The 3rd Penang Choralffest

Choralffest was incredibly, undeniably tiring but also disreputably fun. <------------ Quote Sabby. haha. Seriously. especially if you just went to school before going there. I'll let Sabby explain. Copy paste from her blog. =D Choralffest was a 3 day choral camp that culminated in a performance on the 7th, Sunday. Hahaha. There are four choir groups; Arioso, Brillante, Cantabile and Dolce, and they each performed one early music piece, one jazz, one contemporary and one show choir piece. Kelly, Kim Mei and Su Jen were in Arioso and I-Lyn and I were in Dolce. So for 3 days we practiced the four pieces with a total of 3 hours practice for each piece before performing on Sunday night. All the groups were four part; Soprano, Alto, Tenor and Bass, except Dolce coz there weren't enough guys xD
-Sabs blog



Further explained by kelly,
Lemme explain how this group thing works for those of you who don't already know. I totally forgot to explain. =___= All the 175 participants are seperated into 4 groups, Arioso, Brilliante, Cantabile and Dolce. Meaning for these words, if you don't know *there are non-music people reading this right?? O_o Sorry if I'm being offensive.. DDD= I'll take this off if you don't like it.*
Arioso - In the style of an Aria.(solo opera singer. Jonathan took sooo long to tell me cause he
was singing in that style and stuff.. I'll tell you about all these people in a while)
Brilliante - Obiously means Brilliant. Hahahahahaha.. =D
Cantabile - Like, in Nodame Cantabile, means in a singing style~ =D
Dolce - means sweetly~ =D *it does mean sweetly right? O_o thats how I'm supposed to play
my piece apparently...*
A, B, and C are SATB (soprano, alto, tenor and bass) while Dolce is SA (soprano and alto). The audience are supposed to vote for the choir they like in each category which are Early Music, Jazz, Contemporary and Show Choir. There're 2 intervals of which the audience are supposed to put their votes into ballots outside the hall.

Nodame Cantabile! i just remembered i've forgotten to return Gp's cd! *facepalm*
and dolce does mean sweetly, kelly. i remember it came out for my Grade 5 theory exam. i put in lively i think. haha. and kena scold by piano teacher. hahaha.

The Choral Fest started on Friday, 5th June, till Sunday which is the performance day. There're 4 tutors, 1 for each genre of music. I've already mention who is for what already, up there so... (authors note: she means, Dr. Chan Cheong-Jan for contemporary, Ms. Lisa Ho for Early Music, Ms. Leong Dee Yinn for show choir and Mr. Ian Tan for Jazz) Each group has only 3 hours with each tutors in the span of 3 days. We not only have to sing those 4 songs for the competition, but there are 3 songs for the finale too~ Thats kinda like a sing-a-long with the audience. Some participants had to go down and mingle with the audience~! Some stayed up on stage cause they had to dance~ Hahahah.. Was hillarious. Thats about it la.. =D
-geng gila gila

The first day.... I think i went late cause i went to school before that. Halfway in school i got the text message from Sabby: "Everyone's here except you". I was like.. Crap. haha. went there to find out it haven't even started yet. -.- And number 2 on the guide book said "We ask for punctuality. Events will start on time!" . Printed there. Bold and clear. ahha. Shortly after that, it started.. they gave a short briefing. Then our first activity was show choir. Haha. The tutor, Ms. Leong Dee Yinn was like asking who is from which school, and she said to scream like banshee's or something when she call our school name. haha. So she called.. MGS, Peng Hwa, and when she got to SGGS, (me and sabs were the only St Georgian in our group) I raised one finger and sabby raised her hand. haha. without screaming. haha. Ms Leong was like laughing at us. We were supposed to do the song Mccavity, the mystery cat from "Cats"(duh!). haha. We were supposed to walk arrogantly and stuff. There was boob shaking involved which me and sabs hid in the back. ahaha. Towards the last day she was like.. "Woman power! Use your woman power!" And me and Sabs were like O.o *looks at each other*'' Hahahaha. I liked her. The song was a pretty catchy tune. It was stuck in my head for days after choralffest. Not that i minded it there much. =D


