The last weekend before March 2022 goes away into history. What shall I talk about today then?
Let's start with some good news. We are finally starting rehearsals proper---we have actually started meeting up as a group at the beginning of the month, but having not rehearsed together for two years or so, we spent the first three weeks just sorting out our instruments. The cupboards housing them were opened up and aired, the cobwebs were metaphorically (and sometimes literally!) dusted, the mould on some of the old wooden instrument cases were treated with anti-mould and left to air, strings were checked on and replaced/retuned, and the works.
Sifu is now at a stage of his life where he can come back to play with us again, and I am really happy about it.
Of the ``core pillar'' players, we got back about 60% of them or so, the remaining 40% being less able to commit their time due to the changes in their life that have occurred during the past two years of pandemic nonsense. Naturally, the more transient members who were students have attritted away, hopefully just for now, but given the entire drought of actual extra-curricular activities (calling it ``co-curricular activities'' is what I now see as yet another fig-leaf manoeuvre to pretend that the school system in SIN city truly raises people who know how to both play and work hard) involving group activities, I really am not expecting these numbers to return any time soon.
TGCO isn't flashy, it isn't large, and it isn't some award-winning and highly visible organisation compared to some of the other community orchestras (Chinese instruments or otherwise) out there. None of us are true professional musicians, and we definitely lack the resources and the connections that those who do it professionally have, mostly due to our ethos of keeping the orchestra as a place for those who are interested in playing to gather and play to their abilities, without demanding superlative qualifications.
Only time will tell what will happen. For now, we're just putting the band back together so to speak. That thirty-year anniversary concert isn't likely to be happening, and maybe we'll see if we can live up to our fortieth instead.
It's always good to be playing the dizi again in an orchestral setting. Playing alone has its perks, but ultimately music is meant to be played together as a group---no single instrument can sound better alone as compared to being with others in a well-composed piece. And a performance group is not really one if it doesn't perform---that's the immediate goal that I think we are striving for. Maybe once we get our first performance post-pandemic out, we can start to bring in some more members, for however long they choose to play with us.
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In other news, I had to finally retire my music backpack, the one that I have used since 2015(?) to move the flute/piccolo stands, flute (Azumi and then later on, Aurelia), piccolo (usually Picc, sometimes S.O.S.), and scores. After more than 6 years, the main zipper have finally given way completely. The bag was used extensively over the years, being taken out weekly on rehearsal/performance excursions. A side zipper's slider had failed and was replaced, the pleather handle flaked off and had a new fabric cover sewn on it, one of the two sliders in the main zipper failed the interlocking and was left unused while the other did the rest of the tour, and the elastic that held the flute box had loosened and was recently replaced. And now, finally, even that last slider failed to hold create the interlocks properly, with the only fix left being a complete replacement of the entire zipper, which was... just not going to happen.
The gig bag lasted as long as it did for the price I paid for. It did its job well and faithfully, and it was truly time to retire it.
o7
Some might find it dumb that I can get sentimental over things, but well, in a world where no one really knows what each person is thinking (even with letters that were supposed to share what one was thinking), the only things we have left are the things that we exchange and hold on to. And for the things that served as our tools of the trade, for whatever trade it is, there's a certain part of it that has become an extension of ourselves to the point that we unconsciously grow an attachment to it. I can't say that I take the greatest of care for my stuff, but I do generally try to do so. It isn't the fact that I spent my own money on them that makes me treasure what I have, but that having these things working means that I could do what I wanted to do with them more effectively and painlessly that makes me want to treasure them more.
The new music backpack is also from ROI MUSIC, as brought in by MusicGear. It definitely has seen some improvements over the years, with the most obvious being the `X'-stitching pattern on the interior that holds the padding together (compared to the original vertical-only stitches). The material does feel a little stiffer, but it's not clear if it's only because it is new or if there was something that was changed.
I suppose only time will tell.
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The Great Aquarium has its water filled in, and the kelp has all been harvested. I tweaked the deepslate smelter into a kelp smelter by replacing the furnace with a smoker---I didn't realise that the kelp could be treated as a food item and therefore the smoker would smelt it faster (by time) as compared to the furnace. From that tweak, and leaving things to run throughout the day, I have completely smelted all the kelp.
I took part of today searching for a Ocean Monument. I needed to find it to get the materials needed to make that conduit in my Great Aquarium. Well, I found it---it was a ways away from the frozen river where I had dug up my ice to fill the Great Aquarium with. After building a nether-portal in the overworld, I cleared a path towards the nearest minecart station (the frozen river exit) and built a cover over it in the nether to prevent the Magma Cube spawns from clogging up the place.
And that's about it for this post. Till the next one.
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