12.03.2013 Tuesday. 0230, after choir rehearsal.
6 months into the shoes of a choir conductor for RC Lee Hall, it is overwhelming how my background in music (merely a few cello lessons here and there back from when I was a kid, to a few theory lessons for fun when my brother took his theory exams, to a few years of choral singing in primary school, to a few years of orchestral jamming during secondary school) coupled with the significantly different experience of my fellow conductor Lucia, and the common sense and basic knowledge of the folks around here has helped this choir tremendously. Yet it is bittersweet acknowledging how many stepping stones we've bypassed, how many stars we've reached, and how much effort everyone has thrown in to help me out along the way - yet at the end of the day, I feel that I am still stuck, trapped, restricted from the very same stone I began on from Day 1. It is not about personal technique, musicality, ability. I have it. Intrinsically. Hidden. Tucked away safely. It won't come out, no matter how much I coax it to. No amount of deep thought, brain-racking, praying will do any good for me, for I have literally run out of gas as to how I can be a conductor - to express the music with my arms, to guide my choir, to lead every word, every phrase, every single ounce of meaning in the music. Expression. Emotion. Feelings. Sing it like you mean it. How many times have I used that phrase to encourage and inspire my choirmates? Yet it is empty inside. I feel hollow inside. There is nothing in my body that points to the beauty of music ... nothing, except a recognition in my brain. The concrete ability to read notes, rhythm, dynamics, articulation - everything, except expression.
Expressivo.
How many times have I seen that term before? In all my years of cello playing, all it ever meant to me was to "rock back and forth and pretend you are allowing the music to wash over you like the waves on the beach, the tide coming in and washing over your feet". Pretentious. Superficial. Unreal.
"Feel it with your heart". Yes, I feel it. Yet it is a psychological definition, a scientific feeling. Not a musical or human one. I "feel" it just as the average layman would. Acknowledgement. Recognition. Presence. Like a ripple on the surface. Not the entire wave that spreads from the centre to the outskirts of the universe.
But. I shall not yield. For the motto of Outward Bound stipulates "to serve, to strike, and not to yield". I shall return and think of a resolution again when morning dawns. Robotic lifestyle again. Lectures. Practicals. Tutorials. School. Lunch. Rest. Work. Training. Rehearsal. Sleep. Until then, so long. Too many worries on my mind that can wait. Take everything one day at a time, 活在當下，凡事感恩! <3
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