ll be blunt with you: I love this piece. You could say I’ve outgrown the youthful fascination with minor-keyed, ominous-sounding pieces that sound like the end of the world as we know it – I still enjoy them, mind you, but I guess I’ve had enough of them for the time being. But big – no – huge sounding orchestral themes that are in major keys (romantic or otherwise) -  that I have little experience in rendering.

Of course, it helps that the melody of Fureai is unabashedly romantic.

But how do you capture the epic scale of such a romance (Ugh! Why am I talking about this now?!)? It turns out that the musical technique that was good enough for sending macbre chills up people’s spines is woefully inadequate at giving them goosebumps of the more amorous sort. I mean, it’s not enough that the strings be in tune, their bows all going in the same directions – the players must impart a lush, creamy quality to the sound. Vibrato is non-negotiable – it is an unquestioned must.

Brass, too, is important – alone, the trumpets are too brash, too strident. Their passages must be balanced with the round, mellow tones of both the trombone and the horn. That said, one cannot underestimate the need for a skilled trumpeter whose tasteful solos into the stratosphere must embody the soaring of the emotions so associated with (oh, I almost dare not say it!) falling in love.

I listen to the piece again, and I am not yet satisfied – this is one of those pieces that will haunt me until I can purge it from my system by performing it, at last, with unquestionable excellence…in all aspects – intonation, texture, dynamics…everything. Until the music itself becomes the physical embodiment of the emotions contained therein, I must pursue it, doggedly, relentlessly, inexorably.

Shortly after our weekend performance, The Orchestra’s principal percussionist likened it to preparing for, then finally summong the courage to leap over a cliff into the unknown. Oh, that I would be able to take that leap, to feel the wild flutterings of my heart as my feet, unfettered, leave terra firma in a mighty bound – sustained only by the unswerving faith that what I leap into is not doom, but destiny, and that that destiny is good.

I think perhaps, writing this is an attempt to ease the pressure that such an idea places upon my heart and mind and spirit – I fear that if I did otherwise, why, I would go mad from lack of sleep!

Frankly, dear reader, I would like to discuss this…this…dream. It goes beyond music, so do not worry if your contribution to the discussion is non-musical. I wish to engage with other minds on this subject – Come, let us lock horns and emerge sharper than before. I invite you to take that leap for yourself. But that is not up to me…but to you.

Let me close this, at long last, with a poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson (or however his name is ordered) – it was the same poem projected onscreen during our performance of the piece. I find it that it embodies everything I hear in this music…maybe even to an embarassing degree. I hope you agree.

Light, so low upon earth,
You send a flash to the sun.
Here is the golden close of love,
All my wooing is done.
Oh, the woods and the meadows,
Woods where we hid from the wet,
Stiles where we stay’d to be kind,
Meadows in which we met!

Light, so low in the vale
You flash and lighten afar,
For this is the golden morning of love,
And you are his morning start.
Flash, I am coming, I come,
By meadow and stile and wood,
Oh, lighten into my eyes and heart,
Into my heart and my blood!

Heart, are you great enough
For a love that never tires?
O heart, are you great enough for love?
I have heard of thorns and briers,
Over the meadow and stiles,
Over the world to the end of it
Flash for a million miles.

Songs of Fire, Songs of Light

A few people have been clamoring for this post (I wonder why), so I guess I should get to work on it…

It’s a strange feeling, really…in the days leading up to the concert, there was little else I could think about…let alone talk about. Now that it’s done, I don’t feel like talking about it much – not that I didn’t enjoy the concert (you have no idea how much I loved it), its like a picturesque sunrise that one wants to enjoy in contemplative silence – words just tend to get in the way.

But, with a service provider like WordPress, you just have to use words sometime, I guess, so here…

Maybe in other orchestras, the conductor just shows up in shirt and tails, baton and scores in hand, takes the stage, leads the performance, boom, gets his paycheck and then it’s off to the classiest bar in town to (maybe) get wasted. Not in this orchestra.

No. The show was scheduled for 6PM, this conductor was up and already at work by 5AM. I packed a good shirt with nice cuff links, coat, shiny brogues, a bottle of cologne (my sole attempt at dignity, knowing what lay ahead in the day), didn’t forget the scores and the baton; received a call from the principal percussionist, informing me that he had forgotten the all-important triangle, so I had to shuffle over to school and retrieve that. I was finally on my way to the theater by 645AM (We were supposed to be there by 6AM).

Arrived at theater an hour later, helped the deliverymen haul in the double bass, the cellos, the music stands, the gigantic platforms. Greeted the brass players who were so punctual, it was embarrassing. Set up the stage for final rehearsals at 8AM.

C’est un miracle! The orchestra was actually on time! Which is a good thing, because rehearsals didn’t go too well. I finished the slide show presentation for the concert during the almost 6-hour downtime, where I also did voice overs for the department’s grand recital.

