Thursday, December 27, 2007

"Humor is always based on a modicum of truth. Have you ever heard a joke about a father-in-law?" - Dick Clark

***

I was just at the worst concert I've ever been to - Coda 3 (the alumni band of RI, RGS and RJC). From what I've heard of Singapore school bands, they aren't very good (I suspect this is because brass and wind instruments are harder to control than strings, which is why bad brass often sinks orchestras, so when you make them support the piece it's easy to go kaput), but this took the cake.

The band had 2 volume levels - loud and very loud. The brass was simply awful, with little control.

The treatment of many songs was bland. The blending was bad (the small ensembles were somewhat less bad).

It might be surprising that the worst player was the oldest (and presumably the most experienced), but then again the oldest would also have been away from playing in a proper band for the longest period of time.

Cunning Linguist is trying to hoodwink me into going for her alumni band concert in January; presumably it will be better than what I witnessed tonight.


MFM adds: "for the foster variations, it was impossible to hear anything coherent towards the end. the oboe was out of tune"


Addendum: Angst:

"you havent seen coda 1 and 2 yet then
coda 3 is better compared to the previous 2 already I think

and you havent heard tj band yet
they performed a very funeralistic military march last year"