I really should be asleep.

But there was one thing I wanted to post about before I went.

On Saturday, Eri and I went to Bic Camera to look at digital pianos. After nearly an hour of sitting down at various models, testing them out, and weighing all the options, I bought one.

It’s awesome.
I played it for a good twenty or so minutes, to get a good feel for it. The touch is nice, and the keys have a nice weight to them. There were a few that were really hard to press, and since my piano at home is pretty light, I didn’t want something that was going to be vastly different.

Naturally, it’s touch sensitive (wouldn’t have it any other way) and has all three pedals. The damper pedal is the most important for me, but it’s nice to have a fully functional digital piano. Some perks are that it has sixty demo songs and comes with a score book containing the music for a lot of them, a few different sound options, a duet option (so the keyboard is basically split into two, but at the same octave… pretty interesting), the ability to record, and a couple different sound settings (grand piano, electric piano… nothing out there).

It came with the stand and the music stand, but the bench wasn’t included. I didn’t buy one yet, because I figure I can just use one of my kitchen chairs. But in the future, I might get one. We’ll see how it goes. I have enough points on my Bic Camera card to pay for the bench. But, I’m also thinking of getting headphones, so I can play at those ridiculous hours that I like to play at. Like 2am.

The problem came when we went to pay for it. We had the slowest man in history waiting on us (yes, he rivals the Deli boy). THEN he messed up the payment. I originally wanted to put 50000 yen on my Visa, and pay the rest cash. But he messed up, and it ended up that I wasn’t able to use my Visa for it. Luckily, I had extra cash and my MasterCard, so I did end up being able to pay for it… but omg it was ridiculous.

HE EVEN CLICKED THE PEN ‘ON’ SLOW. Eri does the funniest impression.
We were at that point where we couldn’t help but giggle, because he was just so ridiculously slow. Then when he messed up, he didn’t even sincerely apologize. He didn’t care. He just said the stanard, すみません。間違いました。 -_-

His supervisor ended up coming over and finishing it off.

And the kicker? It won’t be delievered until August 18th.
Apparently, it takes 5 business days for them to get it.
However, next week, they’re on vacation or something. So there are no deliveries.
Meaning that it won’t come until the 18th.

It’s not a big deal, because Kat is coming on Sunday, so it’s not like I’m going to want to sit at my piano and play while she’s here, haha. But it’s still a bit annoying.

Regardless, I’m so excited. My mum gathered a bunch of my books to send with Kat, and now that I have more free time than, well, ever, I can hopefully get back to the level I used to be at. Maybe even improve.

I’m even going to practice my technical stuff.
That’s right.

My mum told Bev that I got one, and she was happy. So, I’m excited to call her and tell her about it.

And on that note, I will conclude my piano post with a photo:

For some reason, it didn’t post my last post to my LJ. I wonder why. :/

So all day, I’ve been thinking about this piano thing.
Do I get one? Do I not? If I get one, will I play it enough to make it worthwhile?

The more I think about it, the more I want one. I mean, I have more free time now than I’ve ever had, so I feel like I have the time to sit down and actually play.

Eri and I are going shopping on the 21st after the school’s event, because I’m thinking of getting a bed and I need table and chairs. The place we’re going to has an online shopping thing, so I was looking through there and I found a decent digital piano or about $750 CDN including delivery. Unfortunately, it doesn’t explictly list if that includes the bench or not, but it does seem to include the stand and the music stand.

It’s touch sensitive and it has three levels of sensitivity that you can set it to (and a fourth, if you include no touch sensitivity a level). It has all three pedals, and “grand piano sound” (versus electric piano or something like that).

It sounds pretty good… and I’m leaning towards it. I’ll have to see if they have any at the store when we go, so I can try it out. My mum said that if I did get one, she would send me my books (not all of them, obviously, but the ones I’d play out of), so yes…

My piano back in Canada is just your ordinary upright piano that I got as a Christmas present when I was in grade five (piano). I remember it so well, because I had gotten into a fight with my dad in the car. Then I came home, and there was a piano for me with a big red ribbon and bow around it.

Admittedly, I quite miss my piano. My parents said they were going to get rid of it because I wasn’t there anymore, but as far as I know they haven’t yet. I hope they don’t. We’ve been through a lot, that piano and I.

Anyways, I was browsing the internet about a week ago, and I don’t know how I stumbled across it, but I found these really… interestingly designed pianos. I can’t quite decide if I like them or not. They’re called the Schimmel Pegasus Grand Piano.

