Category Archives: Current Students

Blog, Current Students, Hunter Mill Music Studio, Listening Log, Listening Log Posts, Students Discussion

Listening Log Posts 2016-2017

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Dear Students,

Here we are starting a new Blog which is dedicated to our Listening Log. From now on, you are welcome to post your weekly ListeningListening Log Logs here in a form of comment to this blog post. You can choose to continue to bring your paper versions to the lessons, or, you may choose to do a paper one week, then do a post on this website for another week. Either way, each completed Listening Log will earn you a Sticker!

 

You will need to make your posts fit the following format:

Listening Log No.? by (your name)

First piece:

  1. Composer
  2. Title
  3. Composition
  4. Insert a YouTube link or a link from another site if you listened/watched on computer. Skip this step if you listened to radio in a car
  5. Your comments!

Second piece:

  1. Composer
  2. Title
  3. Composition
  4. Insert a YouTube link or a link from another site if you listened/watched on computer. Skip this step if you listened to radio in a car
  5. Your comments!
Alumni, Alumni Performances, Blog, Current Students, Current Students Performances, Hunter Mill Music Studio, Parents Discussion, Past performances, Students Performance Videos

A fantastic glitch in performance

Video

Two students of Hunter Mill Music Studio on stage!

Selvina Kong, piano

Fedor Ouspensky, conductor

South Lakes High School Orchestra

Please, note at 3:20 a “terrible” glitch! the pianist had a complete black-out memory slip, so devastating that she seemingly lost her place altogether. This is a very common situation for inexperienced (and very experienced!) performers. But keep watching, and pay attention to how much more relaxed and confident she gets after she finally makes a recovery from the event! and how poised and proud she is afterwards receiving the greeting from the audience. And how supportive and enthusiastic are the applause! 

Sure, when you go to a concert presented by professional artists, rarely something of this magnitude happens, but when it does… the audience actually LOVES it even better! Why? Because it makes the artists people, more human, not so much like remote idols covered in the glitter of glory.  Especially if the artist is actually a truly artistic and expressive musician:)

Below watch the recording from the same concert, this time edited. How do you think we get all those absolutely note-perfect recordings on labels? Hmmmmm….

Blog, Current Students, Current Students Pages, Current Students Performances, News, Parents Discussion, Students, Students Performance Videos

Michelle’s Unnerving Practice and result

Video

Michelle’s Unnerving  practice on the morning of her winning concerto competition performance

(Story by her dedicated and nervous mom, Sharon Yip) …..

Michelle had been practicing very hard on playing the Shostakovich Piano Concerto, did a pretty good job in recording (see the video posted), and was excited to go to the concerto competition. The day before the competition, she was feeling very sick, coughing and having fever. The doctor diagnosed her with bronchitis, and put her on antibiotics. “Oh no”, she said, “why do I get sick at the worst time?” We were all disappointed and didn’t know what to do. The next morning, she was feeling better after taking the medicines. After consulting Anna, we decided to let her try playing at the competition.
Michelle had been practicing very hard on playing the Shostakovich Piano Concerto, did a pretty good job in recording (see her video posted), and was excited to go to the concerto competition. The day before the competition, she was feeling very sick, coughing and having fever. The doctor diagnosed her with bronchitis, and put her on antibiotics. “Oh no”, she said, “why do I get sick at the worst time?” We were all disappointed and didn’t know what to do. The next morning, she was feeling better after taking the medicines. After consulting Anna, we decided to let her try playing at the competition. So……

She did a rehearsal at home.

As you can see from the video, she made bunch of mistakes, sounded messy in many places. She was embarrassed and frustrated (take a look at her facial expression when making big mistakes, and at the end …) She said:

“this is terrible! I’m not going to win anything!”

I reminded her about what her teacher always told her –

try your best, enjoy the playing, and don’t worry about the result.

She finally decided to go. The result? She followed her teacher’s advice, tried her best, and won the first place 🙂