The recital had to be extended by 30-minutes, so when it was finally over, all hell broke loose onstage as we wrestled to get two grand pianos into position, getting one of the astonishingly heavy platforms offstage, and getting the musician’s chairs into position. The timpani appeared out of nowhere (or I wasn’t looking when they rolled them in), the musicians were getting restless…

A note on the musicians: this being our 5th anniversary, I had instructed everyone to break out the formal wear – gowns for the ladies, suits for the guys. Apparently, despite my rigorous research as to what exactly constitutes a gown, some of the ladies still came in numbers several inches too short. But those ladies who came in proper gowns…elegant and royal and refined are some of the adjectives that come to mind. Even Kyu Yeon, our principal second violinist, who vehemently opposed the idea of the ladies wearing gowns and had all these excuses to not wear one, looked…well…awesome is the proper word. I doubt she will complain about wearing a gown again.

So you have all of these musicians between the ages of 10 and 25 milling about backstage (which I had the PAs clear of suitors, moochers, and other useless interlopers), and more than a few of them would come up to me or to my assistant Lyndon (who plays in the first violins) to have their instruments tuned, right while we are dragging the profoundly heavy podium desk onstage.

Finally, everything was ready, the musicians in place (many of whom are desperately practicing everything); the assistant concertmaster urges me to get dressed. I hesitantly oblige.

Last minute instructions, a reminder that we are a family, an earnest final prayer, and the concertmaster and I leave the stage as the theater doors are opened and an equally restless audience shuffles to their seats.

First number, Canon in D, and I am shocked that the violas are actually playing in tune, in time – something that simply hasn’t happened before during rehearsals. They’re actually loud.

Second number, Somewhere in Time…the pianist misses his entrance, but only by a nanosecond, no big deal. The percussionist in charge of the bells (glockenspiel as we insist on calling it) also missed an entrance, but she came in on the beat, and nobody (except us) noticed anything amiss. The strings got their notes right, and I know for a fact that someone in the audience wanted to die from the beauty of it all.

Viva la Vida actually grooved – something we had been trying so hard to achieve in the past months, but had eluded us at every turn. Dynamics were flat? Don’t remember. Don’t really care anymore. Haha!

Iris – so the soloist miffed the ending, leaving us in a confused mess. But we smoked the instrumental bridge section, the orchestra coming to a complete but exquisitely-timed halt every third beat. Haha! Oh well. It’s time for us to move on from that piece anyway.

Violin Concerto in D minor – it actually got people interested in classical music again! Sharie put so much rosin on her bow, it looked like she was setting the strings on fire (I didn’t teach her that trick – how serendipitous!). The theater was utterly silent during her cadenza, which made the final entrance of the orchestra that much more explosive. My favorite part is still the last three measures, where the strings crunch on the beat, the timpani hammers the rhythm home, and we end on a huge A and D interval. I can still hear the whoops coming from the audience – some of which I know was directed towards the comely-yet-stunning looks of the soloist – the occupational hazards of being talented and beautiful.

Fureai – Ahhh…my favorite piece in the first set. OK, so I remember that the first violins still sounded too detache for my taste, but when the big crescendos began and the brass kicked in, ohhh…the tingles! If there’s a piece I would like to perform again soon, it’s this one.

Pirate Suite – Most of the audience went home with this one in their heads. One went so far as to tell Ana, our principal violist, to tell me that the only thing missing was water. The Kraken kicked major behind, with the detuned double bass, piano, and bass guitar playing more tightly in sync than they had ever done during rehearsals, the soft beater on the bass drum sounding like an infernal, malicious heartbeat…I heard that even those backstage got goosebumps.

INTERMISSION: I’ve never seen The Orchestra so happy before – they were all hugging one another, cheering each other on, happily wolfing down more than their share of the sponsored dinner. I couldn’t so much as sniff my burger…I had to content myself with a slightly acidic energy drink. Our first set made the choir nervous – apparently, we sounded that good.

Gloria was a shock – I never imagined The Orchestra, with its modest resources, could produce such a thick sound. I remember the tenors missed an important entrance midway through the song, but who cares? Ha!

Lacrimosa seemed to be the favorite of the choir. The lighting director put on quite a show, but I didn’t notice any of that. I do remember that the snare drummer had his eyes riveted on the baton, and he kept perfect time.

Titan and Return of the King – Isa’s double bass solo was surprisingly loud. It wasn’t perfect, but really, now that its over, does it matter? I remember the brass actually responding to my conducting towards the end of the slow part of Return of the King. I had to develop a gesture on the spot to control their cutoffs, and it actually worked. Cool.

In Lux Aeterna, it was all loud. Strings, percussion, choir. I should have written parts for brass.

