Linja-autossa on tunnelmaa

We spent almost 6 hours on the bus today. Not quite Kummelin tunnelmaa, but it wasn't too bad (for me at least). I napped most of the way there (since I had to wake up around 7:30 to get ready and stuff) and listened to sappy love songs on the way back (more on that maybe in next post).

These orchestra kids love to read! I saw many of them with books on the bus journey. Even during rehearsals I see some of them with paperbacks, consuming a paragraph here and there during appropriate breaks. Or is it true of Finnish kids in general? I suppose they talk less and read more?

We arrived at Kouvola city hall slightly ahead of schedule, only because at the last minute our chairman told us to meet (in Tampere) half an hour earlier than previously planned to account for winter driving conditions and speed limits. There was enough time to warm up a bit and even for some people to change. I didn't want to risk having to rush so I was already changed and ready. Was a tad little nervous about the timpani because we didn't bring our own. Needed to familiarize myself with the borrowed ones...

Fortunately we were allowed a run-through beforehand. The timpani was nicely in tune, although it sounded flatter the louder I played. I didn't have the luxury of time to learn the nuances of the instrument so I just had to make the best of it. The run-through went very well, perhaps even slightly better than when we had an audience later. Nerves maybe? I know it wasn't my best rendition of the pieces during the actual performance, but at least I didn't make any mistakes. Nonetheless the composer (KNL's chairman) seems pleased with our performance of his work and arrangements. And his symphony kinda grew on me a bit. Parts of it, not the whole piece, yet still interesting.

After playing we were fed some food. The food wasn't bad but there was barely enough for all of us. I was one of the last ones in line and had to scrape the tray for the last bit of rice. When we were done eating we just packed up and left. No idea how the KNL assembly was going (it's all in Finnish anyway so makes no difference to me). Got a window seat on the way back, was hoping to see a little more of Kouvola (stopped by here last year for food shopping before heading to friend's summer cottage in Jaala) and scenery along the way, but it got pretty dark pretty quickly. It wasn't even 4pm!!

Ride from Kouvola to Attila was uneventful. However on the bus from Attila back home, a creepy old guy who smelled weird (don't think it's alcohol, not sure what...) got on and sat next to me. There were so many available seats! Why me? He seemed to be inching his way closer to me as well. Luckily my timpani sticks were sticking out of my bag far enough to prevent him from getting too close, but still he kept nudging against my sticks. Why? Why? If it's uncomfortable, go sit somewhere else! There's plenty of room!

Now resting my feet (that have been in high-heeled boots all day) and burping pizza. Contemplated going out again, but only briefly. Right now I'd rather hear the rain/snow hitting my window than hitting my face.

Wait, I think this is my first concert trip as a performer! As in traveling and performing in a different city than the ensemble's home location. I mean, Singapore is so small, different "cities" don't count. And I don't remember having performed outside of the Dallas area. Well, another concert road-trip coming up in 2 weeks - shorter one to Jämsä. Looking forward to it!

T.G.I.F.

Had Finnish class last night. I am making improvements but need to study more by myself instead of just flipping through the book right before class. Yesterday we went through some present perfect and past perfect tenses, as well as pronouns. There's this Chinese guy in class who didn't speak much English. I tried to explain the stuff to him but my Chinese skills are insufficient. Or is it that Chinese grammar is in fact insufficient to explain the above? There are no tenses, so how do I explain the perfect tense? And pronouns... how do you translate "whom/whose" to Chinese? Or explain the "which" in this sentence - 'The car, which I drive, is old.'

Apua. (Help.)

Typing this in a new browser - RockMelt. Pretty nifty, clean interface, based on Chrome. Haven't found it extremely useful, plus there's no Linux version yet so I can't run it on my home laptops. Will probably just use it as a light social browser on my work laptop.

So, Friday is here. Sauna soon. Might go for the "International coffee house" meetup after that, but not staying out too late as I've to be up early tomorrow for the road trip to Kouvola for the performance.

Have a good weekend!

Shopping for percussionist's accessories

Thomann cyberstore is dangerous!! Just a few clicks and see what I ended up with 10 days later:

Early Christmas for Carol

Big box but luckily not too heavy. Had to pick it up from the post office and lug it back home myself. And now let's take a peek at what's inside:

On the left we have 2x timpani damper pads, a cute drumsticks key-fob, and a Meinl drumsticks holder; all on the Meinl percussion tray. On the right is an electronic snare practice pad (Millenium SPP-3). In total about 150€ including shipping. Before this another 100€ or so for 2 new pairs of mallets (since joining TASO) and a music stand. All these and I haven't bought any instruments yet!

