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Oh she can play (but finds excuses not to) :P
One of the things we had to decide when we were making plans to move into The Rivervale was whose piano would go to the house. It was, surprisingly, a pretty easy decision. Both of us had pianos at our...
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"Praise My Soul The Kingdom of Heaven"
I adore hymns. I’ve blogged here about my playing of hymns as the ACS School Pianist 24 years ago before. I love hearing and singing with a large congregation songs of majesty and praise, accompanied...
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A Classical Revival: Part I
Here’s another series of posts about an interest of mine for two decades now. No, it’s not about photography (again :P), but about classical music. Just prior to our Bali trip I’d blogged about my...
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A Classical Revival: Part II
In the old days in the mid to late 90s when we were still using portable CD players, I had a CD wallet alongside the player in my haversack. I was commuting from Yio Chu Kang station where home was to...
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Marriage, Mozart and da Ponte Part I
Here’s another multi-entry post about Le Nozze di Figaro, or The Marriage of Figaro. Yep, that favorite opera of mine for years now.:) Now, how I got acquainted to this opera by Mozart is a bit of a...
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A Little Wedding Music Part I
It’s funny that it’s taken nearly 2 years for me to finally get round to writing an entry about the music I chose for our wedding in 2006. Perhaps it’s that of late I’ve felt the urgent desire to write...
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A Little Wedding Music Part II
Here’s the funny thing. I’ve been keeping an ear out for wedding music for as long as I’ve been listening to classical music, so the feat of selecting the right music wasn’t all that difficult. By the...
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Sinfonia Concertante
Mozart wrote concertos for a large number of instruments: like his 4 concertos for Horn, 27 concertos for piano, 2 for flute, 1 for clarinet, oboe, bassoon each, 5 for violin etc. In his list of...
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Show me the money!
My book! One of my (secret) dreams after I started teaching and lecturing 12 years ago has been to publish something. I’m not quite sure where that came from, but it was sort of at the back of my mind....
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Thus do all women
If the theme in Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro was about the marital infidelity of men, his companion opera buffa, Così fan tutte, is about the infidelity of women.:) Così fan tutte, which loosely...
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Musically yours
While I’ve been persistently listening to Classical Music for just over the last 20 years now, there was a long lull period during which I slowed down my classical music CD acquisition. The dates are a...
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…'For I am a Pirate King!
There’s a music CD in a wallet of audio CDs in our Nissan Latio that’s a recording of The Pirates of Penzance. One of the most well-known songs in this work is sung by a self-professed Pirate King, and...
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Breathing new life
I’ve blogged here a few times now about a classical music subscription service I’m on. It shouldn’t be easy figuring out which pieces you’d like to listen or buy. You’ve got many tens if not hundreds...
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More music rollicking
There’s a date each month on the calendar that I look forward to these days. Specifically, it’s the 20th when my subscription on EMusic gets refreshed and I can pick up a few hundred more music pieces....
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Music for babies
While driving home from church and Yotei last Sunday, Ling asked if we can get a music playback device. Apparently, babies can start ‘hearing’ from the 5th month, and she believes that the right kind...
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That French Guy
I don’t think there’re many children in Singapore taking piano lessons who haven’t played pieces by Richard Clayderman. Who’s he? Well, only one of the most successful romantic piano recording artistes...
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Music Collections
The 20th of the month came about again. I picked up a whole bunch of classics to listen to, most of it I haven’t heard before. C.P.E. Bach’s keyboard concertos. I’ve always thought Mozart was the...
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Choirs & Choruses
One of the interesting bits about Ling and me is that we were both choir conductors.:) Even though I applied to join choirs during during week 0 of my first year studies in NTU 17 years ago, I had no...
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Oratorios & Masses I
As I remember it, the first oratorio I acquired in my classical music recollection wasn’t Handel’s Messiah, but Haydn’s Die Jahreszeiten. The latter was a 1970s recording with the BBC Chorus &...
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Oratorios & Masses II
Handel: Israel in Egypt If I had to select a single favorite single number from a large choral work, it’d have to be “Sing Ye to the Lord”, the finale from Handel’s Israel in Egypt. This oratorio isn’t...
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Oratorios & Masses III
Continuing on my series of posts on large vocal classical works. I’ve blogged about two of Handel’s oratorios: this entry is about both of Haydn’s oratorios. Haydn is also one of those lucky composers...
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Music in Movies
One way I get introduced to classics I haven’t heard before is, surprisingly, through science-fiction movies. Specifically, there has been over the years a bit of use of the classics in the Star Trek...
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“I am going to make that audience rock.”
There was an interesting if very short news article in this morning’s The Straits Times; where an amateur singer took to the stage in Britain’s Got Talent 2009 – I’m guessing the UK version of American...
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The Goldberg Variations
Of all the classical music there is out there that’s composed for solo instruments, I’m guessing that the piano got the largest heap. Haydn wrote 62 piano sonatas; Mozart wrote 18 (plus a huge number...
