A Pharmaband Story
Did not expect this night to be this awesome to say the least. ;P
But, yeah in the end, we did pull this off, amazingly. (I'm not exaggerating) > w >
It all started many many months back. When we are happily enjoying our sem break and I am in Singapore with my family. When Lee Lee offered me a position as a pianist in pharmaband after Win Wei left. Little did I know that being the pianist equals to leading pharmaband. And that was when my struggles as a leader in pharmaband started. XD
It was all very new to me. Pharmaband. Last year, I was not even part of the member of pharmaband, and now to lead a team that I do not know well, frightens me a little. However, Lee Lee does ease my fearfulness a little by just being next to me. :) Thanks Lee Lee.
Although Pharmaband only performs during Pharmnight, which is during the 2nd semester of the year, we have already started to prep for it since the start of the 1st semester. The starting of the 1st semester requires me to recruit singers and musicians. I think I have repeated this a lot of times, but I'm really really glad that there are so many talents in my 1st year juniors. Lee Lee helped me with auditioning the singers and the instrumentalists, and gave me some very valuable opinions. For this year, since there are juniors who play cello and double bass, so I decided to include a cello in pharmaband. :) It will be such a nice complement to the band by having a deep-sounding music, in addition to the violin and flute.
After the singers are selected, we had to select the instrumentalists. This is where it gets hard when skills and human relations are put into consideration. Thanks so much to Bomo and Lee Lee for willing to step down and let the juniors play. <3 And thus it ends up with so many first years in Pharmaband this year.
The next step would be to set the key for the singers. We had a few meetings to set a key for them and to choose the songs they feel comfortable in. To be honest, these meetings end up being me still very unsure which key to choose since the singers would like to try a male and female duet this year, and it is sure a challenging task to find a suitable key for both the male and female.
After deciding the songs and the respective people who will sing the songs, a one-month sem break started. I started producing the music sheets for the instruments as I work through a part-time job, as I consider the suitable key to use for the singers.
The next semester opens, and we had our first practise. The practise only involves the instruments and not the singers. It was frankly, quite bad at first, because the instruments still did not know the main melody yet as we were only practising the background melody. The next few practises with the instruments worried me a lot as the beat was off, there was no conducive environment for us to practise, and everyone was also very busy with their own stuff.
After the mid-sem break, the singers came in. The singer had difficulty finding the key at first, and we even had to switch key for one song. (Sorry for the troubles, pharmaband!) At first it was a bit of a havoc as the instruments and the singers are not syncing together. Therefore, again I had a meeting with the singers to help them reach the key I have set, and help them understand what is going on at the instruments part. Luckily, at the last few practises, things got very much better. Phew! Here I want to credit everyone for putting so much effort on each of your part. :) I also want to thank Pei Gin for coming to our practise to help us out. I really appreciate it. :')
And now going on to the medley, which consists of me, Lee Lee, Veggie and Man Ying. How this all started was less than 2 weeks before Pharmnight, when I saw something nice in youtube. A band of violins, cellos and piano playing Beauty and the Beast medley by sleightlymusical. It just suddenly came out on my mind to do a medley of our own as well. XD This medley will be done before the start of Phamnight, just a casual performance for the students before the VIPs came in. It is also because I want to help Lee Lee achieve her dream of doing a violin duet, which she unfortunately did not have a chance to in Pharmaband. Therefore, I immediately whatsapp Lee Lee to inform her of this great idea of mine, and viola, no surprise there, Lee Lee agreed to it. I have assumed that Veggie would also agree to it because he is always passionate with his violin. XD Coincidentally, that night when I meet up with Veggie to tell him about this, he already have a music sheet for Beauty and the Beast originally arranged for his TACTEN team. Therefore, I leave the arranging of Beauty and the Beast for our medley to him.
Four days later on Sunday, Veggie sent me the Beauty and the Beast music sheet, and he had also put in a cello part (where Man Ying had agreed to play it). After that, I add in a Goblin OST "Beautiful" by Crush music sheet which will be played immediately after Beauty and the Beast. On Monday, everyone received the music sheets and start practising, because two days later on Wednesday, we will have a practise together. All four of us started playing Beauty and the Beast smoothly until the end, which really really surprises me because even though I know we can make it, I did not expect us to get it done in just one try. XDD Beautiful is harder to master, so we took some more times to make it right.
