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I don't know about you but these late nights are triggering flashbacks to irritating and clearly disgusting events of the past. The clarity at which these episodes present themselves in the darkness is rather disturbing. Well, for me there's only one way to get rid of them from the clattered mess in my mind, get it out on paper or forever lay your peace. The word peace is a word that is seldom used in my personal vocabulary. No wonder there. I need prozac. Just kidding.
Well, let's see what's up on the platter to be picked to bits this morning. hmm...welll looks like I have to forward thanks to Rach for reminding me of this particular disturbing matter that needs to be analyzed and criticized. Thank you Rachel! You are the muse for this piece of work. 
Today the topic of discussion will be : The Classical Music Scene in Singapore.
As this is a rather vast topic which requires more expertise than I can offer on the subject and is vast and tricky to give a full critique I shalll just have to settle for commenting on personal experience and my two cents worth of low down on the classical music scene in town. Notice the emphasis on 'classical'. I'm the classically trained fool here so that's how narrow the discussion will be. From here hence forth classical music will just have to be referred to as 'music'. An additional word here and there obstructs the tirade of thought.
Ok, so I used to play for SYO. No big deal i should say if you could actualli see the standard of players the MANAGEMENT selects for their training orchestra. Notice, the word here is management. Yeah sure so the music director sits in for auditions for new players and assessments of the oldies but then again, he ain't the one controlling the purse strings yeah? So back when I was still in there, the manager of the orch @ orchestra was this shrivelled Olive prune. ( Guys in the orch you know who, I'm making it totally obvious). Man, she ought to be considered as the worst thing to have ever happened to classical music since synthesised and classical pop music. Why? REad On...
Can you imagine someone who requires an Idiots Guide to Opera Music and Classical Music for that matter, recruiting newbies to the orchestra? ( Trust me on this one, She made me summarize the storyline of some puccini (or was it verdi?) opera so that she could introduce it to the kids at the schools we were performing at for a community outreach programme or something. The whole thing disgusts me so much that I have been successful in eradicating memory of the piece we played from that opera) Yup, back to my question. I don't think I can even stomach such a query if it were posed to me. I'd probably balk and call in the cops to arrest this impersonator. i did the former but was contracted to not do the latter.
Yup, so we have ol' prune face bunched up in a chair next to the music director, giving an utterly wretched look at you whilst you are supposed to deliver a flawless rendition of whatever concerto or study or what not that your tutor throws in your face. Lady, If i could play a concerto flawlessly, I wouldn't even have to study in this hell hole, I'd be off to some exotic place performing in concerts or masterclasses and I wouldn't be wasting my time, sanity and hearing playing with a bunch of chicken murdering violinists. ( their the kind of violinist who create such...impeccable...noise from their instruments that would bring stradivarius to rise from his grave and make it his personal mission to hunt down every single exquisite instrument he ever made and burn it to dust, all the while cheering happily before the blaze, exhilarated to know that his instruments will never be associated with screeches and scratches) 
Yeah and when it comes down to giving comments. I just don't know which higher power would torture such a musical ignoramus to come up with knowledgeable comments about the way people play their music. I must admit the highlight whenever I went for an assessment was to hear wat my financial benefactor @ the Manager had to say. The experience may be painful but hilarious. Painful because you have to keep that laugh suppressed. It's also very painful to hear music, an emotional and free flowing matter being described with such static terms. The way she comments is as though she were commenting on architecture. "hmm...you are more stable now than before." on second thoughts maybe she was describing my mental state. Hey! It's difficult to be mentally grounded when your head resonates each time you go for full orch practise, and it isn't any better when there are murderers there. (refer above)
Next on the agenda for nit picking...
If you thought that age was a decisive matter for activities such as modeling, acting ( with the exception of sean connery and the likes) or other ah lian activities think again. Age is all that matters when it comes to landing yourself a spot in the orch. Questions posed after I had played for my audition (they were memorable, a milestone to the degradation of music in Singapore): How old are you? Which level of schooling are you in now? Which school? How long have you been playing the instrument? ...(answers)...hmm...18...that's quite OLD. that means that you have a shorter period of time to show us what you can do. you have a shorter investment period compared to the younger players. (*methinks* INVESTMENT PERIOD? YOUNGER PLAYERS? How much younger? Are they paedophiles?)
I rather regretted going for that audition in the end. It felt as though I had just visited my financial planner and was reminded of the gradual devaluation of my property. Most importantly of all...I felt OLD. No girl wants to feel that way.
