Wednesday, March 19, 2008.2:26 PM

Of Reeds, Music, Books and Anime...

I find it a joy to make reeds at my own leisure and not being under any stress to prepare good reeds for senior recitals and the like. It is only at this time when I feel so relaxed that I can truly have the luxury of time to...try to make perfect reeds. At any other times, reed-making is a chore and can be an utterly frustrating, hair-pulling affair.

Inspired by a blog that allows cyber users to order DURIANS online, I'm now quite set on the idea of creating a blog to sell my bassoon reeds, and oboe reeds if my friends want to sell theirs. :D

Am currently studying Tchaikovsky's Symphony no.4 - playing 2nd bsn in a school orchestra concert on 9th April at Esplanade Concert Hall. Personally, it's one of the hardest symphony I've ever played. I am not very much concerned with the technical difficulties cos they will be overcome. But the 1st movement is full of hemiolas, endless dialogues between the strings, woodwinds and amongst themselves - it will require a laborious effort to make it sound decent. Even Berlin Phil couldn't do it well. How can a conductor who calls herself a policewoman and does not realise her double basses were rushing their quavers??? And that everyone is just not together?! Most of the time, she just doesn't realise how best to rehearse a student orchestra to get the desired results. Or maybe, it's empty up there.

Sibelius Symphony no.2 is nice...especially the pastoral sounds of the 1st movement. Reminds of vast green meadows and birds chirping in the dawn of day. Looking forward to hearing it live. Hee...

For book lovers, you might have heard of this FREE audiobook library online called librivox (click!). For those who haven't, it's a wonderful website that offers tons and tons of books you can download in the form of mp3s. They have such a wide range of books you'd be surprised. It ranges from bibles (yes, you read it correctly) to literature greats like Hamlet, children's stories, history books and even Princicples of Economics. I even found a collection of Beethoven's letters. I'm currently listening to Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice". The first 3 chapters were read by an Englishwoman, which suited me very well. However, I can't say the same for the rest of the book for they were read by Americans. Not very nice for a story written by an English novelist. It loses its flavour. Like putting bah kwa into clam chowder.

I'm totally hooked to Naruto now. I don't have to say more. ;)

.:. 0C o m m e n t s.:.