Next was Jazz. Mr Ian is funny. He talks like a girl. hahaha. *no offense meant here. just an observation* He can sing well though. (guyish ly) hahahaha. He said he performed in Disneyland California and stayed in US for 15 years. He sounds quite dulcet. He's very good in singing. i like his vibrato's. still remember how he sang. =D It was quite fun.. but mostly we were singing bim, bom, bim bim bom bom. haha. i liked it when we combined with the dot dot and everything harmonised. not so much when everything was a mess. haha. OH. and the title of the song is Bim Bom. hahaha. And there's one part that goes " if the words sound slightly wrong, thats the way they wrote this song". haha. So we were like bim boming the whole time. He was like don't bom the wrong place.and i was like, go bush! "he was always asking us to "smile, don't look like you are studying for science or mathematics". haha. One thing i remember from his speech. Jazz is an improvisation. haha. Mr Ian is fun! haha. I even actually like jazz now! O.o ( i used to hate jazz) which reminds me of ze yin and her jazz pieces... good luck cha boh!! seriously.


After that... We went for contemporary. Our piece was The Hat Don't Talk. The words was pretty lame, it went "the hat don't talk. i said the hat don't talk" haha. i was like telling sabs "The Sorting Hat does talk!!!" haha. body percussion. it was quite fun and needed coordination.which i'm lacking =O luckily i survived. haha. once i got the rhythm. Our score was like a drum's score. Different notes represents different actions. For example, E means clap hands. Low D means tap left leg, Low F means tap right leg and yada yada yada. haha. My first time looking at the score was.. O.O but it was not bad. haha. the next day i brought my trusty highlighters and highlighted the different notes. It made things considerably easier with all that clapping the left leg and all. Dr Chan was like playing both the soprano and altos part. cause our score is when sop's did the easier part, altos will do all the complicated rhythm. and when altos do the easy part, the sops will do the complicated ones. haha. so to guide us, he turned to the sops, played their part, turned to us, played ours. and i was like. woah. haha. He's cute when he's jumping around getting all excited. (yeah, we had to jump around for this piece cause it was tap left and right leg very quickly so we had to jump) kelly says he was relaxed for their piece. I don't think he was for ours. it was hard even getting everyone to get the rhythm right in 3 hours, whatmore to get everyone synchronised. i frankly don't know how we won our award for this category. haha. dr chan is a really good pianist! will explain more below! we were the only group with stands. and since i'm used to opening stands for orchestra, i usually open the stands, then my right hand automatically searches the floor for my violin, then i remember i'm not playing the violin. haha. did it a few times in fact. gah.


Lastly it was early music. Boy, does it have hidden meanings. I think i said before that one of our pieces were Come Again! Sweet Love. At first i thought it was funny the way hooi lay keep saying come. come. haha. it turnes out thats exactly what it means. haha. At our first lesson, sabs and i trudged into the room thinking its a boring piece. However, Ms. Lisa was like, "This piece is about sex", at that point i sat up straight in my chair*i was slouching*, me and sabs looking at each other. i was like asking sabs, "did she just say what i thought she just said" haha. and she continued, " This piece is about a guy who likes a girl. He wants to have sex with the girl, but the girl refuses. Why do you think he ask her to come and come again(our lyrics). this is his invitation to seduce. *there's a part in the song that he dies "in deadly pain and endless misery"* Ms Lisa said "The die there is not the mati die, its the death of satisfaction, after you sleep." then as everyone was like.. chuckling and some O.O ing.. she was like "i'm serious, i'm serious, but you all don't go tell anyone this. I tell you all this only so you can bring out the essence of the song. You all don't go tell anyone, later they say this ms lisa is teaching you all the wrong things" haha.and so here i am, announcing it to ppl who read my blog. haha. i'm sure eunice will love this piece. OOOOHH. and there's one part where she went, "this song is not about love, this song is about LUST" and more O.o .haha. anyway, i liked the song. it was stuck in my head too. for a few days. and the harmonisation. She liked our song too. =D We did actions too. i guess it was nice* i can't actually see the whole performance. waiting for dvd!* cause for the chorus the altos sing first, then the sops a beat later. so we do actions first, then the sops. me likey. haha. it was the easiest song for us though. ms lisa always lets us out early cause we are always done like.. 15 minutes before time. haha.

