2nd Competition, State Level, Sekolah Sri KDU

Usual competition morning routine. Rehearsals were hectic as the competition days came nearer and nearer. Rehearsals during the holiday break, Ng Shyh Poh was there teaching us with Tyler Chin. Both very memorable teachers as they are really motivating, just like Susanna. Susanna was away travelling so, they took her place to train us. First day, Shyh Poh took the lead by teaching us all sorts of techniques. I was terrified by him honestly. Especially when I have not actually had the alto part solid.. well.. I did, I was just TOO SCARED to sing solo when he was doing some checking with the altos. Callie our pianist of the year was having her piano exam somewhere, so Tyler was playing the piano. I marvel him as he played our pieces almost flawlessly and it being the first time him playing it. He was a great pianist! And furthermore, he self learnt it on his own.

We worked hard and Shyh Poh was (hopefully) happy. Tyler (tenor), Shyh Poh (bass). Aaron Teoh (Tenor) , Tyler's extraordinarily cute friend was there too. Aaron and Tyler sings in the Young Kuala Lumpur Singers also known as YKLS under Susanna. Shyh Poh is from the Dithyrambic Singers directed by Ian Lim Kean Seng.

Competition day was 2 days after the Young Singer's Choral Festival (YSCF) and we all came back with sore throats and hoarse voices. Our performance to Susanna was bad. It was not up to standards and it was horrible! I still remember what had happened. All of us were terrified and disappointed. "What are your excuses?! sore throat?! Come on! Who ask y'all to scream so much at the festival??..... Do you know, your performance today is horrible! What happened to the team who won in Interschool?! I'm not even sure that your team would place at state level!"

I remembered every word. I'm not going to say who that person was, but whatever she said was all true. We were a let down and the competition was the next day.

We practiced harder determined to make ourselves better and not disappoint anyone anymore. It was our turn to perform now. The hall at Sri KDU was big and somewhat intimidating. Being a private school, the hall was very well equipped with a full grand piano, spotlights and what soever not. The only thing was, they didn't have condenser microphones. (Condenser mics are those mics which are special and pickup every sound around it and it is very very sensitive. These mics are designed specially for musical instruments and Choirs.)

Before we were up, we had a meditation session with Shyh Poh. Tracy was there too. Wen Chin (alto from Dithyrambic Singers) and Tracy is a soprano from the YKLS and also one of the Kuala Lumpur Children's Choir teachers.

We started our song and we tried our best. Out of the 7 altos, Me, Mable, Shao Jun, Hui Tze, Alyssa, and Siti Salwa, 4 of us were having bad throats and were barely able to sing. I tried as hard as I could to sing. It came out! yay! sound! harmony! But it was painful. The feeling of swallowing sand was scorching my throat. There were some points where I had to sing softer and do a little bit of lip singing. And also, we weren't standing in our voice groups, we were actually standing in mixed position. Yee Hsuen, sop 1 was on my left and Imran, bass was on my right. My harmony was much better at the time and I had improved a lot learning and paying attention in every rehearsal.

It was over and we took a bow and went off stage. We waited to all the other choirs performing. Some were good, some were not so good, some were very good. Finally, it was over. We were competing with Catholic High School Choir and SMK Kepong Choir. They are two choirs which are of very high standards in this competition. It was the first time the Seafield Choir was in the State level anyway. We weren't expecting any high ranks but we hoped at least the "Juror's choice award". They called out from third place......

Third Place goes to.....

SMK Catholic High School!

We had a shock of our lives. SMK Catholic H.S are one of the best choirs around. Who would have gotten 2nd place and first place!? Emotions going wild, we were holding hands and squeezing fists tightly. Please let us rank, Please let us rank was all that was going around in my mind. Everyone was nervous.

Second place goes to...

*Ohmigosh,Ohmigosh, I think I'm gonna faint!*

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SMK SEAFIELD!

Oh my gosh! I cried! That was the FIRST time I've ever had tears of joy!

The first thing I did was sms mom, dad, and sis of the news. OMIGOSH! I still cant believe it!. Called Tyler and he was extremely happy too! And of course, few years consecutive winners, SMK Sri Kepong. We were thrilled of the news, that we beat CATHOLIC HIGH! It was almost Impossible! We didn't expect that coming. At all!

First Competition

Wow, competition already? The usual competition routine. Wake up very early, get to school by 7. Leave by 8.30. All ready and geared up, we were wearing our blue 'baju kurung' for the girls and 'baju melayu' for the guys. Put our makeup on and we were all ready and set to go. The competition was held in Puchong some multi-purpose hall about 30 minutes away from school. Our turn was somewhere in the middle.

Being a short person, I was placed at the end of the first line. Holy crap!! I was the first to lead the team in. Oh boy my head was spinning up a tornado. I controlled myself and focus to sweep away the anxiety. I actually tripped on my skirt while walking up the side of the stage. The crowd weren't exactly quiet especially the children's choir which already competed earlier on in the first session. Susanna and Shyh Poh were somewhere in the audience watching and listening so as my Sister who came to support us.

