My Music Part 1

This is still a trip to the past, as I'm going to write the behind-the-scenes about how I got my 3 music trophies, mainly 2 of them, that I earned last December 9th, 2018.

The first and second trophy was an award from my music course Gloriamus for getting first rank in both my Gloriamus piano and flute examinations. I didn't have that much obstacles while preparing for my flute exams, but I had one big obstacle in preparing for my piano exams. That obstacle was discipline, which I still had until now. I do like the songs that I played for the exams, I just don't like the many practise sessions that I had to do to perfect & memorize the songs.

I had advance level piano exam as part of my piano study at Gloriamus in November 2017. I had to play four piano pieces from different music eras. I chose to play Sinfonia 12 by J.S. Bach, Hoboken XVI by Joseph Haydn, Fantasie Impromptu by Frederic Chopin, and Arabesque by Claude Debussy. I do like the songs that I chose for the exam however, they are complicated to learn. They were from different eras, so I had to play them differently according to the characteristics and existing instruments used during that time. For example, during the Baroque and Classical era of Bach and Haydn, they used harpsichords because the piano wasn’t invented yet. So I had to keep that in mind and be aware of the differences between harpsichords and modern piano and try to replicate how songs were played on harpsichords on modern piano. I also had to make sure that I played the rhythm of the notes precisely. Additionally, I also had to memorize the songs.

I encountered difficulties because of lack of discipline in practising. I didn’t practise every day and wasn’t serious in practising. I didn’t follow all the instructions and corrections that my teacher gave me. As a result, I couldn’t play the whole song smoothly. Normally, I could finish learning a music piece in 2 weeks if I wanted to, but because of my indiscipline, I hadn’t learned the pieces even after three months.

My teacher was surprised that I still couldn’t play the whole pieces even at a month before my exam, so she gently scolded me. She said that I would not be able to memorize and play my pieces smoothly if my progress was still this slow.There was a high chance that I would fail the exam. Fail an exam!!! I've never failed an exam ever in my 14 years of life, especially a piano exam. My teacher’s words gave me the motivation to prove her wrong. I'll prove that my teacher got it wrong!

I started spending all of my free time (when I don’t have other lessons) practising the four piano pieces. First, I have to learn all the melodies and rhythm and be able to play from the beginning to the end with absolutely no mistake. Secondly, I have to add the dynamics and characteristics of the pieces. Thirdly, I have to memorize them. I practised for hours and hours on the songs every day. First, I have to make my playing smooth (it's not even smooth yet) then I have to memorise it. It was  very repetitive, and it did get pretty boring, but I persevere because I didn’t want to get scolded again.

By the time the exam day arrived, I felt fully prepared!

To be continued!

Music (Bimtek Part 2)

Following my last blog’s entry about my participation in Bimtek, we now focused on the main event of creating and performing music. If you haven’t read the first part yet, read it here before you continue.

So basically, the first day of Bimtek Event was mostly about getting settled and getting to know the other participants and mentors. On the second day, all the musicians were regrouped into groups of five. We were instructed to come up with a positive theme, especially about Indonesia and unity, for each group. We were given time to discuss for a while and then we must announce our chosen theme out loud. The mentors will write each group’s theme down on a whiteboard. As the mentors wanted unique theme for each group, the groups with the same themes must compete with each other for the theme or find a new theme. Some popular themes are about diversity, unity, and tolerance in Indonesia. In the end, I forgot what theme my group decided on, but it was something about "friendship."

I like my new group better than my previous group (I didn't think I really fit in). My new group made up of five people, three boys and two girls, including me. All of the boys can play guitars. They came from Pekanbaru, Kudus, and Jakarta.The girl was from Papua and she could play the trumpet. We chatted about a lot of things. It was fun talking to her. I think I like and feel more comfortable with the members in my second group because of their personalities. I'm not sure, maybe I think they're more mature?

Next is making the song! We were uncertain on whether we should compose the melody or lyrics first. In the end we decided on the lyrics. The lyrics were mostly composed by me and I have to admit, it was hard :). There were even some parts that my group's mentor deemed inappropriate, so my group had to edit and revise them lots of times. Lyric writing went on until past lunchtime. Then, we had to work on the melody.

