The Elephant's on my mind

After yesterday's lesson, the tune of The Elephant has been ringing on my mind intermittently for today. I keep my fingers crossed that all would go well when I play this double bass solo in Aberdeen in one of the ensemble performances. Afterall, it would probably be one of those few times when I would play double bass solo in front of an audience.

I think about more than five years ago, I had played The Elephant in front of an audience. However during that occassion, I knew most of the audience who heard me played and watched me performed. It was supposedly a music competition, and most participants were members of the Chinese orchestra which I had participated back then.

In that competition more than five years ago, I remembered that one of members from the audience broke into giggles when I played The Elephant. I was up on the stage performing, but I had no clue why this gentleman broke into giggles. I had to remind myself not to be self-conscious, and then continue to play. After the performance, I had spent time reflecting if I had done anything wrong during the performance, but I could not find the answer.

Anyway, I did not believe it when I won the award for "Best Stage-Presence" (which means "Zui4 Jia Tai2 Feng", if I had translated it correctly. In that Chinese orchestra that I was in, Mandarin was the main medium for communication.) I thought it was either there were too few participants vying for the awards or the judges had been too kind.

I did well for The Elephant but I had also played Saint-Saen's The Swan. I must be honest to tell you that I did not play The Swan (written for the cello) too well on the double bass. I could only manage to complete performing both works without a major hiccup, though I was almost at the verge of stopping my playing of The Swan halfway because I had difficulties reaching a particular series of notes. I have learnt that it was a bad move to play something that was beyond my standard then. The judges had feedback to me after the competition, but they said given that I could still continue despite all, they were willing to consider me for the award.

So I have learnt not to be too ambitious and over-stretch myself too much. Of course, I must admit that at least before year 2004, I may be guilty of not being confident to attempt playing works that could have been within my abilities with much practice. Strangely, having a Grade 7 pass could boost my confidence a little, such that I was more willing to try. I guess I have realised that if I don't try, I may end up too old when I wish to try. Furthermore, life can be short, and we would never know when our days would be due.

**

If you would like to know why the gentleman mentioned earlier had giggled half-way during my playing, I was just as curious. So I asked him. He was one of the friends of one of the participants. He said something like this: "I could visualise a elephant in my mind, when I heard you playing The Elephant, so I was amused and laughed."

Should I take that as a compliment?

**

Looking back, my interpretation of The Elephant had changed, especially after yesterday's double bass lesson. I began to view this work in a slightly different light. I am more confident in my playing than before, I would suppose? Yet, there are still some slight bugging thoughts whether I could perform just as well in front of an audience. I guess to curb that, I would have to play in front of an audience more often. I could start off with playing to a few close friends. Next, I could play to a larger group.

I think "the elephant" depicted in my current interpretation would be a much larger and better developed elephant than the one that I had depicted more than five years ago. The elephant depicted more than five years ago was probably a skinny, tiny and young elephant who could dance fast, but did not dance with maturity. It seems like "the elephant" has developed over these years, and became more mature in its "dancing".

This time in Aberdeen, while I prefer not to be complimented with giggles from the audience, I would hope that some of them would swing and dance away with the more developed and matured "elephant". It would be fun and pleasant to see people dance away with my music, I think.