a day in the life of piano monkey

The Scream shows Indigenous children being taken away from their families by the Catholic church. (Courtesy of Kent Monkman) qiksaaktuq  (grief) was premiered last night in toronto, as first concert closer of the toronto symphony new music festival. as part of the whole 150 years anniversary of canada, there are some real fun celebrations planned across the country, and i was happy to receive my parks canada pass, and to attend various projects, including this series of new commissions. and while we cut the cheery white and red coloured cake, and me, who will be travelling with the brand new passport this summer, i am aware of what canada is made out of- which is more than what we bargain for. always. when tagaq won polaris prize in 2014, i did overhear some dudes attributing her heritage for 'making the list' in kensington market hipster bar. i poured my beer on their shoes and left. i wasnt surprised, as, well, kensington market, as we all love it for what it ...

i live in a student-heavy tall apartment building. my neighbours come and go and i dont really know any of them. the walls are concrete thick from 1970s build and we live in quiet isolation. but the air vent, that's how i know of my neighbours. for about a year, there's that young couple who like rave music blaring during day time. for about three years, there's that journalism student, who is beautiful. she has an itty bitty puppy, which used to have a good temperament till she started her co-op. long abandoned hours, the puppy now yelps through the door whenever there's someone by the elevator. for about six months now, there's that dude who smokes pots, then orders pizza. if i see a pizza dude getting onto elevator and press 'my' floor after 10pm, i know where s/he's bringing that pizza. for about two years now, i have a neighbour who eats lots and lots of fried eggs in veggie oil. usually in the morning. but sometimes in late evenings as well...

omg look at that shipment on left corner... 6-7 stacks high... often i feel as if i have somehow extended my childhood right into the present.  despite of all that education (haha), i still dream about doing and learning something new, especially the things that you cannot and will not learn in formalized schools- such as stone paving/yard work, making pizzas at home from scratch, etc. and this winter, i took a look at my life and thought: 1. i could use some extra cash for dental bill, 2. i never done retail work. and as fall term tends to roll in slow (till point of avalanche in winter term), back in october, i dropped off my resume at lindt and a shop-display (like shopping mall santa display) building shop. the building shop, i thought it would be super cool to go back to working with power tools and build something in reality. sturdy, heavy things. why chocolate? i wanted to learn something from immensely popular and successful international corporate. and ...

in less than a week, univ peeps are facing the annual event: concerto competition. as i worked with many different people in different levels, the one common difficult that arise to the top (always) is 'memorization.' i personally feel that the requirement of memorization is old and antiquated, but as it will stay probably for another long while, it would be foolish to talk about its de/merits... sigh. however, about the memorization process itself, though there isnt a simple way that fits everyone, i do think there are certain principles that helps to memorize music. so here's a small architectural approach. 1. divide your music in large to small chunk: so all music, like stories, will have sections and sentences. break them down and look to see what their 'forms' are.  if it is an allegro-sonata form, see if there's any extra bits, such as coda(s), or extended cadences in unexpected places; for instance, extended instability in development is expecte...

so the festivities has left us and the world already experienced fair share of faith-shaking- it's only 7th of january, too. barely a week-old new year. there has been a few posts that i have started but have not been able to finish- as they meander. and i wonder if that's the true nature of this world, anyway. with the useful and familiar format of information packaging, writing guidelines and forms, outlines and limits of informatics, it is easy to believe that the world works in linear fashion and it's always between the opposing poles of some sorts. which leaves us all the extra-dimensions beyond 2-D to be forgotten. click. just like that. on or off. i am having a kinda nasty sinus cold and somewhat trying to ignore the voice of the 'ghost of the self.'   perhaps it's the diminished physical state that brings up the 'bad' psychological state. or they are not related at all. perhaps it's lack of 'running' that is accentuating m...