We wanted a mix of pop and traditional Indonesian style melody and we wanted it to be fun. In our group, the different instruments our members could play were guitars, jimbe, kendang, and flute so we composed our melody with those instruments in mind. 2 mentors helped us revise the music.

At first, each of us hummed out melodies we felt that is suitable with the lyrics. The guitarist then strummed out some matching chords. We were halfway through the song when a mentor came and listened to our progress. He commented that the song was a bit plain and suggested for us to maximize the use of other instruments and not just focused on guitar.

I played out some traditional melodies with my flute and tried to match to the guitars’ chords. However, the mentor thought that the flute’s sound would be overpowered by the guitars and it would actually sound very sweet on its own. Therefore for the introduction, we decided to start with a flute solo.For the chorus we added a traditional drum and guitar parts for a more upbeat and modern melody.We had to change the structures of some parts of the lyrics so it would fit with the melodies. Finally, our song was finished close to dinnertime.

We still had some time to spare before dinner and my roommate, Ike, said that she'd like to see the storytelling group’s activities. So we went to the second floor where the storytellers are. Ike and I brought our musical instruments, flute and violin. When we arrived there, the storytelling participants had finished their assignment and were just relaxing and chatting with each other. They asked us to play our instruments for them. I didn't prepare for the impromptu performance, but at that time I was a fan of the Swan Lake theme, so I played a part of it as I didn't memorize it all.

A boy chirped out “Waa... a Barbie song!". That was unexpected! I found that a bit amusing and embarrassing at the same time as I came to the realisation that there was indeed a Barbie movie,“Barbie of the Swan Lake”, which used the Swan Lake theme song. I remembered watching the movie when I was younger. After a good laugh, the storytelling participants asked me to continue playing. It was nice and pleasant meeting them.

We were scheduled to perform the songs that we just composed in front of all the music groups after dinner. Since Ike and I went to the ballroom earlier than the scheduled time, we had some time to spare. I showed her how to play my flute and I tried her violin. Ike showed me how to hold the violin and where to position my fingers. She taught me to play the note “D” and “G”. At first I thought that the fingering’s not as hard as the flute as there were only 3 strings on the violin. It’s easy to position my fingers. However, when I actually played the notes, I realized that it’s hard to make the sound stable. Sometimes the notes sounded on pitch and sometimes it’s off pitch.

Soon afterwards everybody gathered in the ballroom and it’s performing time! The atmosphere changed and everyone was tense. The mentors randomly picked the order of the groups’ performance. There were 8 groups in total and our group was the 8^thgroup. Perhaps, the mentors felt sorry for us for being the last group, so they decided to change our position from the last group to the first group, by choosing us to perform first! Lucky us!

I was so nervous! Our song started with my flute solo as the intro. This gave me a lot of pressure as not only our group was the 1^st one to perform, but I was also the first one to perform alone. I'm glad that there was a mic and camera test first, so I could calm down on stage for a while. We were asked to play a part of our song for the testing, which calmed me down a lot. Finally, the official performance started.

As the performance started, I put all my focus on my notes which I put on the floor because there was no music stand. So I wasn’t too affected by the cameras and the audiences. I’m happy to report that our performance went on smoothly without any mistakes. You can watch it here.

After everyone had finished their performances and the event was closed by the music mentors; there was a huge celebration. Most of the participants became hyper and danced around; I guessed they were letting their steam off. There were also a lot of photos or selfies sessions. After a while, everybody dispersed. Some went back to their rooms, while some continued to hangout.  Now that I think about it, I just went walking around in groups visiting other contestants’rooms. I think we were a bit rowdy and disturbed some other hotel guests. The security even came out to control the situation and some of the boys ran off. Eventually, I went back to my room. We had a mini party in my room with my roommates, Ike and Kak Ulfi. We had hamburgers and chatted until late night.The next day we packed up, took selfies of the three of us together, and it’s time to say goodbye.

This event forced me to step out of my comfort zone. I had to interact with different people from different cities and backgrounds. I felt that with so many participants, I couldn’t get along with everybody, but I did find a few good friends.This was the first time I was asked to compose a song in group with several musicians right there and then. It was challenging but fun. I also got to know some traditional Indonesian music instruments. It was truly a crazy experience.

All the participants.

Me and my roommates.

Ike, me, and Kak Rosince.