Incredible things that can be done with an instrument...

I originally wanted to type this post in chinese, but after reaching around the second paragraph, I decided to give up again... sigh~ The main reason why is because I found out that I have to take a freaking long amount of time to write down what I have in my mind. In fact, the time interval is sometimes so long that I completely forgot what I wanted to write originally. So you could just blame it on the fact that it is horrendously hard to type out chinese in a computer...

Maybe someone might invent a better programme for inputting chinese into computer...
But that would be another story...

Anyway, about two days ago, we (meaning my family) went to watch a concert put up by the Singapore Chinese Orchestra (SCO for short)(I got a pretty good feeling that I'll be referring to the SCO over and over again in this post). Anyway, the performance is called :"胡琴王见王" and it was held at the Singapore Conference Hall, the place that we went to during our sec 2 life suddenly during one of our arts lesson. It should be very easy to recall for quite a lot of people...

Anyway, they invited 闵惠芬 (I feel darn disrepectful if I don't use her proper chinese name), who is a very well-known erhu player both in and out of China. Anyway, this should leave many of you out there to ponder a very interesting question: Why was this performance not held at the esplanade, considering that they invited such a famous person to perform? If this performance was held at the esplanade, more people would have been able to watch the performance and appreciate the way she play the erhu. The Singapore Conference Hall is simply too small to accomodate this performance...

And you just got to face it, this performance was a near sell-out. I counted only about 2-3 empty seats in the hall, and those seats are all single seats, meaning that they are very far away from each other...Having it held at the esplanade would also have made finding a parking space easier. You can never ever imagine how congested the carpark at the Singapore Conference Hall was. The place was packed and everyone was just doing illegal parking just to find a place to park their cars and watch the performance. So once again, it would have just been better for it to be held at the Esplanade.

Anyway, on with the performance. As usual, SCO, who is already well-known for playing weird pieces of music, decided to start with a very weird piece entitled "秋决". It is supposed to sort of like talk of the story of "窦娥冤"but you got to admit that the music was horrible and grating to the ears... Sounded more like ghosts flying around, especially when there isn't any ghost in the original story...

After the what seemed like forever, the horrible song was over and out came the highlight of the whole performance, 闵惠芬. She walked on to the stage to thunderous applause (I wished I brought a recording device to record the sound of the applause) and after thanking the audience, proceeded to play three pieces entitled :"绣荷包", "游圆" and "昭君出塞".

I feel a great sense of enjoyment from simply watching her fingers slide over the erhu and played out the songs. Her notes are deep, sharp and they pluck at the feelings in your heart. The songs that she picked are all songs that have deep emotional feelings in them, and the way she plays it makes you feel as though she just brought you into the world that is being described by the music. Her fingers are agile and move across the erhu effortlessly. I would say that the movement of her fingers is already an art by itself...

During the interval, we happened to stumble on the VIP reception. We did not realised it until we were about half-way though the whole reception thingy. By that time, we were already happily feasting on the reception provided... So here's another good reason why you should be adventurous...

Anyway, after the reception, we were once again treated to the weird music brought to us by the SCO. Their undeniable affinity for weird music, which actually allowed spells to be casted at a reduced cost of 1 generic mana per weird music spells in play, dominated the whole hall and sent people scooping their cards back into their hands as they admitted defeat to a turn 2 kill... (The above paragraph uses a wide variety of Magic: The Gathering slang)(Confusion is expected)

So, we'll skip that song...
The whole highlight of the concert was the next song, entitled "长城随想". This song is a piece that is mainly played by the erhu and accompanied by the rest of the orchestra. Her notes reverbarated around the hall as I felt myself revisiting the Great Wall Of China, which I only visited about a few months back...
And I found out that listening to it at home is different from watching it being performed on stage. The impact, the feeling, its all different...

After that, the performance has "technically" ended. The thunderous applause at this point was amazing, and I once again wished that I had recorded down the sound of the applause. It was simply... amazing. Our encore was succesful and she walked out back to the stage and said two words that sent the audience into a greater amount of clapping and even shouting cries of "好!!"

The word she said was :"賽马"..
Here, I want to blame the SCO for covering up her notes. The SCO played so loud that various parts of this great piece of music was covered up by the rest of the orchestra...
But, she changed the score of the music on some parts, resulting in a longer time at the end, where she made the most realistic sound of a horse that I had ever heard being made on an erhu. It was so realistic that it actually sent a member of the audience to scream "哇!!". I was holding on to my seat to prevent myself from screaming the same thing as well. It was incredible what could be done with such a simple imstrument...

And that sound of the horse was really incredible. Totally realistic. It was as good as bringing a horse there and making it neigh off-stage. But it was made by just an erhu...Incredible!

After that, we tried to make another round of encore, but we failed...
We were saying that we haven't had enough of the music, it was simply incredible. She could have just played 賽马 one more time, and we'll still be memerised by it...

It was incredible...

Discmon