We ended with Hallelujah (We had to sack Amen because it was just too difficult for the choir), and frankly, I’m glad we did. The trumpets drowned all the mistakes out (Ha!), the choir sounded reasonably confident – the final “Hallelujah” was glorious, and the timpanist told me that he actually found himself worshipping. Now that’s a compliment worth remembering!

I suppose the experience was different for everybody, but I suspect the difference is only more glaring between audience and musicians. The audience tends to focus on the actual performance – was it in tune, in time? Was it loud enough? Were the dynamics present?  The musicians (although I could be speaking for myself) tend to focus on the cumulative whole – from rehearsals all the way to the performance, including the intermission. An exchange of text messages last night with The Cat  made me indeed realize that the things the audience sees and hears, I quickly forget about. Case in point, if the audience marveled at the light show that accompanied the more…ahem…fiery songs, frankly, I didn’t even realize there was a light show. If the bass drum in Viva La Vida wasn’t loud enough, I actually don’t remember anymore. In fact, I don’t really care. We can’t repeat the performance anytime soon, so we can’t fix anything anymore.

I remember during the 6-hour downtime thinking “What if I were conducting a professional ensemble?” and I quickly realized that while I could have had a highly polished performance, it wouldn’t mean anything, because what makes every concert of The Orchestra special is the fact that for the past 10 months, we struggled together – to learn the songs, to develop the technique necessary to play them, to develop our relational skills so that the lower-ranked players would actually obey and learn. We learned to love one another, despite how we actually felt about each other – Kyu Yeon has become a formidable principal, not because of her skill (which is very formidable – and intimidating), but because she has chosen to take responsibility for her section. Her sectionmates affectionately call her “Mom”, and from hereon, the principal second violinist will be called “Mom” or “Dad”. I bet that even when she has moved to the first violins, she will still keep an eye on the second violins, just to keep them in line.

I no longer remember many details of the performance – like which piece were we playing when I almost fell off the podium – but I remember the smiles on the musician’s faces, the look in their eyes that told me, “Let’s do this, sir!”. I remember the red of the front-row cellist’s lipstick, the glint of the spotlight on Kyu Yeon’s glasses. I remember the roar of shuffling feet as they cheered for one another. I remember the soul-stirring sudden silence that gripped the theater during the sudden endings of Lacrimosa, Return of the King, and Lux Aeterna. I remember the sacred silence right after the second-to-the-last “Hallelujah” (which was broken by a few over-enthusiastic members of the audience, but somehow remained sacred nontheless).

The Orchestra will undergo some radical changes come next season – we can no longer operate “beneath the radar” so to speak, and I can no longer be involved in all aspects of managing it – all I really like doing is arranging, conducting, and teaching. But for now, I remember, and I am profoundly thankful to God for my job, and the people it puts me in contact with, and the ways that I can influence them in His name.

…and for those of you who gave most of the Saturdays over the past 10 months to The Orchestra – I am fiercely proud of you.

A decade hence…

I thought it might be a good idea to break-up the series of music-related posts (which has proven rather uninteresting) with something a bit more…er…of general interest in nature. Hehe! Just this once…

It has been 10 years since the 1999 Voice of Our Youth impromptu speaking competition that I won second place in, which got me enough money to send me to college (sort of), which in turn is somehow responsible for me being here in Manila, teaching. I can’t quite say my entire adult life can be traced to this one event, like Luna here, but I do consider it to have been a very important stepping stone to where I am now – and as such, I am thankful

I was a high school senior back then, and it had been several years since I had been to Manila. I remember the air smelling not too good, frankly (I would wake up early in the morning and marvel at the smog line on the horizon). There was only Greenbelt 1 back then, and I remember buying the first Jars of Clay album from the National Bookstore record bar. I also remember eating at Wendy’s for the first time, and buying a certain pair of red sunglasses that The Cat once called “cool shades”. I still find them cool. Hehe.

In her blog (among the comments), Luna spoke of a certain incident involving a bannana (which she dosn’t really remember). Well, what happened was that on the night before the competition, the organizers gathered us contestants together for dinner and a general orientation. They started us off with softdrinks, and I noticed I was the only one who was drinking straight from the can. Then came dinner, and a bannana for dessert, so to speak. I noticed that everyone else was slicing their bannanas lengthwise and then picking out the edible parts with a fork. Me? I peeled the thing and popped it into my mouth, monkey-style. I remember feeling rather smug about being so maverick in the face of what I thought was high class.

I remember not only being the only contestant from my island (Mindanao – big island, mind you), but also being the only male contestant. I remember being holed up in one of the two dressing rooms backstage (they weren’t painted white back then) surrounded by ladies who talked as if they all knew each other.

