looking back...

If you keep looking back, you lose track of what's ahead.

I find that when i play, i am very easily affected by the happenings of what's in front, a minor slip, a wrong tone, a mistake. and i end up losing concentration, losing track of what i should be doing at the end. that it turns out, i start well but end badly. how different it is when i forget the front, and treat what's over as over, and keep my focus there, right till the very end, if it is an end at all.

this is what i learnt about the chopin nocturne im currently playing:
Nocturne in C minor, Op. 48, No.1: In grandeur of conception, the C minor Nocturne is unrivaled among its companions. The work, composed in 1841, finds Chopin's genius blooming, reaching new vistas of emotional power. The Doppio movimento section has an almost Beethovenian ethical ring. For Kullak, "the design and poetic contents of this nocturne make it the most important one that Chopin created; the chief subject is a masterly expression of a great powerful grief."
http://www.chopinsociety.org/noct_rf.htm

indeed, how much more can a nocturne give, especially when its a night piece? that was my initial reactions to nocturnes. i always recall the famous no. 2 and generalise base on that. but the, i found the intensity in this one, the emotions just pour out of me. and it is in this that i find out a lot more about my emotions, about how i have been handling them. about how i can channel all my emotions into something that is seemingly harmless yet affects everyone: music.

a teacher (school teacher, not a piano teacher, but also a pianist nonetheless) once told me this (i hope u dun mind me putting this out...)
for you, the first time you played for me was the Brahms piece: you were technically very accomplished, very confident, knowing where all your notes, where all the keys are. But reading into the heart of the artist: you love your music a lot, but there's a kind of hate, too; your music is a vent for you, rather than just playing for pleasure. It was that violence in you that kinda startled me; since it was very different from how you appear to be (happy, bright, etc) normally. So yeah, I might be wrong, but it struck me already then that well, yeah, you do have this streak within you.Nothing wrong with that, since i believe that as an artist you should feel more and hurt more than other people (rather masochistic, i know). But essentially, all art is born from pain.

(yes i do keep all these things... its quite harmless actually so yar... not the other things that u said of course haha)

it seems to me that i have always been this way, showing others my happy bright side, and keeping deep within myself the angry, desperate, depressed me. it seems so natural to just lock all this up. this reminds me of star trek... the vulcans. i rmb watching voyager, and one episode they were on this planet in the delta-quardrant where the planet made violence illegal, but there were people who traded in violence telepathically. (kind of an abstract idea if you are not a star trek fan...) tuvok, who was the security chief on board voyager, tried to go down and hunt down these people to safe his crewmate, cheif enginner B'lanna. tuvok was a vulcan, and never ever portrayed any emotions. but when he showed his violence to the criminals telepathically, it actually crippled the criminal. such was the intensity of something locked up deep within, something dark and scary. am i becoming like that?

there's also this...
if you can hit your piano/whatever and not feel pain, that means you never really loved your art.

i remember two years back, in chs, when someone slammed the piano of the best piano in school. i dunno what made me react, but i actually shouted, and just ran off. i think i scared a few people because of my reaction. thinking back, did that piano actually mean that much to me? or was i just being childish?

i don't know. i guess i never will.

just now, at home, i gave way. the computer was pissing me off. both computers. i wanted to do some compo and yes they manged to have error everytime i press save. and that means all taht 2 hours plus of work in that afternoon was all lost, and i couldnt go on. both coms. i just shouted. threw a tantrum. cried. i was simply that bad. it was i guess half a year since this kind of things happened, when i let all the stress within me come out. then i stuffed myself with food. don't know why, but i always do that when im not happy. i actually ate 5 ang ku kuehs, 4 pieces of bread, dates, cheese, one cup of coffee... all at one go. gosh i feel sick now but i just did it in the afternoon. and i still had a big dinner. shees i think im seriously going crazy over all these. the last time i actually cried out and exclaimed to the world that im going crazy was when i had high fever and was feeling real bad. sighs.

i ended up not doing my compo.

and im not going to do my maths s tutorial at all. ive totally no mood, no energy, no concentration to do it. i dun care, im not going to touch all that anymroe. i cant handle so many subjects...

there are still decisions to be made. i cant make them. i cant make up my mind. its in a mess. nothing is ordered right now.

was still trying to go past bar 46 of ravel just now. its that hard. i wonder if i can realli go on.

played chopin again, and my tears just flowed. im seriously too soft.

played waldstein, didnt feel like C major at all. shld have played pathetique instead.

-there was a 5 minute gap between the last line and the next line-

gosh suddenly felt sick, went to throw up. i should never ever gorge myself again. i think i must take care of my health more. not doing all these stupid things that will shorten my life even more.

life is short. am i doing the right things? is want to do equal to have to do? is have to do equal to must do? i dunno. i seriously don't know. sighs.

the erhu seems so foreign to me now. i cant even play kong shan nicely. my notes are all over the place, bow is not gripped tightly. i dun even know what i am doing. i cant concentrate. ask me to play any piece for you it will jsut be notes.

sea fever keeps ringing in my head. i wonder what made me choose that poem, which i interpret as a longing for the sea, a love for it. another vocale member interprets it as longing for a love lost, a deeply passionate love. either way, my music, to me, really sounds like im longing for something hard. even though i practically rushed through that piece, doing it in just 8 hours, it is perhaps this 8 hours on christmas day that i missed something the most, and it just went into music.

sighs.

i need rest.