Reader's notes and e-mail

Dear all,

A reader who has requested to remain anonymous, e-mailed us with some comments and points which we feel are important for the rest of our readers to know. It's extracted as it is (except that the name and certain portions which he/she has requested to be omitted or amended). Do read this e-mail and the reply. Thank you! :)

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Hi there,

Have read your interesting blog on this year's SYF Choir competition. Came across the one on Northland Sec, and my good friend happens to be their accompanist. Although she doesn't really care what people write about her, I do wish you could give her a little more credit than saying she's ' a mess'. She is a soon FRSM in piano performance holder and has given workshops in Lasalle. How can she be ' a mess' ? Do you know she is not a teacher from Northland, but a total outsider ? And do you know that she only got the scores just ONE Week before the SYF? And do you know that she only had TWO rehearsals with the choir before the actual competition ? And do you know that she is doing this so that Northland can get a chance to perform, as without a pianist, they could only withdraw from the competition ? And how many people do you know who have the guts to do a sight-reading performance at VCH ?

And I see a pattern in your reviews, that if the choir sucks, so is the accompanist. Is it always the fact? I was there myself, and you are right about the piano part and the singing part were not together at times. But were you able to tell that the pianist's rhythm and tempo were the correct ones and she was trying to 'pull' the choir back to the correct rhythm and tempo ? One thing she was careless with was that she has forgotten that the choir only obeys the conductor. She has done more than 100 formal accompaniments ( for exams and performance ), and she was able to help 'correct' the candidates' tempo when they got nervous during the exams. And regarding why the SET piece was so slow, it wasn't. She was playing the tempo which was written on the score ( 132 i think ), so she's not slow, it's other schools who went faster. The conductor wanted her to start off with 132, what can she do ? You can't blame her !

I'm a LRSM piano holder, and I admit I don't have the guts to learn those pieces in less than a week ( she has a full-time job and doesn't have all day to practise !), have 2 rehearsals and perform at VCH. I think she is really great to be able to do all these and yet didn't play a single wrong note ! I think I would have made mistakes for such short notice and few rehearsals.

And I think it's not fair to compare between schools. Northland's conductor is just a Grade 8 piano holder and he's a Math teacher, not a proper Choir teacher. I believe many elite schools have proper teachers to train the singing [edited as requested by the reader] is gonna be much higher than other schools who have a coach who is a P.E. teacher with just a Grade 5 piano background. So although Northland didn't sing as well as most of the other schools, I admire their courage and hard work. They did stay back in school for several hours for practice. They put in effort too. Just that they are not as smart and talented as students of other schools and they are not lucky to have a good instructor. I do believe they can improve over the years. They have achieved Bronze for a few times before, all they need now is time and opportunity.

So I do hope you can edit your blog a bit and do give credit to the pianist and maybe comment in a more tactful way. For example, instead of saying the piece was way too slow, you could say' it would be much better if the tempo was slightly faster so to give the piece a more cheerful taste'....etc. I'm not here to criticise you ( although I've seen some people on your tagboard who weren't very happy with your comments on their choir costumes ), I'm just here to give you a background of the Northland accompanist, coz I really really think she deserves better than ' a mess '. I'm sorry if I sound rude in any way in this email. I'm writing very sincerely and hope you can understand.

Highly appreciated if you could edit your blog on Northland and make it more positive. I thank you on behalf of the accompanist and the Northland Choir.

- Anonymous

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Hi Anonymous,

Thank you for your e-mail. I was in no way offended by its contents. In fact, it's good to know the events which happened 'behind the scenes'.

I was admittedly rather harsh on the 1st and 2nd days of competition, and the writing was as well. It was just that Northland performed in a bunch of B, S and G schs but was relatively weaker than them. While I sympathize with how conductors from neighbourhood schs have to manage their limited resources (i had an ex-teacher who also conducted one such sch and I admire her resilience for doing so), what we hear on the day of competition is what we get. However, I've heard schools in a similar circumstance do alright (with a few problems here and there) during SYF.

Having read your comments below, I admire the accompanist's courage to perform under seemingly adverse and an almost impossible situation. The reason I said it was a mess was that the choir veered very much off the speed of the accompanist. They were rushing, yes, but it's more often than not, better to rush together than be off-sync. My biggest problem with them was pitching, it was difficult to not pick out these problems if an objective critique was to be given.

Nonetheless, I adhere to my comments on the blog entry and will not make any edits. I wrote what I heard, and that's how people judge, as harsh as it may seem. However, I'll be publishing this post shortly to allow people to realise the work the accompanist had to put it. I believe it's important to have another angle in a situation like this.

Finally, the choirs which were lacklustre, often had a bad set piece. However, if you read the comments, not all 'messy' comments were targetted at the accompanist but rather the inner voice movements in the choir. 'Messy' comments explicitly meant for the pianist were indicated as such. :)

Once again, thank you for your e-mail and hope that once the dust settles you'll be a reader of this blog.

Regards,
Yeshamiel