We had rehersals for our 3 finale songs too. We sang, dancing queen, thank you for the music and rasa sayang, which i'm also playing for rasa sayang in the school band. will explain in next post. for dancing queen, Ms Leong and Mr Ian will sing the verse. Ms Leong started by asking us, "DO you all wanna hear indian accent or american accent", in which we all replied heartily "INDIAN!!!" haha. And it was so funny. "she sang this whole part in her indian slang:

Im nothing special, in fact Im a bit of a bore
If I tell a joke, youve probably heard it before
But I have a talent, a wonderful thing
cause everyone listens when I start to sing
Im so grateful and proud
All I want is to sing it out loud


she started cresendo in the last line and loses her accent for awhile. her cresendo is like.. really cresendo. haha. and we were all to busy cheering for her to come in our part of So I say, thank you for the music. haha. so we had to redo. haha.
and after our chorus, mr Ian was supposed to sing. He asked us, "Do you all want to hear the high pitch or low pitch one" and we all shouted HIGHHHH. haha. He's versatile. And good at it too. He sings both well. He's supposed to sing this part:


Ive been so lucky, I am the girl boy with golden hair
I wanna sing it out to everybody
What a joy, what a life, what a chance!

haha. he has golden highlights in his hair. =D
and the held the chanceeeeeee for a longggggg time and we were all cheering like mad as usual! hahaha.

On the performance day, first we had Come Again. Ms Lisa gave a brief intro of the song saying that a guy that loves *ahem* a girl but the girl doesn't return his love. *ahem* haha. i was like grinning. then she gave us our starting notes and we started. i think we did quite well for this piece. =D i looked up at her quite frequently. the chorus repeats numerous times with different meanings. and at the end when everyone was applauding, she gave us a thumbs up and grinned at us, mouthing well done. haha. i thought she did that for every group. haha. the we went backstage, where she met us and said we all done very well and everything. i guess cause everyone remembered the cresendo and stuff and actions as well. haha. she said she herself forgotten the actions till we did it. haha.

Next performance was the jazz piece. earlier, mr ian said our bim boms was not loud enough. so during performance i'm not sure if we were loud enough. i knew i was bim boming pretty loudly. haha. when we walked in he gave us a broad smile. *earlier on, during the rehersal, some ppl were not smiling and enjoying the music, we were studying he said. haha. so he said he is gonna point at whoever that is not smiling during performance and if they still cant see him pointing, he is gonna walk right in front of that person and stare at them. haha. and he said what does this mean? *grins broadly* and we all were telling him,it means to remember to smile* then he was like, good. haha. where was i? oh yeah. when he walked in he gave us a broad smile. and we smiled back. hahaha. he started, it went pretty okay. we bowed and he gave us a thumbs up as well. * i was thinking all the tutors gave thumbs up to every group.* he bowed, we bowed, he said thank you to us and indicated we should start walking out. haha. so polite! There was a brief interval.

