One of the most stressful days of my life

I had my first auditions in Antwerp and I think it was one of the most stressful days of my life. First there was a music theory which was divided into two parts. There was a listening part where you had to write melodies that were played, recognise intervals, say wether a chord or scale is major/minor (+form). The second part was singing one of the pieces one was supposed to prepare at home. I had gotten the pieces only two days earlier and I wasn't ready at all. That is why I couldn't get a single note of my throat. It might have been one of the worst moments of my life.

The second part was where I played infront if a jury, pieces I prepared on the percussions. In total I played 4 pieces: Whoopie (B. Quartier) on the marimba, the first etude of the 'Douze études pour Caisse-Claire' (J. Delécluse) on the snare drum, etude number 15 (R. Hochrainer) on the timpani and Solo #7 (R. Latham) on the drums. Two pieces I played practically without mistakes (marimba and drum piece) and the first two I played my hands were literally shacking so I made small mistakes here and there. Also when I'm stressed I put too much pressure on the sticks and the sounds isn't as good as it should be. The jury was expressionless so it was hard to know wether what I was playing was good or not. I'll just have to wait for the results and maybe do the theory part eventually again.

Feeling almost like a rock star

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For some conservatories one is required to send recordings of songs for the selections to the auditions. So that's what I did. A professional guitarist who teaches is the conservatory of Ghent came with his recording stuff, consisting of like studio mics and his computer. After the recording, he made some changes in the sound so that it sounds best but he didn't change anything I had done. I felt like a real musicians doing this recording because that's what I see myself doing in the future. The two recordings are on my myspace page. They are two drum solos.

Second time I go to a musical

London has a large variety of musicals, so I decided to go and see one and I chose: We will rock you. It was based on the songs of the rock legends, Queen. What I liked about the musical was the singing as they were amazing singers with stunning voices. Also as I like the Queen, it was fun to hear musical versions of rock classics such as 'We are the Champions'. What I didn't like though was the storyline of the musical. It was about the future of music but showed in a very wierd way. I agreed on one point though, that in the future there will be less and less instruments as everything is beginning to be controled by computers. All in all the musical was funny but some of the jokes didn't seem natural. For example they called our planet in the future: Planet Gaga.  

The Finnish country star

So after a Mojito, we hit the road to go and see a finnish country singer. She is called Paula Koivuniemi. Her show took place at a festival called “Tangomarkkinat”, which is a a festival of finnish tango. There are singers who fight to be the so called king or queen of tango, and on top of that there are other performances and stands which sell gadgets and so on. My first feeling about this concert was: “Oh no, this is going to be terrible”. By expectations were proved wrong because this country star is actually not that bad. She seemed to have never ending energy even though she is well over her sixties. She jumped up and down even though the audience was even older than her and wasn't being as crazy as the audience at a Justin Bieber concert. I was by far the youngest, I was actually a bit embarrased to be honest. The crowd started to sing along when they got really into it, it was fun to watch middle-age people or older dancing and singing with the music. I prefered Paula Koivuniemi's newer songs more than her old ones, I guess this is because they are more modern and have more of a beat to them.

My Percussion Concert

So I had a percussion concert at my music academy where all students who play the percussions played their pieces. I played all the pieces I've practiced this year which means 6 pieces. I played a piece on the marimba, Whoopie, one on the vibraphone, Cross, one on the set-up, one on the snare-drum 1. etude from the 'Douze études pour Caisse-Claire', one on the timpani 15. etude of R. Hochrainer and one on the drumset Solo #7. These are the pieces I've also prepared for the entrance exams of the conservatories next year. My favourite piece to play was defenitly the drum piece because the drums is my favourite instrument out of all instruments ever. I noticed a few mistakes here and there. But it's good that this concert took place because now I know what are the things I have to work on. Infact the next percussion lesson we went through half of the pieces to check the things that i need to improve. I was meant to play last but I asked to go first because I had school work to do. Playing infront of an audience is always a good experience and everytime you learn something more. At this stage, I've done so many performances that I don't get nervous anymore, it's becoming more and more a routine. Obviously it depends in what situation one is, but most of the times the most important thing is to enjoy the music and concentrate on what you are doing without thinking about the size of the audience.  

Watching an interesting singing competition

I was looking over the tv programme to see what I wanted to watch during this Easter break. I came across this singing competition called the Voice of Finland. It is a new kind of programme that takes places in several countries such as the USA and it has the same idea behind it as Idols or X-factor but I think it's much better. To begin with it's not all about the looks unlike these other programmes mentioned before. Everything is about the voice. There are four mentors which themselves are famous musicians who represent a different genre of music: country, R&B, pop and rock for instance. These star mentors chose their team without seing the contestants but they have to judge if they are good enough by the voice. This means that the winner of this competition might not be the future Miss Universum but has a voice worth 1000 times more than the looks. Also usually the people who try out for this competition already have some experience in singing, have done concerts and so on unlike the 8-year-olds who show up at the auditions in X-factor. I was especially interested in this years show because one of the contestants is a singing teacher my sister had the pleasure to be taught by at one summer camp. She sang wonderfully, she has a very warm voice which in the same time is very strong, she reaches very high notes but also low keys. She is just very talented.

One of the best concerts ever

This is the week-end I've waited for since last Christmas when I got concert tickets to go and see Coldplay. The concert took place in Hannover in the football stadium. It was very well organised, unlike in Belgium, everyone was standing properly in a cue and walked in calmly without pushing each other. The first ones to come were also the first ones to go in. In London there is also this kind of system, I think this is great. Coldplay is one of my favourite bands and seeing them live was a dream come true. The opening acts were Charli XCX and Marina and the Diamonds. They were both good. Later I had a listen to their albums and I think they were better live than on cd.

When we entered they gave us bracelets to wear during the concerts. These bracelets made different colour lights. This was a very good idea because it made everyone in the stadium part of the concert even if one was sitting at the far back. We were standing only a couple of meters away from the catwalk. They played all their big hits and there is not one song they played i didn't enjoy. This was the last concert of their tour. At one point the singer through his guitar on the ground and everyone remained mouth open. The singer was very energetic, he was jumping up and down the whole time. I thought it was very nice how some songs were also calm with the singer, Chris Martin, playing the most wonderful piano I've ever seen. It was vey colourful just like their latest album, Mylo Xyloto, and the pictures that appeared on the screens behind the stage.

If there is a band that doesn't perform with play-back and are real musician every single one of them, it's the British great band Coldplay. The reason I like them is that they are unique, they have their own style. Not all songs sound the same, the songs have meanings and they are even better live than they are on cd. One can see they are real performers having fun on stage and they were able to connect with the public. Fame hasn't ruined them like it has other artists. The singer had also a good sense of humor and when the last song was being played, I was very sad. They also performed a couple of songs on a smaller stage nearer to the people in the back so that everyone was a part of the concert. What I also liked was that the drummer didn't only play the drums but also other percussions such as the timpani. The timpani is usually used in classical music and having it in indie rock was amazing. The concert was absolutely great.