Clarifications: 
Investment....Part of the deal with joining the orch is that they pay for your tuition fees with the 'professional' tutors from the SSO. And they pay for your lunch and T-shirts when you go perform. And the scores and stands are free for usage. YEah...so they consider it as a sort of 'scholarship'. Yeah with all those clauses it sure does feel like one.
Old: 18 years and above I suppose since i've been made an example. Being a 'youth' orchestra, once you age and ripen to an adult of sorts than you are chucked aside. that's kinda like society. thanks for the introduction.
Young: Oh I dunno...They figure that they can groom their younger players to become world class performers because they are able to train them for years and years to come. Yeah...some of them start from scratch and some of them come in scratching.It's a sorta singaporean mentality that with time and money everything can be achieved. Well, I guess that's the only way to make things work when there's a lack of talent.
There are lotsa other terms which I appear to have not cared enough to remember.
With such a mentality in terms of methods of selection, I guess any snotty nose picking kid, who is tone deaf, emotionally detached and with absolute zero ability to coordinate and a disability in counting will become a world class musician because of the amount of $$MONEY$$ invested in him and the amount of screaming, yelling, beating he will endure as part of his training ,is supposed to help him attain with utmost certainty as the administration puts forth. Well, if he doesn't make it as a musician, there's always a shortage of typists and the human mouth and lungs can surely champion any sort of bellows used to conjure up those fantastic flames in the bellows. 
I have no qualms about this method if it proves to indeed have some positive output. But what I saw made me cringe. The incumbent youngsters are still snotty, obnoxious kids even though they have been there for years. They play as though it is a general consensus amongst them that the audience is deaf, dumb and blind. Turning the page of your score after most of the orchestra is nearing the end is most obscene especially if you are sitting in the front row. One person playing a wrong note may be masked if the orch is professional and united enough. But when you have a merry band of musicians (i have serious doubts using this word) attempting to practise alternative music whilst the rest are somewhat in the midst of a serious classical piece does not paint a pretty picture. Alternative music as in...Alternative NOTES, Alternative PITCHES, Alternative Pieces....Go figure.
Oh, and the community outreach programmes to "Bring classical music to the heartlands and students in obscure schools." Man...If I were the layman who has never encountered ( the word should be 'experience' but I absolutely cannot bring myself to use that word in this scenario ) classical music before, I'd probably be rueing the day I had to be exposed to it in such a manner. I'm very certain that there are musically savvy individuals amongst the students from the schools we performed in. I bet the laughter that we often get at those performance is because these people are not deaf and they are most certainly not stupid. Now that I think back, it is actually rather humiliating that our Idiot's guided leading lady @ the Manager be up on stage at the end of a performance, lying through her teeth on how 'wonderful' and 'delightful' the performance is and that's not the worst sin. She gets (rather forces) the crowd to lie, cheer and say that they 'enjoyed' the performance. Whilst we the guilty performers cringe in the background. Encores are especially difficult for everyone involved : performers and audience alike.
Speaking from the public's point of view, if my virgin experience with classical music was thus so, I would have gathered a rather inaccurate yardstick by which I shall be using to rate other classical music performances that I MAY attend in the future. (If I haven't been totally put off by that drafty performance) That means that I'm more likely to be cheated into spending money on other performances that totally lack lustre. No Singaporean enjoys being parted from his or her hard earned money. Especially when they had to sacrifice part of their premiums on the ARTS.
It is also doing a great injustice to the fine art of music when it gains an association to a poor performance. I can just imagine the number of dead composers or barely living ones turning in their graves, hastening towards their graves or rising from their graves to start on a quest similar to that of ol stradi. ( refer above )
I guess the reason for all this ranting is the fact that I feel that everyone should have a sense of responsibility when it comes to all matters that they undertake. Likewise, if you want to perform a piece, do your best and try your best to do it justice. We do not expect a world class performance. We just want a performance from the heart. Yes...that thing in your chest that produces that irritating thumping sound you wished would go away. Likewise, when it comes to selecting people for an orch, you have to be equally responsible for the consequences this individual will contribute to the orch. I admit that the mentality of selecting young players and grooming them to be musicians is a truly admirable and valiant act but there must be the understanding that such action takes time and you have to consider what consequences will be derived upon introducing such novices onto the stage. It is unreasonable to force upon them such a big responsibility when they cannot even place there trembling fingers at the correct position. They are there to play the instrument and not to be played BY the instrument, and it takes time for them to gain control over the instrument and themselves so it is once again unreasonable to expect leaps and bounds in standard over a ridiculously short period of time.
Most importantly, all parties involved have the same responsibility of presenting classical music, or music in general, to the masses in as accurate a way as possible, so as to encourage an interest and understanding in this form of art. It's a big responsibility. No doubt about it. However, in my candid opinion, if you want to develop a genuine interest in music and an integration between class, religion, race and other forms of stratification in the appreciation of music, this is one of the more effective and, believe or not, practical ways of doing it.
