third class to first..

heyy..

here's my sharing.. recollections.. its long..sorry ar..

if you still remember (those j2s).. guitar practices were often very uninteractive (my opinion la).. come and listen to president (JC) talk..and use his "guitar-manual" to teach us.. can say our batch of ensemble members were rather shy and soft-spoken.. even the "wai-keat-hyperness" was rather mild in 2006.. guitar was a "come-and-go" cca.. we came for 2h.. and left soon after..

june06 camp came and we had fun interacting with the j2s(2006).. the guys climbing over the gate to bathe at heritage view's swimming pool toilet for hot water bath.. watching corspe bride in the middle of the night..meant to be some "scary movie".. had a mini-guitar competition among the camp groups.. amazing how we learned a song in 2 days.. amazing race at IMM

dec06 camp will be something I WILL NEVER EVER FORGET.. we learnt treize jours en france in 1 day.. guitar 2 had so much trouble learning it..that even JC gave up on us.. we burnt opposing group's strings in a game at the sunken gallery.. and not forgetting..
mr choo: Joel..higher higher (for the benefit of the j1s.. the coach asked me to tune higher..i din understand his instructions.. i raised my guitar higher and higher).. i became the joke of the camp.. and also the mini-skit presentation we had =)

2007 soon came by..

honestly our guitar ensemble as a whole wasnt really organised at the beginning (my opinion).. the cca booth/display only involved the exco..and the rest of the ensemble had no part in the recruitement of j1s.. cant really blame anyone..after all.. it was a busy and hectic 1st week of sch.. OGLs were away.. everything in sch was very messy.. organisation of it all wasnt as easy..

and of course.. there was the welcome tea for the j1s at the viewing gallery..
it was our first time performing infront of an audience..so terrified..scared.. nervous.. what songs we played? only one-gavotte. The j1s asked for another song.. we said.. Winter Sonata still "learning-in-progress"

of course.. time passed day by day.. and the JAMs session spoted talented guitarists to join the syf ensemble.. they came and joined us in practices.. personally.. i felt that we j2s werent bonded together enough (we were still in our cliques)..now with the j1s in.. it will be harder to make us gel as a team in 2-3 mths for syf..

lets not forget.. we were invited to perform at the CNY concert.. we played the winter sonata video before we started our performance.. my friend said tat it was actually not good playing that video..cause we only made ppl compare our music with that of the clip shown before our performance.. and i think the performance was something that i wanna forget actually..

but that "failed performance" turned out to be that crucial turning point for the ensemble. i felt that all of us became more serious during practice.. kaung came up with the "small-ensembles" initiative.. 2 guitar 1s with 2 guitar 2s and 2 guitar 3s play together to let the rest of the ensemble hear.. kaung said that we will play to him one by one (i panic...which made me frantically memorise the whole score in 1-2days..hehe) ...we signalled the need for a recital..thus beginning the journey of planning one out.. guitar 2 started to have sectionals on mondays.. and me and yizhen made great improvements through these small group sectionals.. i still remb that that period was one of the most stressful times for claire and kaung..trying to correct our technique, tempo and dynamics (its amzing how bar 16 of gavotte has be played so so so so many times)

for me.. comments by my friends abt our performance at the cny concert(i shall deem them as constructive ones) only made me more determined to practice hard because i din wanna pull the ensemble down..
"are you sure u're playing those 2 songs for syf?" ...
"i could hear different ppl playing at diff times"..

i still remb.. we started to increase our guitar prac from twice a week..to 3 times a week.. increasing the intensity.. increasing the productivity of each session..

i was so caught up in my sch work.. guitar practice..that around 30days before the recital.. i realised that nothing had been planned yet.. i started to get jeanny to design the ticket..and aditya to design the ppt for publicity..

you could say that i was really lost.. i din know where to start and how to begin the planning.. i din know how to call in more j2s to join in the planning (cause it was the term exams).. the tickets started to take shape and was printed in the midst of the term exams.. when i began to feel really lost.. i thank God that meiping and pauline saw me so stressed..and came to me and take up some of the stuff to do..

glenn, nandar and pauline drafted a whole speech for the emcees..which took up alot of their time..

kaung and claire worked very hard to improve our guitar playing as a whole.. they tried all kinds of ways to improve the "re-bra-toe".. and of course.. guitar 1s and 2s.. off beat!!! o my goodness.. i can never every forget that off beat..

1 week before the recital..i still remb nathania say.."i've been to many sch recitals..their deco super nice".. let the girls deco la! kaung said.. ya.. the arts night deco was super nice.. and qiu xuan say.. LEAVE THE DECO TO GUITAR1! wat turned out in the end was a mind-blowing deco layout man..

j1 ushers/logistics/mini-gifts for sac and tpjc worked hard in the short span of 1 week.. as all the duties were last minute given to them..which im really really grateful for..


the recital was a success in many ways. Ppl started to take notice of guitar.. many constructive comments were made ..performing experience was gained..overall..the recital was a great morale booster and i must put this.. it was THE event that brought all of us..j1s and j2s.. together much much more..

of course the exchange prog at tpjc and the tpjc recital also had a similar effect.. it gave us a chance to interact and get to know each other..

and not forgetting the whole week running up to D-day..
we practiced our hearts out..we started to move our bodies ..in my words ... " express and feel the love so awkwardly that it doesnt feel natural..but looks really good"...
the help-each-other-write-encouragement papers on the wall.. the many well wishes from the various ccas..
minyu and qiuxuan for sacrificing their "time-to-study-skillA-bio-spa" to give some female opinions of the tie for the guys before we purchased them.. they went home at like 10pm when their paper was the next day!
the CELEBRATION organised by the j1s..

the rest.. you all know.. D day came.. and went.. we now return to our normal lives.. the very day of the syf (even before we played on stage).. we had already turned the ensemble from third class to first.. before we obtained the results..we had already brought the ensemble from third class to first ( i dont mean that our seniors made the ensemble 3rd class.. its not them..it was us..we were not at all prepared for syf when we took over last yr.. we were really..at the lowest)


we can now proudly say that.. with the help of acjc ($600 guitars).. Mr choo (coach).. Ms Leong and Ms choo.. and under the leadership of kaung..

we have brought ACJC guitar from third world to first.. the gold with honours varifies this point.. dont u agree?