Two more days later, on Friday, we had our second practise and right now we try to fix the minor mistakes in the songs. After repeatedly playing the same songs over and over again, bored as we were, we started playing other songs in our file, and I got a huge surprise when suddenly Veggie and Lee Lee were playing a Canon in D duet minutes after Veggie took out the sheet. Seeing how well they can play, I suggested that they also add Canon in D to the performance tomorrow.
Appreciation:
To Lee Lee, you are the one I feel most grateful to. I don't think I can be here now without you. And thank you for being my ear when anything happens to pharmaband. xD So glad having known you throughout my year in UKM. :)
To Veggie, my junior with same birthday with me. :) So happy that on this date, two musicians are born, and having such a talented person like you to have a same birthday with me is my utmost honour. ;) Anyway, having you there for our practises with a strong sense of beat and leadership gave me a very big sense of comfort.
To Qiao Xin, so very very happy and very very glad that you decided to stay with me to the end of pharmaband. TT In pharmaband, you are the one I can always talk to and really thanks so much for not leaving me behind in the end. ;)
To Aina, so sorry that we speak in Mandarin so many times. But I do appreciate your presence and willingness to come to practise each time. Just thank you so much for being there. :)
To Essen, I'm very sorry that we hurt you last time. :( You always give dedication to pharmaband, although silently, and I can see and appreciate that. Thank you for being a better cellist for us, and I know first hand how tiring it is to bring the cello up and down every week. Thank you also for letting Man Ying borrow your cello. :)
To Jia Wei and Evelyn, my two favourite guitarists. :) Paiseh that for you two I did not help you guys much, and mostly you two just play on your own accord, but I just wanna say that, your guitars really put more life in pharmaband. Good job! ;)
To the singers: Carol, Nien Hwei, Terence, Sheng Hong, I know I'm very bad at helping you guys. TT So sorry that I don't have a cover for you guys when you requested it, and for the confusion and mistakes I make for you guys along the way as well. But, considering the amount of practises we had, I want to say that you guys are amazing singers. Pharmaband would not be as good without you guys. Hopefully I can get a chance to learn singing from you someday. xD
To Man Ying, thank you for willing to play cello for us in such a short notice! xP I hope you enjoyed the time you had with us, and keep making more music in the future. :))
Thank you also to those who helped out directly and indirectly. :)
Thank you all for your passion towards music, and your willingness to practise till 10-11pm without complaint. You guys are awesome. ^^
Hopefully we can have more performances together eh? 8)
But, yeah in the end, we did pull this off, amazingly. (I'm not exaggerating) > w >
It was all very new to me. Pharmaband. Last year, I was not even part of the member of pharmaband, and now to lead a team that I do not know well, frightens me a little. However, Lee Lee does ease my fearfulness a little by just being next to me. :) Thanks Lee Lee.
Although Pharmaband only performs during Pharmnight, which is during the 2nd semester of the year, we have already started to prep for it since the start of the 1st semester. The starting of the 1st semester requires me to recruit singers and musicians. I think I have repeated this a lot of times, but I'm really really glad that there are so many talents in my 1st year juniors. Lee Lee helped me with auditioning the singers and the instrumentalists, and gave me some very valuable opinions. For this year, since there are juniors who play cello and double bass, so I decided to include a cello in pharmaband. :) It will be such a nice complement to the band by having a deep-sounding music, in addition to the violin and flute.
After the singers are selected, we had to select the instrumentalists. This is where it gets hard when skills and human relations are put into consideration. Thanks so much to Bomo and Lee Lee for willing to step down and let the juniors play. <3 And thus it ends up with so many first years in Pharmaband this year.
The next step would be to set the key for the singers. We had a few meetings to set a key for them and to choose the songs they feel comfortable in. To be honest, these meetings end up being me still very unsure which key to choose since the singers would like to try a male and female duet this year, and it is sure a challenging task to find a suitable key for both the male and female.
After deciding the songs and the respective people who will sing the songs, a one-month sem break started. I started producing the music sheets for the instruments as I work through a part-time job, as I consider the suitable key to use for the singers.
The next semester opens, and we had our first practise. The practise only involves the instruments and not the singers. It was frankly, quite bad at first, because the instruments still did not know the main melody yet as we were only practising the background melody. The next few practises with the instruments worried me a lot as the beat was off, there was no conducive environment for us to practise, and everyone was also very busy with their own stuff.