In addition, since the black top and pants I've been wearing for performances are pretty old, I thought I'd treat myself to a new outfit (or a new top at least). Went shopping a couple of times this week and here's my loot:

Hehe :P I really tried to focus on just looking for a black top! But the purple items are so distracting. In my defense the sweater + dress combined is still slightly cheaper than the blouse (which is 35€ - saved 5€ with a coupon). However I'm not too sure about the ruffled sleeves... not my style. Might return it after all. But I'm keeping the purples!

Need to find cheaper interests/hobbies... between my lust for cameras & other gadgetry, my craving for exploring all corners of the earth, my desire to learn to fly a plane etc. => I'll never have any savings! Might as well die early so I don't have to worry about retirement. Oh I'm not even done with music yet, I still want a grand piano and a (maybe electronic) drum set.

I'm thinking of taking skydiving lessons next year. They're not cheap but still cheaper than the pilot route. If I don't get to fly a plane, at least I still get to fly. Gotta let my dream take flight!

----

Update 20/11/2010:

Black top returned to Vila store. The search continues...

Dark November - revisited

Well, ok, yet another post about the weather. But at least this time with some pics :) We've had quite a bit of snow over the past couple of days (mostly in the evenings/overnight), at least more than I remember for the month of November. Plus still seeing a bit of sun in the morning, so the initial one-third of November hasn't been too dark yet. Although this can quickly change...

Anyway, enough words. Onto the pics. First one from two nights ago:

Car on life support

Next one from yesterday on my way to work - I even needed sunglasses!

Sunny and -3C. Pretty blanket of fresh snow. If only every winter's day is like this!

Lastly, here's one from my way home just now from the city center. The snow was coming down pretty hard, and sideways, thus hitting my face giving me a free facial. My footprints on fresh snow:

H is for Haughty Horn

We had a full day's rehearsal yesterday (Sunday) and then our regular rehearsal this evening. I'm enjoying every minute of it. A big reason is of course that it's been my dream for a long time to play again in an orchestra. And while I know I won't be able to play in a professional one, this is a really good amateur orchestra and I'm so thankful they accepted me :)

This weekend, we're going to Kouvola to perform at the opening ceremony of some assembly event for Kokoomuksen Nuorten Liitto (Youth League of the National Coalition Party). It's not a public concert, KNL hired us to premier a symphony composed by their 24 year-old chairman Wille Rydman. While we're not a professional orchestra (i.e. the players don't get paid, in fact we have to pay membership fees), the orchestra still need operating expenses (salary for the conductor, purchase of sheet music, transporting instruments and people for events, renting instruments and players when needed, refreshments for rehearsals etc. etc.). So it's great we can get paid gigs like this. And I'm happy because the percussion section is benefiting quite a bit from all these. When I joined in April, we only had a set of timpani (which was also just purchased last year). Now we have a snare drum, bass drum, cymbals and a few auxiliary instruments. Maybe more to come!

Another reason (for enjoying the rehearsals so much, especially recently) is - and I surprised myself upon realizing this - that I think I have a crush on someone in the orchestra ;) What to do? I've always had a thing for musicians. And now I see this group of wonderful musicians every week... it was only a matter of time! Heheh...

Oh I've only just learned the details of this Northern European Note system (originated from Germany). For a while there I was wondering how do I play note "H" on the timpani?? In my many years of making music I've never heard of an "H" note, only A to G. I listened to the recordings and figured out for myself that H = B, and B = B-flat. Confusing, right? And they use -es and -is to indicate flats and sharps, e.g. Fis and Ges. A couple of times I heard the conductor asking some player to play the Es note, and I thought -- what? "S" note? yet another note I've never learned??

This wiki entry cleared up the confusion for me. Should have checked it earlier. Felt inadequate for the longest time due to this :P

We'll be playing a horn concerto by Strauss in the upcoming concerts at the end of the month. The horn soloist came to rehearse with us these couple of days. No denying that he's a good player, but I didn't care much for his attitude. Even though I didn't understand too much of the Finnish he was saying, it seemed that he was trying to tell Kimmo (the conductor) how to conduct and the players how to play the piece. That's not his job!! When you play in an orchestra, you respect the music director! Sure, different people have different interpretations of a piece, but if you want it played your way, go find an orchestra to conduct! I happen to like Kimmo's interpretations. If the horn soloist really had strong objections, he should have voiced them to Kimmo during a break or something instead of taking over and directing the orchestra what to do. Not sure what the conductor thought, perhaps he didn't mind as they are colleagues (both play for the Tampere Philharmonic), but at least to me it looked very disrespectful. I don't think I've seen another soloist do that.