The hand-made Schimmel Pegasus has an ergonomically curved keyboard, over 200 strings under a total tension of 176,520 newtons, and a key assembly composed of 10,000 pieces. Only 14 were made ten years ago for people like Eddie Murphy, Lenny Kravitz, and granfunkmeister Prince.
                                                                                           - from gizmodo.com

They’re pretty interesting looking, if anything. Apparently they were selling one of them and only asking $110,000 for it. It better sound damn good for that much money.

What I really like, is Yoshiki’s crystal grand piano.

I have no idea if the sound is good, but it just looks so beautiful. They actually have one similar to it in the Kawai store in Sakae. I’m tempted to ask if I can touch it. Or stand near it. Or something, haha. They have a practice room there too, so you can try out one of their grands, but I’m too scared to go in and try.

Besides, it’s pretty obvious that I could not afford one. I don’t look like a rich girl, haha.

More and more I’m debating whether or not I should get an electric piano for my place here. They’re kind of expensive, and I don’t want to buy one and never play it. Although, I have a feeling that wouldn’t happen. I also don’t want to buy one and then decide to leave, and be stuck with what to do with it. But it’s pretty weird not having anything to play on.

I guess I didn’t have anything at Nanzan, (well, I did for a few months, kind of). But it feels a lot different now. Things aren’t all new and exciting, haha, and I miss the comfort playing brings. So, we’ll see.

I mean I’ve spent so many years playing (seventeen, can you believe it?) that I also feel like it’s almost a waste having nothing here to play on, and I’m not sure where you can go to just… use a piano. Why did I have to pick the big instrument you can’t easily move around? Haha.

Lately, I’ve been playing piano quite a bit. It always seems to go in these phases, but it’s a good feeling to take out some old books, sit down and play something that I haven’t played in a while.

So, today I tried to record a couple of pieces. It wasn’t really intended for Valentine’s Day, but I guess they’re both about love, so it’s fitting.

As always, excuse my piano / recording equipment (or lackthereof).

The first is Romeo & Juliet.

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And this one, is Love is Blue.

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Not terribly exciting, but it’s kind of nice to have some place to put a few mp3s that I recorded.

I probably should practice more. And play more. I’ve always wanted to become one of those players who can move people, when they play. I don’t know if that sounds lame or not, but I think if you can play something and make someone feel because of it, that’s a great feeling.

So today, was a long day. In which I got rather bored… (as I’m sure you can tell by my few, pointless, updates).

I stayed at Work # 1 until 5, then headed off to Work #2. All my students showed up (yay), so it went pretty quickly.

I asked about the exams… I don’t know why I get so nervous, I know they’ll all be fine but I tend to anyways. Connie said that as far as she had heard, they all went okay. I also talked to Sophia’s sister (who was there for theory) and she said her exam went well, and Sophia said it was okay, so I felt relieved. She was nervous.

It’s funny. When I was a little kid, I never really got nervous to play. But as I got older, I also got increasingly nervous. I started to dislike doing competitions, and at exams I was a horrible ball of nerves. Especially for my grade nine (and it’s amazing I passed, because I wasn’t ready… I would have loved to take two years to do it).

Actually, I used to be not as shy too… but I grew more shy. I wonder why that is.

Anyways, my dinner has been sitting here slowly getting cold.

I should eat.

The other day I talked about the festival that was taking place this weekend.

I wrote this in a meme, but not in my blog. On Saturday, I was supposed to be there at 8:40am because the competition starts at 9:00am. I woke up at 7:40am when my alarm went off but I forgot that I always have my clock fast. So I thought, YES! I have enough time to sleep for a little while longer.

And that’s what I did.

Until 8:30am.

When I realized it was 8:30am I freaked out, got dressed as fast as I possibly could and sped off to the hotel where the festival was taking place. Luckily it only took about five or so minutes to get there and I got in at 8:50am.

That’s pretty damn good even if I do say so myself.

I spent the morning helping out the judge and hanging out with Fiona and Rebecca (they were there to help too). I stepped out to see Chayan’s voice solos. Turned out the voice room was ridiculously far behind schedule so I had to sit through a bunch of other kid’s solos.

And some of them were bad. I mean, really. Really. Bad.

I feel bad saying that, because they’re kids and they’ve got a lot of guts to stand up there in front of a whole room of people and sing on their own. But man… a few of them were bad. I felt like I was at karaoke.

Anyways, I got to record one of Chayan’s solos. I ripped the audio from it so I could post it here! I didn’t want to post the video because I don’t think that’s appropriate. Not that there’s anything wrong with it, but he’s like an 11 year old kid. So I think it would be really weird and wrong to post it on my blog, haha.

So this is Chayan singing Dragons, which he got second place for!