Elsie said to change into our show choir get-ups first although we had contemporary first.. (we were supposed to dress in black and be catlike for show choir). so me and sabs rushed to change our outfits.. then i was like.. "hey, aren't they having the voting interval now?" and sabs said yeah.. and i was like... "so why are we rushing?" hahaha. so after that it was our turn.. for our body percussion, dr chan was like puting his hands together near his chin to remind us to clap near our chins and not bending down because some parts we were supposed to bend and hit left or right leg and immediately clap. so he was reminding us to clap at that height. but i'm pretty sure to the audience point of view, he was like.. praying to us. haha. or begging. and he asked us to watch him. haha. dr chan forgot to play our part though. he turned to the sops and played theirs and when he turned to us i think he forgot ours and turned back to them. but we were fine. haha. but not synchronized, definitely. really don't know how we won. haha. i guess when we're playing the easy part we looked good cause we were in unison.. the rest..... hahahha. you could tell we are playing the same thing.. but not together... haha. i guess its the best 3 hours can do. haha.

Lastly was show choir!! haha. everyone's favourite. i liked mccavity.. when i'm not dancing, but watching. haha. it was fun though. new experience. to strut and stuff. *hums the rhythm to myself* haha. lets just say i'm not that fond of dancing. watching ppl, wonderful.I had cat whiskers and a red nose for it. haha. sabby the red nose reind--cat. haha. anyway.. i think we did this piece all right too. haha. there's a part where we went from a neutral expression to a shocked expression. loved that part. haha. ooooh. and there was another part where we went.. "His powers of levitation, would make a fakir stare".. and Ms Leong was like for the word fakir, its not fa-ker. its fuck-kir. haha. sounded like that. haha. and we all were like laughing. and she was like "i know what you all are smiling at". haha. So at the performance we said " His powers of levitation, would make a fucker stare". haha. i'm pretty sure thats what the audience would hear. Sabs said she heard somebody say our group were sure to win for show choir cause er do all the seductive kinda stuff*like shaking boobs* haha. so imagine the irony when we won all categories except show choir. haha.


OOOH. and this part is funny. haha. during dinner, me, sabs, kelly, kim mei and sujen we kinda sitting in a circle. sujen on my left , sabby in front of me and kim mei and kelly on my right. they were like saying there was this guy who was sitting near us can bend his arm and is very flexible. su jen didn't see the guy, she said in a rather loud tone, "ya, he can bend like this and this" haha. and the guy they were talking about stared at her but su jen kept talking. haha. at that point kim mei and kelly was like laughing and su jen saw the guy was looking at her. haha. she went.. sorry.. didn't know you're there. haha. the guy was like.. "next time wanna talk bout ppl, do it softer. " haha.

back to the topic. after show choir, sabs and me really rushed this time to change back into our white costumes and rub off the make up and cat whiskers to join the rest outside.

so this time we sang. Ms Leong sang without her indian accent this time though.. haha. i wish she did the indian accent, but it was still good. i liked her:All I want is to sing it out loud.
she did really sing it our loud. the cheers were like crazy and we all remembered to come in with our parts.* i forgotten actually. XD* haha. then Mr Ian's turn. when he did his: What a joy, what a life, what a chance!, he crescendo-ed too. haha. and held for a few long counts in which the cheers were deafening. haha. He actually sang "i am the girl with golden hair" on the real day btw. hahaha.



then.. i'm lazy to type, so stolen from kelly again...

Then after that, we sang... Rasa Sayang~ With a twist~ We had this BM, English, Mandarin and Hokkien soloist. The English and Hokkien was the funniest. Hahahahahah.. English was cause the dude who was singing it like, added a bit of melody to it~ Not just the usual Rasa Sayang verse... =DDD And Hokkien.. Waaaa.. He kinda rapped it.. Hahhahaha.. Jonathan~ It's something about being hungry, looking for something to eat, ordered Char Koay Teow and Laksa and one bak chang *dumpling* and is very full after that. =DDDD Really funny.



it went something like...
*something something* po to eiao
bey chi pua char koay teow
*char koay teow bo* khi bey laksa
*then something something* aiyo chin pa. hahha.