Anyway, I simply adore the pieces we'll be playing for the Jämsä and Tampere concerts. If you're coming to those concerts, I hope you enjoy listening to them as much as I do playing them!

To share or not to share?

Recently (past couple of weeks) I've had several of my pics on Ovi Share flagged as inappropriate by someone (or more than one person??). For example this one:

I need a bigger hand!

(What can I say? I like taking pics of shiny gadgets :) Especially those that I have some part in creating.)

The other flagged pics are also of/about Nokia devices. Does that person(s?) have something against Nokia? Or against me?? :( Or perhaps against me working for Nokia? :P

Transposition and transformation

Spent the evening tuning the timpani. Only managed to tune 2 (out of 4), partly because it's been a while since I balanced a timpani head. The other reason is that another band was practicing down the hall, and there's no soundproofing whatsoever. Their playing was a hindrance to my tuning, and probably I was disturbing them as well. Unfortunately the only "free" evening in Attila from any practice sessions is tomorrow (Thursday) and I have Finnish class then. Well, at least I took care of the 2 most used ones (for the pieces we're playing this season). I'll just have to find another time slot to do the other 2.

The band mentioned above is Torvikopla. They are a big band consisting of mainly students from the two universities in Tampere (similarly for the orchestra I'm in). I almost joined them last year when I was looking for a band/orchestra to play in. I emailed them in June or July and received a reply saying I was welcome to join them when they resumed rehearsals in August. But between celebrating my birthday, nursing a broken heart, getting sick in Greece, and falling out with a good friend, last August went by in a blur. For some reason I decided not to pursue it... having more pressing issues to deal with in my life then I suppose. It's a good thing I waited though, for I'm to hear about TASO from a friend only this year. While I do like big band music and will probably have lots of fun playing in Torvikopla, I simply *love* the music that I get to make with TASO.

And to think they both rehearse in the same premises - Attila, an old shoe factory now university library! Perhaps not too surprising, since they are both student music groups. In fact, the Tampere University Singers also practice here. Maybe I should just join all of them and spend all my evenings making music :)

Check out the following possible new skyline of Tampere. I hope this "facelift" plan gets approved! It'll be another reason to be proud to call this lovely city my home.

Tampere's Cityscape May Get Major Facelift

(photo source: yle.fi)

Dark November

First thought that came to my mind when I stepped out of the office yesterday: wow, it's dark. Partly due to the end of daylight savings time over the weekend which reduced daylight in the afternoon by an hour. Another part is of course the rapid shortening of days towards the winter solstice. So while now there's still light for my morning walks to work, in a week or so (definitely less than 2), my weekdays will be sans daylight. (The precious few hours of daylight will be spent in the office, and now without a window view at my new desk.)

Thus this morning's sunny walk to work will be treasured for a while. Even at -4C, it felt warmer than yesterday's cloudy and windy +8C morning. Well, ok, probably my thicker jacket helped too. Although the days will be shorter next month, there's usually (hopefully) more snow in December, that can help brighten things up a bit. Which is why November is generally considered the dreariest month in the northern hemisphere, and things like NaNoWriMo happens.

I've thought about NaNoWriMo-ing for the past couple of years but never got started. Will I start this year? Hehe, probably not. I plan to blog more though, now that I've kinda resumed blogging. The posts on here before today are imported from Google Buzz from around July when I decided to try blogging again. It wasn't really successful, but my excuse is that Google Buzz isn't optimized for blogging. Now with Blogger I should have no excuse. :P

I'll be uploading more pics too... still have stuff from earlier this year and last year (and even before that) which I have to sort and upload. "Have to"? More like "want to". To share with family and friends, and even for my own viewing pleasure. I find that I'll look at the photos more when they are on Facebook or Ovi Share, rather than just sitting on my hard disk.

November is also TASO month. I'll be busy with rehearsals and performances. We have three concerts coming up within the next few weeks: in Kouvola (13.11), Jämsä (28.11), and Tampere (1.12). Should be lots of fun :)

With words, pictures and music to fill my days, November doesn't seem too dreary after all.