Interviewing Talented Musicians at Aula Simfonia Jakarta (And Tips on Learning Musical Instruments)
Someone said to me the other day, ‘You don’t seem to be blogging as often now that you’re in Jakarta. Not as often as when you’re back in Singapore.’
Sigh. I do think so too.
Oh how I would LOVE to be writing MORE (I’ve got tonnes of topics in my head!)
But really, I admit, juggling everything is tough work.
I love everything that I do, but in the end, it comes down to time too.
I have so little time to do everything that I’d LOVE to do.
(which btw, includes sewing, crafting, baking, painting, reading, teaching, and hmm … quite a few other stuff! =)
A dilemma many of you face daily too, I’m sure!
…
ANYWAY.
My main reason for my not blogging as often as I had hoped?
On top of the usuals (two kids at school, housework, cooking, being stuck in traffic jams daily?), I’m also kept busy by shoots, interviews, planning of programs, etc.
Like yesterday, I was privileged to have interviewed two oh-so-talented musicians who performed their New Year’s Concert 2014 at Aula Simfonia Jakarta!
Let me share with you a bit about them today.
Raphael Schluesselberg currently is a conductor and is the Music Director of the Vienna Academic Philharmonic, who has travelled the world to conduct major orchestras and music performances.
And one of the things he said was, ‘Aula Simfonia Jakarta is one beautiful concert hall, with great acoustics! Great to see wooden floors here! You can sit far from the musicians, but still feel like you’re next to them when you watch their performance on stage!’
(Thank God we have such a concert hall in Jakarta that can make us so proud!)
The other musician I spoke with was Rama Widi, Indonesia’s first male professional harpist.
Yep, a male harpist!
Here are two things that I personally learned from what he shared with me:
– Talent alone is not enough. One needs to invest in HARD WORK.
On a typical day, Rama practices between five to seven hours! And this is how he pushes himself so that he can play a music piece perfectly.
I think this is something that we parents can share with our kids too!
ie. We should not feel ‘we are good enough, no need to try harder’ too easily. We must discover and pursue our passion, explore our talents and give our best effort, to our best capability.
Work hard and do our best.
We should not feel ‘we are good enough, no need to try harder’ too easily– Never think that we can only learn to play an instrument when we OWN the instrument.
Rama shared how back in Vienna he had friends who played the harp amazingly well, and … they didn’t even own the instrument!
So how did they practice, you wonder?
They went to their Uni and practice there!
(THAT to me, is called determination and dedication to something that one loves to do!)
He shared how, NOT owning an instrument (especially one as big as a harp!) must NOT be your excuse for feeling that you are unable to learn to play it!
Good food for thought.
So, there you go.
Quite a full weekend for all five of us (yes, all three kiddos went along with us)
But, I’m thankful for the experiences.
And I’m thankful that my family is with me throughout the day too.
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Hope you had a wonderful weekend with your loved ones!