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Lucia Popp
There comes a point in time listening to the classics that you start being able to distinctly tell by listening who’s the person singing a particular role. Funnily, the two vocal ranges I have...
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Kip’s Lights
I’ve blogged about wedding music last year, and in the pair of posts noted that one of my choices for Ling’s Processional was “I’ll Always Go Back to that Church”, better known as “Kip’s Lights”, from...
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Wedding Music – Revisited
Nearly a year ago I wrote a series of posts on wedding music. Even though our own event was 3 years ago, whenever I listen to a music composition, my subconscious self still goes on appraisal mode to...
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On the Piano
I’ve posted here before about a music service I subscribe to, namely eMusic. The service used to be a huge bargain with thousands of classical music albums on sale at very affordable prices. However,...
View ArticleMozart’s Contemporaries
I think many piano learners here would have gone the route of learning Haydn, Mozart or Beethoven sonatas at some point. The three are among the most widely known of ‘classical’-period music composers...
View ArticleSimply love choral music :)
It’s the season for the Singapore Youth Festival (SYF) Central Judging for Choirs for secondary schools again. Just the other day, I went to support my ex-choir at Singapore of the Arts (SOTA) School...
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Royal Wedding Music
On FRI evening, I received an SMS from Ling: Am watching the Royal Wedding on Channel 5 now. =) Ugh. And I was still in school for an event! I did catch the ceremony the next morning though, courtesy...
View ArticleLearning Chinese Through Songs
Be it pop or kiddy songs, I’m of the opinion that music makes learning Chinese (or any language I supposed?) pleasurable. We have been quite surprised (and pleased, of course) that Hannah’s kindy has...
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A Classical Revival: Part III
It might be the company I keep, but I rarely see or hear of many friends who still listen to classical music regularly anymore, if going by social media posts is any indicator. Just earlier this year,...
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The Piano Project – Part 1
It’s been almost eight years since I last blogged here about piano-playing (have we really been blogging for that long?!). A new home project started though that will likely see an emergence of new...
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The Piano Project – Part 2
Truth to tell, when Hannah decided that she’d like to learn the piano rather than the violin, I was probably the more relieved – even happier – of the two of us parents. Ling’s neutral since she can...
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The Piano Project – Part 3
I don’t have the faintest recollection of the purchase or delivery of our first family piano, 38 years ago from 1978. My mom did write in her diary though that the piano cost $3,950 – not $4,200 as...
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The Piano Project – Part 4
More notes on my returning to the piano after a decade of hiatus! Scores Of all the whole bunch of things that’s different today compared to 38 years ago, the forms of sheet music probably offer the...
View ArticleThe Piano Project – Part 5
One of the key things I was looking forward to with our new piano was composing again – with the last piece I wrote being just about 20 years ago. Unlike trained composers though, I write while playing...
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Learning Music for Kids
Both Ling and I started our formal music and piano lessons when we were in junior Primary school, which is about the age that many parents here today still get their children started at too. Both of us...
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The Piano Project – Part 6
There are two things I’m especially grateful my parents did when I was a child: buy us an Apple II computer, and let my two brothers and I learn the piano. Both of these things had immeasurable impacts...
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iPad Pro 12.9 (2017)
While the stunning form factor and premium design language are traits no longer exclusively in Apple’s purview, Apple fans will still have us believe that the Cupertino super company creates products...
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The Piano Project – Part 7
Hannah has been attending piano lessons using the Suzuki method for about a year now. From the looks of it, I reckon she’s at a level of technical competency higher than what I was able to reach at her...
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Home Recording – Part 1
One of my life-long ambitions has always been to do a proper studio recording of pieces I play on the piano. There’s been sporadic occasions over the years where I’ve attempted to do variations of...
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Home Recording – Part 2
Coming out a crash course on home recording equipment, the basic outlay seemed to be: Microphones: two basic types are dynamic, and condenser – with the former more suitable for low-frequency audio...
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Home Recording – Part 3
I didn’t think for a moment that home studio recordings were going to be easy. Never mind that I wasn’t going to do both video and audio recordings and any mistakes would be very hard to correct. I...
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Creative SXFI
I taught an introductory subject to computer games to freshmen classes for several years some time back. One topic of discussion centered on key turning points in video games, and one such would be the...
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Home Recording – Part 4
Ling mused the other day whether we should get Peter started on a music instrument, like his older sister. Apparently, the same question was asked by Hannah’s piano teacher, who actually resides at The...
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Casio Privia PX870 – Part 1 – Decisions
I wrote my first music compositions – and specifically piano pieces – almost 25 years ago, and largely working off a Korg music workstation at my old family home. This particular digital keyboard was...
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Casio Privia PX870 – Part 2 – The Piano
My requirements for the digital piano were relatively few: most of the models in the price roughly SGD1.5K to 2K bracket were all offering pretty decent sound, so the quality of the piano sampling...
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Home Recording – Part 5
With the the new digital piano happily sequestered in our master room, it was easy deciding which of the three ways I was going to get recordings: record video and audio on separate streams, then sync...
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