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After his voice solos it was time for lunch. For some reason I always look forward to lunch at the festivals. Bev (my piano teacher) always makes it and she makes sandwhiches, eggs, crackers and cheese and vegetables with dip. While we were eating I bit the inside of my lip. HARD. REALLY HARD. It still hurts. :/

Next it was more helping out in the room and then running off to see Chayan’s piano solos. He had one at 1:30pm and he was playing first. So I’m waiting there in the room for him and I don’t see him anywhere. They have all the players lined up and were ready to go and I see him in the doorway. I tell him to get his book out and grab his piano bag, haha. I was so nervous. ~_~

He played his first song (Castle on a Cloud) really well. The hardest part for him was pedaling, because he only has a keyboard at home. Therefore, he has no pedal and it’s not touch sensitive so it’s hard for him to do dynamics sometimes too. He didn’t place for that one, but he did get an 88 which is still a really good mark!

My mum came to see him, but she was a little late so she missed his solo. I showed her him singing his voice solo on my camera. She met Chayan and then her and I went to Timmies for tea, haha. I felt bad kind of ditching everyone who was working, but we honestly just sped through the drive-thru and I was back.

So I worked in the room we were taking care of until Chayan’s next solo, which was also in that room. I was so nervous, haha. I don’t know why, but I think having my own student there makes me more nervous than performing myself. I want him to do well and feel proud and it’s hard because I know what he’s capable of. Sometimes, that doesn’t always come through in one shot.

Anyways, he played his next song (Light and Blue) really well. I felt relieved afterwards and told him he did a good job as he sat down, haha. I have a video of that too (Fiona took it for me) so I ripped the sound again.

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He scored really well for that one, 94… but the person who got third got a 94.5. Can you believe that? He came fourth by POINT FIVE. I wanted to make sure he knew so that he knew how well he did and how close he was. And he did play it really well. The tempo was great (and that’s usually one of his weak spots) and he kept it for the whole song. The one thing the judge said was that his left hand was too loud for the second part. I guess that’s true, if you listen to it. But I wish she would have given him third. I think he really deserves it, but I also know how hard he works. Not that the other players didn’t deserve what they got. But you know, when it’s your own student, you obviously hope for the best.

Anyways, that was the festival! I’m so happy he went and I really hope it didn’t discourage him from going again.

Tomorrow (or I guess technically today) is the music festival.

I have to be at the hotel at 8:40am and I’ll be there pretty much all day long. From there, I have to go to the campground.

Only one of my students ended up going, but this is the first time I’ll have any of my kids performing in it, so I’m really excited to see him play! He’s doing two piano solos and two voice solos. I hope he does well, because I think if he doesn’t it’ll be a blow to his confidence.

He’s really talented, but sometimes he’d rather do things his ‘own way’ instead of listening or reading the music. But hey, that’s not always a bad thing. Sometimes it’s good to have your own personal flare.

So basically, this is what happens at the festival. You have a group of kids who all play the same instrument (there’s competitions for piano, voice, guitar and drums) and who are all in the same grade and around the same age. Classes usually have at the most around ten to twelve students but some classes are a lot smaller. Each participant plays their solo, is marked by an adjudacator (all of them have a lot of experience) and then the top three scores win a trophy. Everyone gets a ribbon and a score sheet with comments.

Usually you go into two categories. So for piano, my student is doing pop (where he’s playing Castle on a Cloud) and traditional (where he’s playing Light & Blue, from the lesson book). I don’t know what he’s singing in the voice categories, but I’m going to try my hardest to go watch those.

The festival is run voluntarily by a few conservatories in the area. Many (not all) of the teachers work there for the weekend to make sure things run smoothly. The instruments (for the most part) are taken from our conservatory, so that’s even extra work. I didn’t help take the stuff over (because I was at work) and I can’t work there Sunday, but I’ll be there most of the day tomorrow helping out the judge.

It’s going to be a long day.

The festivals are always really fun, but I mean, you can only hear ‘Little Chug Boat’ or ‘Irish Wedding Dance’ so many times before you want to throw a brick at the piano.

I’m going to try to tape my student’s performance! So hopefully I can put the sound of him playing on here (not the video for obvious reasons).

So everyone reading, wish him luck! He’s awesome and it really doesn’t matter if he gets a prize or not. The point is he did it and went. He was apprehensive at going at first, but I hope it’ll be a really good experience for him. It’s always nice to have a place where you can show other people your skill, especially after working so hard for it.

But, on the plus side he’s definitely a little performer.

The totally weird thing that happened with my SHOXX magazine and a piano performance (haha, that sounds intense) of the Christmas song, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”.