After the mid-sem break, the singers came in. The singer had difficulty finding the key at first, and we even had to switch key for one song. (Sorry for the troubles, pharmaband!) At first it was a bit of a havoc as the instruments and the singers are not syncing together. Therefore, again I had a meeting with the singers to help them reach the key I have set, and help them understand what is going on at the instruments part. Luckily, at the last few practises, things got very much better. Phew! Here I want to credit everyone for putting so much effort on each of your part. :) I also want to thank Pei Gin for coming to our practise to help us out. I really appreciate it. :')
And now going on to the medley, which consists of me, Lee Lee, Veggie and Man Ying. How this all started was less than 2 weeks before Pharmnight, when I saw something nice in youtube. A band of violins, cellos and piano playing Beauty and the Beast medley by sleightlymusical. It just suddenly came out on my mind to do a medley of our own as well. XD This medley will be done before the start of Phamnight, just a casual performance for the students before the VIPs came in. It is also because I want to help Lee Lee achieve her dream of doing a violin duet, which she unfortunately did not have a chance to in Pharmaband. Therefore, I immediately whatsapp Lee Lee to inform her of this great idea of mine, and viola, no surprise there, Lee Lee agreed to it. I have assumed that Veggie would also agree to it because he is always passionate with his violin. XD Coincidentally, that night when I meet up with Veggie to tell him about this, he already have a music sheet for Beauty and the Beast originally arranged for his TACTEN team. Therefore, I leave the arranging of Beauty and the Beast for our medley to him.
Four days later on Sunday, Veggie sent me the Beauty and the Beast music sheet, and he had also put in a cello part (where Man Ying had agreed to play it). After that, I add in a Goblin OST "Beautiful" by Crush music sheet which will be played immediately after Beauty and the Beast. On Monday, everyone received the music sheets and start practising, because two days later on Wednesday, we will have a practise together. All four of us started playing Beauty and the Beast smoothly until the end, which really really surprises me because even though I know we can make it, I did not expect us to get it done in just one try. XDD Beautiful is harder to master, so we took some more times to make it right.
Two more days later, on Friday, we had our second practise and right now we try to fix the minor mistakes in the songs. After repeatedly playing the same songs over and over again, bored as we were, we started playing other songs in our file, and I got a huge surprise when suddenly Veggie and Lee Lee were playing a Canon in D duet minutes after Veggie took out the sheet. Seeing how well they can play, I suggested that they also add Canon in D to the performance tomorrow.
Appreciation:
To Lee Lee, you are the one I feel most grateful to. I don't think I can be here now without you. And thank you for being my ear when anything happens to pharmaband. xD So glad having known you throughout my year in UKM. :)
To Veggie, my junior with same birthday with me. :) So happy that on this date, two musicians are born, and having such a talented person like you to have a same birthday with me is my utmost honour. ;) Anyway, having you there for our practises with a strong sense of beat and leadership gave me a very big sense of comfort.
To Qiao Xin, so very very happy and very very glad that you decided to stay with me to the end of pharmaband. TT In pharmaband, you are the one I can always talk to and really thanks so much for not leaving me behind in the end. ;)
To Aina, so sorry that we speak in Mandarin so many times. But I do appreciate your presence and willingness to come to practise each time. Just thank you so much for being there. :)
To Essen, I'm very sorry that we hurt you last time. :( You always give dedication to pharmaband, although silently, and I can see and appreciate that. Thank you for being a better cellist for us, and I know first hand how tiring it is to bring the cello up and down every week. Thank you also for letting Man Ying borrow your cello. :)
To Jia Wei and Evelyn, my two favourite guitarists. :) Paiseh that for you two I did not help you guys much, and mostly you two just play on your own accord, but I just wanna say that, your guitars really put more life in pharmaband. Good job! ;)
To the singers: Carol, Nien Hwei, Terence, Sheng Hong, I know I'm very bad at helping you guys. TT So sorry that I don't have a cover for you guys when you requested it, and for the confusion and mistakes I make for you guys along the way as well. But, considering the amount of practises we had, I want to say that you guys are amazing singers. Pharmaband would not be as good without you guys. Hopefully I can get a chance to learn singing from you someday. xD
To Man Ying, thank you for willing to play cello for us in such a short notice! xP I hope you enjoyed the time you had with us, and keep making more music in the future. :))
Thank you also to those who helped out directly and indirectly. :)
Thank you all for your passion towards music, and your willingness to practise till 10-11pm without complaint. You guys are awesome. ^^
Hopefully we can have more performances together eh? 8)
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