*i think



And then before we got the result... Me and Sabs was like... "It doesn't matter if we don't win, we'll just get ready our sad faces" haha. cause we didn't think we'll win so many seeing that the other groups songs were nice too. And so... When Ms. Leong annouced Dolce won the first category, me and sabby were like OMG.. we actually won something! clapped and cheered. The Ms. Leong was announcing the second category winner... She was like "The best award for Jazz goes to.... Gabanna".. and everyone was confused cause we didn't have a group named Gabbana. Then she was like "Dolce&Gabanna" in which Me and Sabby was O.O again. hahaha. we looked at each other in surprise. and clapped and was speechless. haha. And next she was like.. " and the best contemporary award goes to... DOLCE!" and i was like screaming and so was the whole group. hahaha. we managed to get THREE outta four awards. ahaha. sabby said maybe Elsie miscounted or smth. and i was like.. nah, just be glad we won. haha.

Me and I-Lyn were like O_O HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA!!! while everyone else in my group were screaming like wild animals. Cat screeching xD Then Marina went to take our certs and stickers. Then everyone crowd round for photoshoot. Then they gave out our certs and stickers.


Best Early Music award: Dolce (Come again! Sweet love)
Best Jazz award: Dolce (Bim Bom)
Best Contemporary award: Dolce (The hat don't talk)
Best Show Choir award: Brillante (New York New York)


-sab's blog


Then makan pizza at the party and go home. haha. ohh. pictures!

the cert. =D simply paste the stickers.

ok. i'm a bad photographer. hahaha.


us before performance...

kim mei took this pic... haha.


Ms Leong!

Dr Chan!

Mr Ian!

Ms Lisa wasn't at the after party. So no pics with her. =( oh well.

I actually miss going to choralffest after it ended. I liked my songs and the tutors was good. Three days is way too short. =(

Extra info...

The hat don't talk
A number of years ago, the Arsenio Hall Show had the legendary jazz trumpet player, Dizzi Gillespie as a guest. During the course of interview. Dizzy spoke about his recent trip to Africa. He was also wearing some clothing, including a hat from Africa. Across the front of the hat was written several words in an African language, Arsenio was curious as to what the words meant so he asked Dizzy, "What does the hat say?" Dizzy promptly replied, "The hat don't talk"

Come again! Sweet Love
You may not realise that this is a sexually explicit song. The music sounds like someone having an orgasm because that is in fact what it is about. The key word is 'die' which had two meanings in the 16th century: to die and to reach sexual climax. 'Come again' just means to return, so don't let that confuse you. If you understand that meaning of 'die', then the song starts to make sense.

-taken from a youtube comment bout the song. O.O hahaha.



Just reread the whole Harry Potter series except the 7th book. Dumbledore's full name is Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore.Written in the 5th book during the hearing. Dumbledore's the best character in the whole series.hmph. better than edward too. or any other heroes. =( why did he have to die damnit. pity snape as well. gah J K Rowlings. GISH. Don't know what's wrong all these authors that kills off good characters. like Akkarin! trudi canavan said she killed him to make him more *memorable* pffft. and in Voice of gods. Chia died!! Chia! A GOD can die. seriously. these authors.

Actually i wanted to continue on and blog about what i've been doing in school during the holidays but too caught up in harry potter now. wanna read 7th book. and its about 2 am now. not really looking forward to getting up for school in 4 hours time... i've been getting up before 8am this WHOLE holiday can you believe it? every single day INCLUDING saturday and sunday's. gosh. haha. doesn't feel like a holiday. and our next holiday is close to.... SPM. ugh. and mom made me promise not to join anymore activities for school. so yeah. life will probably be boring for me after this. and my blog will be filled with boring daily activities and homeworks. haha. will post about band probably this saturday? oh and about prom too. probably. =D and about that outing to the beach.


p/s.. this is what i have been playing. lucky guess what it is, anyone?





Last thing. WATCH this! Me likey!!!




love the cello. sounds really refined. and the pianist is great too as well.