Twilight

I have this thing about vampires and although am not really into teen movies, well, guess the vampiric temptation was too great to contain.

Before my comments, I would say I liked the show. You can sense the intensity between the 2 lovers. The lead actress was pretty and the actor, not too bad too, being tall & brooding.

However, for a vampire show, I would say there's not much blood-sucking action or blood for all that matter (maybe because it's a teen flick or they censored it?) and it was really focusing on the love story of the 2 leads, the contention of the love between a vampire and a human being. So for that "vampire" flavour, it was lacking; the vampire part was more like a "setting" for the love story to develop, if you know what I mean. The adversary was too easily killed off as I believe the main purpose of that part was purely to make us see if Edward would allow Bella to become a vampire or try to save her at the risk of killing her (the blood temptation). I've never read the book, so am not sure if it depicted the same.

Well, I guess my image of vampire stories, that are truly enticing, is based on my readings of Anne Rice. Her vampires really "seduce" and you are drawn into a vampire world which seems real and inviting (unfortunately, some took it too seriously). Her Vampire Lestat series was the best. Although I've stopped reading for 1 reason or another (I think she doesn't write vampire stories any longer), I would say many have tried to follow in her footsteps as her vampires were different...supposedly descended from Eygptian origins and the way vampires were made, the powers they had, how those made were chosen (usually beautiful), etc.

New earphones

After much deliberation. Finally picked this over the Apple in-ear earphones. It's more expensive (about twice) but supposedly has better sound quality. Fortunately I had 10% off.
It's pink! Would have liked a red one to match my iPod cover, but pink's cute too.
An early Christmas present for myself!

W!ld Rice's Snow White

I love Singapore's parodical musicals! Especially W!ld Rice's.

I watched their Snow White & The Seven Dwarfs last night and it was hilarious. I must say that it is one of their most daring portrayal with their blatant references to the political scene throughout the show. E.g. the voting results, the unending reign of a certain important person, the environment, etc. Other funny things included the milk scandal & corny actions (with sound effects) and lots of "drag". There were some references to certain Disney movies, like the Enchanted where Snow White came out to start singing and the animals started appearing. Then there were the dancing animals. They even had some Wall-E aspect in it like having all the rubbish cubed.

The songs & singing were quite good, especially Sebastian Tan (the Queen) & Elena Wang (Snow White) and there were interactive parts like the characters asking the audience questions.

Truly enjoyed the show despite my flu. Even bought the soundtrack. It runs till 20 Dec, so better grab your tickets now if you have not!

New feature on MRT

Finally, an indicative system.

Songcraft's 2nd Annual Mini-concert

I survived my first (singing) solo performance! Had a friend to play the piano for me while I sang my song "Will You Sing Again". I knew I was nervous coz I was trying very hard to recall my lyrics and afraid I would forget them! Well, got a little out of breath along the way too. Phew! The last time I did a solo performance (Songcraft sessions not counted) was more than 10 years ago at my piano teacher's annual "Musical Night", which was also like a mini-concert for families of her students at her house. Recalled I played the piano 1 year and the violin for another.

It was a good concert. The songs were great, all originals from my Songcraft friends and the venue was full house! Though just family & friends, but it was a good crowd, more than last year's. Most importantly, we enjoyed ourselves.

The only thing that disappointed me a teeny little bit was that a couple of my friends didn't turn up at the last minute, not that they could help it. Well, one was down with a bad virus while another was having mild food poisoning, and another had some other programme. So unfortunately, none of my friends came. Ok ok...I admitted that I only invited very few coz also a bit paiseh. Well, guess they would have to wait for the video. Looking forward to that.

The intricacies of violin making

I attended a little afternoon talk on violin making, organised by the SSO Learning Circle (of which have recently been revived) and presented by luthier (i.e. violin maker) Mr. Andreas Franke.

Before I go on, a short note about SSO Learning Circle. It's a group of people who are friends of SSO and gather once in a while to share about classical music. It had been "dormant" for the last 2 years, but has started to become active again it seems. As for Mr. Franke, he is one of the luthiers of Frank Brothers Violins (the violin shop at Esplanade), a craftsman of the 4th generation luthier family.

Ok. back to the session. This the first time I know of certain aspects of the violin and also the engineering science & precision that goes into building one. There was talk of some history of violins, like why nowadays, one can't make a violin as good as the old ones. Some interesting points...

A violin, being made of organic material will get seasoned over time and as it gets played by different people, it ages differently. The tonality of the organic violin will change - each such violin will sound different. However, those that are not made of wood will always sound the same and also, mass produced.

In the Baroque age, violins actually had straight necks as compared to now and a different bow (much like the shape of a bow in the context of bow & arrow). It was harder to play and secure on the neck. Now, violin necks are made angled. This actually causes more tension in the strings and it also enables the sound of the violin to be better projected/amplified.

Interesting, in the olden days, the strings were made from sheep gut!

