DEMLEHWREVO

This title of this post is meant to be deciphered. Read it in the reverse direction. This is what I have been feeling at the work place. Too much work seems uncleared. I could only learn to be kind on myself by reminding myself that my in-tray will still not be empty on my last days, and that I need to care for myself in order to run this marathon race of life.

Who hears my cries anyway?
I guess I have to count on the readership and moral support of fellow bloggers who visit this site.

Anyway, it still hurts my ribs to cough. The only consoling thing is that I have been trying to cough in a way that may not bring as much pain to the ribs.

***
It helps to bring some relief to my life to embrace myself in the arms of the double bass. This afternoon, I had double bass lesson with my double bass tutor. It has been interesting and inspiring to have lessons with him.

We went through Saint-Saens' The Elephant. He showed me ways to interpret this piece of work, and the different characteristics of the various passages. I felt more confident after lessons to play this work in Aberdeen. Must thank my tutor. He said I could try to imagine an elephant dancing. Then he said I could think of one of the passages as the elephant turning (like a merry-go-round). Those words did make some sense. Maybe I should go and visit the zoo to see the elephants, and observe how they dance and turn.

Then I decided I should do justice to practise the studies from F. Simandl's New Method for the Double Bass Book II, so I asked my tutor to enlighten me on how to play the harmonics on the the double bass. Not the usual harmonics that we would get to use when we are playing orchestra works, but those harmonics that might be rarely used in playing orchestra works and yet would be often used when playing double bass concertos. Learnt quite a bit. He shared about the physics behind the production of harmonics.

Later, had dinner. Then had double bass sectionals. We played the fourth movement of Tcahikovsky's Fifth Symphony. I quite like the trill of playing this movement. It was embarrasing that I discovered that I had been playing one of the notes wrongly all these while. Nevermind, at least I know now, and I had corrected my mistake.

Orchestra rehearsal was spent playing the Butterfly Lovers Concerto. The violin soloist was not around, but we had two members from the first violin section who took turns to attempt to play the solo parts. I am impressed at their memory. I think they managed to play the solo parts from memory. I need to work on playing music from memory.

Together as an orchestra, we also went through the first and second movement of Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony. I hope that one day we would be able to play the entire Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony from the first to the final movement. I am looking forward to that day, and to playing the symphony in Aberdeen.

So while I did feel "demlehwrevo" (to be deciphered) at work, life has been more fruitful and meaningful with playing music. Playing music can be such a joy. So here, I hope for my readers that they would too find something that would bring simple joy to their life.

Finding some simple joy....an important element that would help me steer through the ups and downs in life.