My Grey World

31 Jul, 2008

Sixth sense - sense for boring concerts

Posted by: Sylvia Giacinta In: day by day

Believe me I have a sixth sense. It might even be the tenth sense. The sixth and seventh and eighth and ninth sense are the senses for sales, discounts, super duper expensive but pretty jewelries, and… never mind.

Hokay. So there’s this choir concert. Kammerchor Stuttgart from Germany. It was compulsory to attend this concert by the command of the choir.

Since the first time I heard about it, I somehow felt unmotivated to go. In case you don’t know, I’m a sucker for concerts (especially in Esplanade Concert Hall WTF!!) and any performances in general. Perhaps because I was quite angry too, since I was inviting the whole choir to watch my sister’s choir’s concert some weeks back and nobody ever replied, and suddenly they’re asking us to involuntarily watch this choir from Germany. They say it’s to widen our perspective of choir music. Hell I know my sister’s choir is not that “prestigious” like this choir from Germany (which is said to be one of the best choirs in the world) but wouldn’t it widen some experience and perspective too?

Anyway my sister’s choir was not that fantastic either. But that’s not the focus.

And so yeah, I was not interested to go. I reluctantly paid $21. And I was this close to not going. The story is.. Ahem.
So I checked gothere.sg about directions to go from China Square (that’s where I work if you’re wondering) to Esplanade. Type, type, type, click and it returned the result : take 961 from Apollo Centre at Eu Tong Sen street. It’ll stop directly in front of the Esplanade. Joyfully I went walking. It’s just a few more meters from my usual bus stop at People’s Park Centre. Arrived at the bus stop and double-checked the bus directions. And… What the heck. There’s no Esplanade there. Checked the index by road name. Raffles Avenue is there, but on 961#. Take not of the #. Apparently there’s another service 961# that’s only running on Sundays.

DAMMIT.

So anyway. There’s no other bus that’s going near Esplanade. So I decided to walk even further. Eu Tong Sen street will take me to Clarke Quay station. So I arrived at the bus stop just outside Central Mall and… No buses going to Esplanade there. BIG SIGH. I was so close to going home instead since there were like 2 or 3 buses that can go directly to home. But I remember my $21. And Esplanade Concert Hall! Even if the concert is boring I could just look up and admire the whole concert hall, I thought. Anyway I was hungry and I just ate in Central. There was still ample time to go. And after eating I decided I’ll just take the MRT anyway since I’m already above the CQ station. So there I went. Took train to Dhoby Ghaut station (dammit should have just taken the train from Chinatown. What’s the use of walking so far), changed to the red line and arrived at City Hall Station. Drew some money from ATM and walked to Esplanade. Met my ex internship administrator along the way.

Even my story to go to Esplanade is more interesting.

So yeah. Waited for other members of choir to come. As usual they were late. Sigh. Typical. Entered the room. Sat. Aircon was a tad cold. Read the program book. 10 songs.. Hmm..

Lights dimmed. Somebody explaining that there’s a change in the program. They’ll be singing Lux Aeterna by Gyorgy Ligeti as the opening. Sounds contemporary, I thought. That would be fine, I guessed. And so the choir is out. Since it’s a chamber choir, it’s not a very big-sized choir with almost hundreds of people. The size is just nice to make a nice curve over the Esplanade Concert Hall’s stage. So they began. And boy didn’t that change my perspective of choir music.

I didn’t know choir music can leave me (almost) yawning. As a musician (and a choir singer at that) myself, I’m usually fascinated by choir music coz I would have fun trying to guess which sings what and hearing different voices juxtaposed at the same time to create “wrinkles in the air” -this is from my conductor

Of course they sing well. Really well in fact. Super good breathing (don’t ask me for my inherently short breath), nice hold of high notes, impeccable ability to reach high notes.

But the concert - their singing- lacks something. It’s just like you’re eating some food and you think it’s nice but there’s just sooooooomething missing that makes it not deserving your greatest praise. That’s what happened. As I already said, they are real good in singing but maybe… just maybe.. they’re not good at making music for other people.

Making music for other people, I believe, takes more than technique. “Ordinary” people (people who are not trained in music) likes interaction. So when you’re making music just for yourself, that just doesn’t cut it with them. Share your love for music with other people. Music was not there to stay. Music is out there to be shared.

Or maybe they’re just too good already so they don’t really care about trying so hard to sing. And since they’re like one of the best chamber choirs in the world, it’s so easy for them to go places to sing. I remember the story my conductor told the choir about the Filipino choir. They had to practice in small rooms with unsurprisingly bad echoes, had to hold several fund raising concerts, literally had to work their asses off just to join an international choir festival. And when they sing, they give the best that they can. When they sing, you can cry. Now THAT’s music for everyone. This sounds as a silly measure to me or to you, but when a musician can make me cry, can move my emotions, means he/she/they can share their music very well.

Or probably it’s just the matter of the song choice. Remember I told you that they decided to sing Lux Aeterna as the opening? Turned out the piece was so contemporary it’s on the edge of weirdness.All I could hear was just ooh and aah with different notes, ringing together. Interesting, of course, but it just didn’t cut it. Of course I marveled on how they managed to hold their notes for so long without lingering or going flat/sharp (if you don’t understand, never mind. it’s technical stuff). Anyway. They had some other baroque songs (which are very neatly arranged, just their style). Maybe they should have just sung those ones first. To give the audience the reassurance, that, oh, choir sounds very nice! Then maybe after that move on to the contemporary songs such as Lux Aeterna that can make the audience think, oh, choir can sound like this too! Interesting! Something like that.

When you make me sleepy your concert is doomed to be labelled a boring concert.

Apparently I wasn’t the one who thought so! One of my friends slept and snored. My goodness. I thought I just heard some part of the song, since it’s a contemporary piece anyway. I looked to my right and there he was, sleeping and snoring happily. Goodness. My friend woke him up and he smiled sheepishly. Later at intermission he said “I should congratulate the conductor ‘Well done!’ you know!”. Well done for making him sleep, he meant.

So anyway. Won’t bore you with the story about how bored I was.

After the concert went to have some supper at Makansutra. Food sucks ass. No direct bus from Esplanade to home, so hopped on 111, changed bus at YMCA. Almost forgot to alight since I was busy sms-ing. Sigh.

Okay this has come to an abrupt end.

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