Roland Piano Festival (1st Heat)
For the past few weeks, I’ve been doing mostly nothing but playing the piano to get ready for this competition. Pam and I are playing duet piece; George Gershwin’s ‘Rhapsody in Blue’. Look it up ppl, it’s a really cool piece. Okie, though it sounds a lil jazzy at certain parts, this piece is still considered under the category of a classical piece. Well, other than that, the other representatives from Music Makers were Amanda and Suwathi with (yet again) George Gershwin’s ‘The Three Preludes’. This one sounds a tad bluesy. And there’s the Eoon sisters, May and Sara. I can’t remember the name of their piece, but theirs had a lil fusion section with the song ‘Stand by Me’.
Anyway the 1st heat was on 13th Jan. It started off with practice at 9am in the school, then driving off to the Roland Studio in Dataran Prima at 11.30 after my classes. I was driving, and Pam, Amanda, Suwathi and Teacher Pearly were in the car. Throughout the journey we were doing nothing but tease each other. Yea, 5 females in the car and y’all can just say, ‘Female Drivers, go figure.’ Least we all got there without a) getting lost and b) reaching in 1 piece!!
We were there like an hour early, and there were 2 girls practicing their song. So we just sat there. For the heats, there were no judges present. So all they did was to record our playing via a camcorder. Thing is, they record looking downwards on your hands. So i bet it’s pretty easy to spot mistakes. Damn.
Anyway, we all decided to get it over with. Yea, i was feeling pretty nervous as usual. I never had good experiences with duets. I remember my first duet, my partner forgot the notes right in the middle of the song!! So i was left playing for like a good 30 seconds, till i forgot mine and had to start from the beginning. And luckily (or not) he came in right at the end. And the last duet i played was a really really fast one, where both of us didn’t manage to synchronize with each other. Sounded like pitter patter of notes. Ish!!! But luckily i knew Pam for quite a while now, and i can always rely on her if i got lost or something. So there was this connection (or intuition as Pearly would say) between the 2 of us. If one of us got lost, we knew where to slow down so the other could catch up with us.
So anyway we did our song. Pam nailed her solo (yay!) and i got through the hard parts with minor, insignificant mistakes. =P hehe, just kidding. Then Amanda and Suwathi got on with theirs. Amanda had this really tough part at the end, where she has to keep playing non-stop for a whole page. Ouch….. Then May and Sara came in with theirs. I really like their piece, and it had a funny presentation to it when Sara decides to ’suddenly’ change from the main song to ‘Stand by Me’ and poor May has to keep up!
All of us (L-R) Suwathi, Amanda, Me and Pam. (couldn’t get a full picture)
Pam and I
Suwathi and Amanda. (we all wore black and white that day, could have been mistaken for waitresses)
Amanda, Sara and May outside the studio. (Amanda, what are you doing?)
Mind you, this is only the heats. The next round (if we get in) would be the finals where it’s a full blown performance held in KLPac, with tickets sold and everything in March. Gosh, i really hope we all get in! We might have a good chance so far, based on choice of song. Ours was the least Classical and Barouqe sounding piece there. Oh well, only time will tell.