Listening to the choir for the starting notes for the first number, Perwira and watching Seok Kuan the conductor steadily beating out the tempo for the song the piano started and we started singing. The starting of the song perwira started of with a big impact and had a dramatic and also grand beginning which drew the audience and crowd to a sudden silence. All eyes were fixed on us now. The next song was the West Side Story medley. Again conductor gave us the pulse of the song and also reminding us of the rapid emotion change of the medley

West Side Story medley started off with the first song 'America' It was a lively and fast song. The second song was 'One hand, one heart' third 'Somehow, someday, somewhere' Three different cocktail of emotions into one song. America started off with a fast beat and had to clap really loudly.

Finally! Results! They started to announce the Children's Choir category first. The winner was SJK (C) Lick Hung a Chinese Elementary school. The emcee took forever to get over with the speeches and etc. gosh. Get to it already would you?!?

3rd Place....

SMK Seksyen (insert name here)

2nd Place....

SMK USJ4

JUARA (WINNER)....

SMK SEAFIELD!

Oh my gosh! the feeling was overwhelming! We were jumping and screaming and shouting and I cant describe the feeling.

Beggining Life as a Choirholic

Oooooooo...Aaaaaa....Eeeeee... LaLaLaLaLa...What on earth are we doing?? Why does it sound so weired?? Its going higher! NO! I cant reach it! Those were the thoughts streaming through my mind for the first time listening and singing to the vocal warm-ups. For the first time I had done vocal warm-ups. Music was an alien language to me and Soprano? Alto? Tenor? Bass? what!? I had never taken music lessons before prior to this, other than the drums and guitar. Even that, its all somewhat play by ear. It was the first day of choir on a warm Friday afternoon. We had all gathered at the prefects room/choir room. Probably 100 people in that small,tiny cramp, stuffy place. Pn.Loh, Choir club teacher advisor had a small speech talking about the past achievements of the choir. I had no idea what was going on. After warm-ups, we were split into groups of 5 to get our range sorted out. First we went by fives, then twos and threes. It was a nerve-wrecking moment. Seriously. My heart was pounding against my chest and I felt dizzy when it came to my turn. I don't exactly remember my range but what I remember is that my lower range went further than my higher range. I was then placed with the altos. I was disappointed. Being a naive freshie, I taught that the sopranos were the supreme bunch of the choir and I felt that I wasn't good enough.

Alot of other things were going on during the meeting. I remember talking to both teacher advisors, Pn.Loh and Pn.Khasniati and at the time, Miss Ngoo about how much I like to sing and stuff. They also were looking for musicians of any instrument to list down their names and things. Obviously, piano dominated the number 1 most popular instrument, followed by guitar and I guess drums was the minority. Being a person who was a total tomboy in elementary school, I had a thing against piano. I've always taught that the piano was an instrument for girly-girls or for people who wants to appear fancy with all their music talk and blah blah. Man I was sooooo darn wrong about that.

I met Mabel. She was my first choir buddy and she happened to be the most friendly and helpful alto at the time. We chatted a little bit and she told me how a choir functions and what is SATB and things like that. Honestly, I was a delinquent member who was absent from choir for the first 3 weeks of training. That means, I had missed the first 6 important rehearsals cause I was too lazy. Until the 6th rehearsal. Mabel had persuaded me to join the interschool team. I agreed but I had no idea how the song was and auditions were the next day. I had no idea what had happened but I learnt the alto parts and I merely made it through for the auditions the next day. I was stuck to Mabel and she would help me a lot in helping me hold my part.

Susanna Saw, vocal coach for Seafield Choir was the one who had the auditions. She took all the altos who wanted to participate to sing only the alto part for the 'West Side Story Medley'. Another nerve wrecking moment. She scaled it down from 10, to 5,3,2. She stopped at 2. Thank goodness or else I would have fainted on the spot. With Mabel's help, I had gained a spot in the interschool team. The songs for the competition was half of 'West Side Story Medley' and 'Perwira' arranged by Ng Shyh Poh.

Trainings kept going on as usual and I took ever opportunity to learn my parts as well as I could and pay as much attention as I could when the coach was teaching. It was only 2 weeks before the competition when rehearsals started to get hectic. Afternoon sessions were to skip first 2 lessons of the day and Morning session students stayed back.

What happen to those who didn't make the team? They became reserves just in case of emergencies if someone could not make it, who is sick, undisciplined and those who didn't keep up to standards. Those who chose not to go for the interschool team would be in team B a.k.a Bronze team ( find out why later ).

My Virtual Choir Journal

Greetings to everyone reading this blog. The purpose of this blog is to document every memory I have of singing in any event. The other purpose of this blog is so that I can share my experiences which who ever interested. Feel free to leave a comment if you like, and I apologize for any misunderstandings or whatsoever. Whatever you read is original and is all based on what had happened. I will not be held liable for any misinterpretation of content. Enjoy!

Love, Kimberly Ong