Thursday, September 08, 2005

First Wednesday of Sep 2005

While my concentration powers are relatively matured and competent, I fear the length of one of today's meeting had left me feeling totally drained mentally by the end of it. Head felt spinning and afterwhich I could only do work that did not require 100% concentration. I should have known better to take a break during too long a meeting.

I took time-off in the mid afternoon so as to be early for double bass sectional. The sectional is the first sectional with my tutor after our return from the Aberdeen Internation Youth Festival. It was something I have been looking forward to. But it seems harm has been done since the earlier part of the day. I could not attend totally. We had two sets of scores on hand. Jeans Sibelius' Symphony No. 2 and his Symphony No. 3.

We went through Jean Sibelius' Symphony No. 2. I have yet to get acquainted sufficiently with Sibelius' music. My ears are still ones that prefer music of Brahms comparatively. Sibelius' music seemed out of the ordinary. The rhythms are something I still find myself having difficulties to comprehend. I wish I could understand it better. My tutor has been helpful and he spoke wherever he could about Sibelius' style of writing music so that we could appreciate the music better. We had no time for the Symphony No. 3.

After sectional, we passed our tutor a gift we got for him from Scotland. Hope he would like it. Whisky, not meant to make him drunk though.

It must have been most wise of our tutor to start with Symphony No. 2. I say so because orchestra rehearsal worked on Symphony No. 2. The orchestra was sight-reading it. I wish my sight-reading skills would become more proficient with practice. It was so much more challenging to play this work with the rest of the orchestra. I sometimes lost count or got lost totally. Somehow, I sense Sibelius' music has this cold and heavy feel. Actually, playing such a work seemed to be untimely when one has parallel moods.

After rehearsal, I spoke to Mystic over the phone. Thanks for the cheers.

Next week, we shall work on Jeans Sibelius' Symphony No. 3. I keep my fingers crossed.

3 comments:

mistipurple said...

sending you some cheers. i am sorry i am very drained myself. we are all so drained...
nevertheless, i would like to send you some encouragement and cheers to go on.

Emrah said...

Well... As a Sibelius doctorate student, you may guess my enthusiasm. If I start here, it would be a very long entry, but you will discover a very unique rhythmic construction in his work. Enjoy. :-)

oceanskies79 said...

Mistipurple : Thanks for the encouragement. I hope you are feeling more recharged? Now I wish I could "type" out those batteries as good as you do.

Simple American: It's alright, thanks for the well-wishes.

Emrah: I was hoping you might share a few pointers. I have yet to figure out Sibelius' rhythmic construction. It just somehow seemed so out of the ordinary. I have yet to make enough sense of it to play the rhythms well.