Wednesday, August 30, 2006

QH's Thoughts on Live and Love Again

I knew it would be over soon.

I am happy I went through all these...organizing all these recitals and making myself go through them all. On hindsight...a worthwhile experience. If I had nothing to work for, my singing would have stagnated and all my money (eh...lessons are damn expensive!) and effort over the past four years would have gone to...waste...(I believe this principle applies to most people!)

I started out my German set shaky...maybe because it's the
very first song...and also because the first two German songs were soft and slow. It's much harder to begin with soft and slow songs because they just require so much energy, so much focus, so much control, so much flow. But I am glad I did because now I would have had the experience of having done so. How can anyone calls oneself a singer when one can only have as one's first song a loud one!? By the time I reached Ein Jüngling liebt ein Mädchen, I felt great...very lively...a nice and comfortable song to sing...and...in fact, the only song in the entire evening that fits my natural voice range most ideally!

When I returned backstage, I was contented with my German set (I always had an affinity to German songs!) and the butterflies all left my tummy. But then as Ying Ning played with such flourished and the intermission passed, I grew more nervous. But I knew it would all be fine since I would take out my score onto the stage!

Songs of Travel started fine. I told myself to focus on the story. Story! Story! Story! First three songs went fine. I enjoyed Let Beauty Awake among all three. Leslie liked that best too. Someone on the net also remarked that that song was the gem among all the nine songs in the cycle. Then came...Youth and Love. That's when I began to look at the score for the first time. Not such a good idea. I lost track of the story and just began to think about the notes and the rhythm...BAD BAD BAD...it's all over when anyone starts to do that! It's all about the music! About the STORY! But it's not
all that bad...I think most people could not tell...but I could and that's all that matters. The root of the problem is that I was not familiar and hence not confident enough of the song in the first place. The next song, In Dreams, was better but the score was still in front of me...so I couldn't trust myself enough to know the lyrics and rhythm well enough. Again, the story was lost. The rest of the cycle was enjoyable and I did not refer to the score at all. But then someone asked me why I still flipped the pages of the score. That is because I still wanted some assurance in case I forgot my words!

Now I know: throw away the scores and get onto the damned stage. Strangely, Live and Love Again was the first time I ever performed with a score in front of me. A bad experiment musically. But a good experiment too: at least now I know never to do that again! =) On another positive note, I think this recital is to date my best one, in terms of vocal timbre, vocal control, composure, music and story-telling. Of course, I still have a long way to go and I will go work on it!

Live and Love Again certainly has provided me with much experience and helped me understand myself more. And I hope I did tell you a very good story about love and life that very afternoon!

If you have any feedback, thoughts or anything at all about our individual performances or the concert in general, please please please let us know! We would really like to hear from you!

Thank you all for coming! =)

2 Comments:

Blogger Quan Hui said...

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12:21 AM  
Blogger Quan Hui said...

Please give us your feedback! =)

12:22 AM  

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