Also, the violin is usually made up of different types of wood. The backing & ribs are usually made of maple while the top is made of spruce, due to the different hardness of the wood to be able to create a sounding board in the violin. I never knew that there was such a complex internal transmission system! As one plays on the violin, the vibration gets transmitted through the bridge to some sort of connector in the violin (forgot the name for that part) and travels inside violin laterally, vibrating throught the internal body of the violin. Even the weight of the bow counts in the way one would play and how the music would sound.

The best part was the end, where a demo was done on a few Italian violins that Andreas brought. They were of different market values, ranging from Euro 115K to Euro 170K (old violins) and one at SGD 48K for a new Italian violin. I could tell why the most expensive one there that day was priced as such. The moment I heard it, it pulled at my heart strings, unlike the rest (not that they were not good). It was beautiful, like your heart was singing with the violin.

Ah...the violin. The perfect instrument. Must go & season my violin soon, though mine can't compare to those seen today.

Singapore Biennale 2008 (Part 2)

Finally found time to drop by South Beach Development for a look at the exhibits.
On the whole, there were less exhibits and maybe it wasn't the kind I liked as much...think I was more or less going "huh?" at the exhibits. Not many things to excite me really, but maybe it was that there wasn't aircon? And the strange smell of the place. Honestly, I think there were too many video installations there that were, well, like normal short films/documentaries. Unfortunately, I didn't feel like sitting through them. It was quite different when I saw the City Hall video installations. It was visually more artistically done I feel, if you know what I mean.

Overall, I preferred the City Hall exhibits. more interesting & impactful to me...maybe they were more "loud"? And maybe, it was more distinguishable as visual art. Maybe I'm more conservative and a traditionalist towards art. Maybe also becoz I had a friend with me when I went to City Hall?

Anyway, here are some shots.

Sing To The Dawn - the animation movie

I had initially not wanted to blog about the movie coz I would feel rather guilty about slamming a local film. But as I gave a comment in my friend's blog, I guess I had more or less the entry ready, so I've decided to "reproduce" it here.

After the not-so-good reviews given, I went with little expectations. If I had not liked the book or if my friend weren't the one who did the scoring, I would have given it a miss. Honestly, I feel that locally, animation film has not reached "there" yet.

I recall at some point in the show (I think rather early on), I had already formed in my mind, or rather, said to myself that “this seems like it’s going to be a crappy show!” Sad to say, I was sorely disappointed in the show. To think they spent 7.5 milliion on this?! Well, MAYBE when they started on it the effects & stuff were ok. But after 4 years, it has probably become outdated.

Hmm…I won’t say it totally destroyed the book coz it wasn’t even close to it. It was probably, at the most, 5% similar to the book and it took the focus away from the issue the book was addressing, i.e. the biases of society against females. I would think Minfong Ho would be offended. I felt the script or the editing was...how do I put it?

What with the many eyebrow-raising moments - animals singing, live broadcast "web TV", kungfu fantasies and foreign accents, I would give it a rating of 1 out of 5.

Living with Tze@Arts House

I attended a friend's solo piano recital today and rather enjoyed it.

He presented his (instrumental) compositions. which were mainly inspired by social issues, happenings and nature. The pieces required very good control of the fingering and rhythm and as my friend (who went with me to catch the performance) said, the pianist expressed himself better through the music.

My particular favourites were incidentally the opening and closing pieces (before the encore), the first being Beauty amid Destruction and The Last Sunset. I'm one for melancholic tunes and to me, these pieces sounded as such.
The former was about the pianist's snorkelling trip to Redang where to his horror, the corals there were mostly dying with only 1 or 2 columns surviving. When he started, you can just imagine the water ripples and the swimming in the water while as the music progresses, one can just envision the discovery of the destruction and the sadness that followed, like a mourning.

Interesting, this showcase. I'm always quite amazed (& envious) at how people can come up with contemporary classical instrumental pieces. Like modern-day concertos.

Just a side note, this friend also did the scoring of the recently released Sing to the Dawn animation film.

My first pitch

It was my first time doing a pitch for project funding and it was a "harrowing" yet strange session (strange maybe becoz it was my first!).

Anyway, I had submitted a proposal earlier for some funding and today was the day I was to do a presentation to the board of trustees to the fund (was alloted 10 min to do the pitch). The first thing was when I stepped in, there were 8 people! I nearly fainted. Fortunately, I had brought a colleague along.

Secondly, they went straight into Q&A without asking me to present (which caught me by surprise)! Well, I guess the proposal was there (they were perusing it just prior to my entrance)... It might have been a good thing since I didn't need to go through a powerpoint presentation (I'm totally nervous when it comes to such things) until they posed the question that I really didn't have the adequate answer to (which was actually the main & only question they were harping on). Fortunately, my CEO (who was also on the board) helped a little which was useful coz the question required his decision to commit the solution. In fact, in the end I didn't really get to say much. Not sure if that was a good or bad sign...or if I actually said stupid things.

Hmmm...I guess there's always a first time.