Ok so now I know some ( or most) of you guys will be thinking " this author must be some kinda mental, depressive, senile preacher" Perhaps Perhaps Perhaps.
Well, yeah, so I'm not some kinda champion for The Fine Arts or some musical Purist and yes I do sometimes commit the crimes that I have preached against. But then please grant that I am only human.
yup So my clarinet squeaks during performances, and I have a violent tendency to crashing chords and banging out Romantic period pieces when I practise the piano. It's a destructive streak and a defiant way of cursing the composer by purposefully destroying whatever impossible passage he painstakingly composed. And yes there are the tantrums, tears and absolute rage when it comes to practising those filthy 'Things'. But guess that's all part of the emotional aspect of music. Literally so. hey! but there are sacrifices too okie! Well...actualli they are rather stupid. People learn from the Master of Stupidity: Do not practise the piano till your hands swell up and you sprain your wrists especially not on the night before your diploma exam. It never works practising at the upteemth hour. Learnt it the hard way. Do not earn yourself a sorethroat and flu before an advance music exam especially when your second instrument is a woodwind instrument. It hurts just trying to summon air from your lungs and it doesn't help if your passageways are constricted and clogged with phelgm. they'll probably plug you to a respirator when you collapse mid way. just kidding lah.
Yah.. so we all make mistakes when it comes to playing music. However, as an orchestra, mistakes, or the audience's perceived lack of it, show just how great the team work is amongst the players and how well they compliment and assist each other to get that near perfect effect. It's also the people that make it fun in between performances and during practice.
yup, the fun and happy things that I remember about orch was the people. you guys know who you are. ( I hope ) It's great to go for practise and discuss music and have fun and be around real, enthusiastic and driven people. It sure is worth concocting all those excuses to escape band prac where the only instrument that is ever practised is the oral cavity (mouth). So to all you great people, keep striving and doing your best! you can make a difference!
I've always liked music. Classical or otherwise. ( Well, almost all genres except rock and heavy metal. ) Hey...it's only the few weirdos who will drop a humanity to spend afternoons hearing an obnoxious freak boasting about eating lobsters everyday on a yacht in Aussie and hearing the same person insisting that a pipa sounds like a guzheng. But I don't regret it. It's made my life more enriching and exciting I suppose. Hey whilst everyone is studying history, literature, Home Ec I get to learn about paedophiles, homosexuals, manic depressives, schizos, etc. Schumann was mental and tried to commit suicide twice. Schubert was a paedophile who was overly sexed and died of syphillis. Tchaikovsky was depressive. Lully died because his foot caught gangrene when he stabbed himself with his wooden stick baton whilst conducting an orchestra. Fascinating. Sure beats memorising dates and figuring out what shakespeare was trying to allude. And you get a license to bang nonsense on the piano at 12.30 am because there's a practical exam the next day. and not forgetting the extra time you get for bitching and mugging (more on bitching actually ) whilst everyone is at lit lesson. HaHA! 
The Classical music scene in singapore has changed. Better or worse I don't know. Where it was once only the supposed 'classy' people who sent their children to music school or practised music, now everyone has an almost equally opporunity to access it. I feel that that's good because something as universal as music ought to be shared amongst everyone. We may not need to speak the same language but the language of music is global. I think. However, as a medium through which emotions and feelings may be fluidly expressed, I think it may actually be the next best thing to language and speech in communicating between individuals.
One thing I find rather disgusting about music in singapore today is the fact that people seem to be overpopularizing it. Parents today are very competitive. Music provides a good area for not so healthy competition.
Music grades, music teachers and even the number of times music lessons are held are favourites on the sparring ground. Having a certificate for every grade desn't mean a thing to me. It just tells me that well, you know how to play three pieces very well and you can do scales and sight reading and what not, but I don't think you'll amount to much because you are not a natural and what you accomplished is because you were driven to practise because of an impending exam. or that you fear your parent's whip. I still believe that the person who really loves music is the one who plays music as an end in itself and not as a means to an end. ( hope I got that arrangement right ) Parents don't impose on your children ( or kids ) unnecessary responsibilities and the torture of practising music when they don't want to or do not have an interest in it. they have aptitudes and interests in other areas which require your support in order to bloom. Forcing them to like music may in fact be detrimental to everyone's health. One more tiny hand whacked into playing Bach means another fist ever ready to denounce music as satanic and a means of child abuse. I hate Bach.
Well...guess I'll end this on this rather sleepy note. Bravo!