I, on the other hand, was tucked away in the corner, sporting my best scowl and pretending I wasn’t listening to their conversation (Bridgette was trying to teach Luna how to say “I love you” in German, another girl was trying to teach her the same thing, but in Visayan, which is a local dialect). Eventually, Iris (she was seated next to me, and was the sort of girl who made it clear to adolescent guys like myself that my little city back in the province did not, contrary to the popular belief among my classmates, have a monopoly on pretty girls) decided I had been quiet long enough and  dragged me into the conversation (when a pretty girl calls you handsome, even if she doesn’t mean it, she’s got your attention. I mean, nobody other than my mother had called me that before, so give me a break; I was young (15) and impressionable).

I bet this post has your undivided attention by now, has it not? Hehe.

I remember telling the ladies (who were astonishingly attentive) that my senior prom was being held that very night and I remember one of them telling me I could still make it if I flew out immediately after the competition. I didn’t bother telling them that I was already having way more fun than any of my classmates (snicker).

I’ve written about the competition before so I won’t bore you with the details regarding the competition itself. I mean, really, you don’t care – it was 10 years ago.

But I will write about the banquet, where I made such a big faux pas that it still leaves people in stitches when I tell them about it.

There was this big buffet table, which was loaded with food. I was still the proverbial bottomless pit back in those days, so I naturally crammed as much as I could onto my plate. At one end of the table was this big bowl full of ice cubes and these little, pale yellow cakes of what looked like ice cream. Of course I thought it an odd place to put the ice cream, but I figured that since people here split their bannanas lengthwise before eating them, what’s a little ice cream at the start of dinner, right?

Well, let’s just say that when I finally sat down to eat (Luna was to my immediate right), I decided to start with the ice cream and popped one of the little cakes into my mouth.

Hehe. It was butter.

No way I was going to spit that back onto my plate. I quickly grabbed a large dinner roll and started biting-off large chunks, mixing them with the butter in my mouth. I remember Luna looking at me, shaking her head, and saying “It always amazes me to watch guys eat.”

Another thing Luna said, regarding not wanting to answer the phone in her hotel room because she wanted to just sleep – I suggested yanking out the jack from the wall (She was the only person at the table engaging in small talk). She said, “Why not just leave it off the hook?” (I was new to landline phones back then, forgive me). I still hear those words everytime the intercom here at the faculty office rings.

Anne, our handler back then, recently moved to another island to raise a family and turn over a new leaf. As a result, neither Luna or I were invited to this year’s VoY competition (booo…) – but then again, what for? OK, besides the possibility of commiting another buffet-table boo-boo? My time there is up and passed; God used VoY to help get me here, to this school, to this job I so dearly love – I suppose its time to move on.

But I can look back from time to time, and remember

Interestingly enough, the stage where I stood 10 years ago and called Bill Gates and fromer president Estrada “lucky” (for their success without a college education) is the same stage The Orchestra will be performing this Saturday.

It’s cool the way things turn out, eh?

Emotional Investment

For the first time since I started conducting four years ago, a student has finally expressed what looks to be genuine interest in learning to conduct.

Of course I’ve wasted no time in teaching the basic beat patterns (duple and triple time), emphasizing that as far as The Orchestra is concerned, clarity of the beat is of foremost importance.

I spoke (the lessons so far have been largely informal) of how one had to find the right line to conduct, and that finding the right line to conduct is pretty much based on how well one knows the music – and I mean every note played by every instrument at any given moment.

One thing I failed to mention (because I didn’t realize it then) was that conducting an orchestra is really an emotional investment – something I know but have yet to fully understand.

Frankly, from my perspective, the act of conducting – although largely silent – is very much like trying to carve the music out of thin air. I find myself willing the harmony to take shape – willing the melody to unfold beautifully. The waving of my hands in the air is like trying to grasp the  multicolored strands of sound and manipulating them to form something cohesive, if not beautiful.

Of course, I have no superpowers, so all of those are really the responsibility of the musicians, but nevertheless, without this gritting of one’s teeth and clenching of one’s fists – without this burning, inner demand that the music take shape…the music just doesn’t seem real. It’s like when I hear the music crash and burn and I want to stop, but The Orchestra is feeling good about itself so it decides to play several more measures before finally slowing to a stop – even if those last measures sound decent, it just doesn’t sound like music to me.

I don’t know if this is a regular experience among conductors – I could be overexerting myself – but I do know that Saturday night’s performance left me very much drained. Sunday morning found me too tired to want to talk to anybody – I just wanted to be alone most of the time, nursing a cup of coffee, turning things over and over in my head.

The feeling lasted until the early afternoon (a round of basketball and youth group “Spin-the-bottle” did the trick), but I knew I had just been someplace I don’t think I’ve ever been before.

Could that be the birthplace of passion?