Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Music appreciation

Post 124 Audience clapping

Audience clapping is a sign of appreciation and encouragement for speakers, musicians, dancers, stage performers, sportsmen, athletes, or field games players. However I wish to comment on audience clapping at concerts given by musicians like pianists, violinists, and also by orchestras.

When a pianist is playing a concerto and in between movements, some audience may think it has ended and starts to clap as if they are attending a pop concert. This is lacking in etiquette and perhaps just ignorance on the part of first time goers to such concert. Their clapping at the wrong time reflects their shallow knowledge in music appreciation. Obviously that would have spoilt the enjoyment of educated audience who know not to clap during a pause between movements.

Music appreciation on classical pieces involves the understanding of the composers, their background and style of plays. Classical symphonies of Mozart, Beethoven and other great composers generally have four movements. The clapping of hands in between movements is therefore uncalled for.

Music is appreciated for the joy it brings to us.

27 December 2011

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Needs and wants

Post 123 “Let your needs not be in want, and your wants not be in need”

My first lesson on needs and wants in basic economics has given me a lasting impression. Clothing, food, shelter, and transportation are our needs while goods and services are wants that we wish for but can do without. One may settle for ordinary clothes instead of the designed and the branded ones; for simple food instead of sumptuous meals; for a roof over one’s head without asking for a mansion; and for a reliable transportation rather than cars that cost more than an ordinary house.

One’s appetite for needs and wants decides one’s happiness index, especially when one tries to keep up with the Joneses. When one uses one’s richer neighbour as a benchmark for social status or the accumulation of material wealth, one is deemed to have manifested one’s inferiority complex. A Chinese saying has it that when one compares oneself with another person, one will die of anger. It is better for one to live a life based on one’s resources in accordance with the proverb of cutting one’s coat to suit one’s cloth.

There are other things that one can happily pursue in life: reading, writing, listening to music, sports, and other lifelong learning activities. They are ‘needs’ necessary to make one’s life fulfilling, and ‘wants’ that are easily available.

“Let your needs not be in want, and your wants not be in need” – Ho Nee Yong

20 December 2011

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Hunger is the best sauce!

Post 122 Hunger breeds discontent

I asked my Malaysian friend who has been staying overseas for 40 years to comment on Western and Oriental food. He says that both types of food have their own merits and he likes both. To him he loves Western food, like meat pies, steak, Cornish pasties, ham, sausages, fish & chips, steaks, mushrooms, bake beans, bacon and omelette which are all relatively cheap in Germany. However he says that Oriental food has more variety and he misses Satay, Curry, and Rendang very much. He also loves buffet lunch and dinner in Malaysia where he can have all the varieties of food at one sitting.

It is noted that charges for buffet meals have gone up significantly due to global food shortage. While in Buenos Aires In the early 1990s, my friend took me to a Chinese restaurant for a buffet dinner. The restaurant owner was from Shanghai China. We only paid USD7.00 per person to eat all that we could from more than a hundred dishes served. However there was an extra charge for bottled water. As some cuisines were a bit salty, diners could not help but had to fork out another USD2.00 or 3.00 to pay for the water. The owner was shrewd by not charging higher to include free drinks. He played on the psychology of customers who were attracted by low charges.

The rich and the famous may compare notes on their experiences on expensive food and drink; while the abject poor worry about their next meal. However when one is hungry, every food will be fine. Hunger is the best sauce!

As hunger breeds discontent, leaders know that hungry people do not listen to their political reasoning.

13 December 2011

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Music prodigies

Post 121 Talents to be admired

In September 2010, I received an email from a friend in Germany who told me about a recording he made at home from VTV4,Vietnam. In Germany he is able to watch TV programmes from any country he wants. In the email were photographs of young participants taken from the DVD he had made out of the recording. My friend, who is very knowledgeable and appreciative of classical music, hits, folk songs and oldies, said that many would not have expected this to have happened in a Third world country.

It was a very impressive piano contest organised by Dang Thai Son, the Vietnamese famous pianist who won the Chopin International Piano Contest in 1980. The contest was for whiz kids or prodigies from Asia like China, Malaysia, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Korea, and Indonesia. It was won by the Japanese Kuroki Yukini, 6 years old, playing Chopin Variations on a German Air in E Major.

I have always admired the musical talents of violinists, pianists and the like. How
could they remember the musical scores so well and play so expressively with agility. Indeed virtuosos who are music smart are extremely sensitive to pitch, rhythm, tone or melody of various forms. The young pianists gathered in Vietnam were real prodigies.

Anything that is beautiful, in any form, will be appreciated. Einstein, the scientist, played the violin with such passion that one of his female audience gushed that, ‘he had the kind of male beauty that could cause havoc.”

6 December 2011