santa went up last week in yorkville. my retail job at swiss chocolate shop finished christmas decoration about two weeks ago.  tis the time of giving, we say, and we see it all over, with glistening lights and sparkles.  christmas adverts are out on telly and some are quite touching. last saturday, as i had 20 min to spare to my planned journey, i decided to get a quick snack at the eaton centre's foodcourt, then walk through the underground PATH to get to TSO, noseda, bollani show- my favourite, ravel g major piano concerto was on the program and i was certain that it would be spectacular (and it was!) i forgot that it's christmas time.  the mall was heaving with people, with bags everywhere, families in tow, lots and lots and LOTS of stress. get gifts, get stressed! how did i miss that slogan. i took a seat at the communal long table and as i slurp my sustenance served in real china bowl and real spoon and fork, i started to people watch. there were a f...

tis sunday. i had  non-9am (or earlier!) start, awesome. so i rolled in bed in sunshine for a bit, then headed out to fill my fridge, which has been sitting kinda empty as the days been quite bustling. i often walk to chinatown, along dundas on quiet weekend mornings to go get my groceries.  before the city wakes up for festivities, shopping, meetings, brunch and dinners, tis a quite a different place. as the weather is turning colder, you may see few cocoons of homeless people. an empty cab driving around. sometimes small hoard of people exiting the bus station. this is the time that i do not need to listen to anything carefully, so i usually walk without a 'soundtrack.'  bare eared, no headphones, earphones or filters. just the quiet hum of the city. then came an unexpected sound. it took me a bit to figure out where it was coming from - i looked around me, and started to scan- and there it was, upward. such loud bird? but it wasnt a bird on the balcony wal...

when i was a very young kid, i was sent to the seaside, once every summer. my mother was youngest of pack of six, and since mom and dad both were from seoul, we didnt really have direct family relations out of the city.  luckily, a few of her sisters' in-laws had places out of the cities, so mom would ever so carefully pack a backpack for me, for a few days, and my eldest girl cousins would take me with them, to the seaside. that particular summer, my cousins decided that i was old enough to make choices. i made many mistakes. on way down, on the train, i gorged on salty and fatty snacks. i was allowed dip my own fingers into the bags, take however much i wanted.  silly me, i made myself very ill, very quickly.  i remember desperately putting my head out of the moving train, throwing up.  my cousins wiped my face with cool, wet tissues, half-amused and half-grossed out.  in midst of such mess, i remember looking up. i still remember how blue the sky...

staying in england during brexit, having loved ones' birthdays (happy b day, granny, mom, julian!), observing rio 2016 preparations and travelling through several different economic regions sthis summer, i become, once again, curious of money as an emotional thing. recently i have heard from a young one (early 20s) that he thinks he figures that he wont have much and he never really will; this was quite a surprise. in cambodia, they were using us dollars as base currency, because their own currency, riels, is too weak to actually have much purchasing power. i changed my 20 american dollars to riels and learned it the hard way. this is the summer where things are not costing me exactly double (when spending in pounds), which allowed me to head out to barcelona to see a dear friend. there, we paid fairly (and handsomely) for one of the most beautiful projects in the world, sagrada. in london, my wallet leaks.  london trasit capping at about 10 pounds, and zone 1 travel comma...

rescued people from the notorious seafood slavery business http://interactives.ap.org/2015/seafood-from-slaves/ yesterday, at grocery store, j was looking for some shrimps to buy, which led to this little video that ive seen awhile ago. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/jun/10/supermarket-prawns-thailand-produced-slave-labour a short summary: 1. thailand's shrimp industry is one of the biggest in the world, and if you have bought shrimps in discount at local groceries, you probably bought the ones that are related to this modern day slavery. looking back at my southeast travel this summer, i do believe that the industry's full of human trafficking and illegal trades (especially from lesser robust economies such as myanmar and laos), and that there are just not enough attention to be paid for human rights or labour issues. 2. most of seafood comes from wild-harvesting, not 'farming.'  there are only very few species that we can succes...

behold, khao soi @ khao soi samerjai, chiang mai, 60 bahts from end of may, it's been a whirlwind of movements- to eastcoast, back to toronto, hop on the plane, go to spain for yet another brilliant birthday trip, then off on solo sojourn in northern thailand and cambodia, and now, finally back home. which home: my close friends will ask. bouncing between two home, of yyz and man, the concept of home is a very simple one for me.  it's place where i feel 'at home,' with loved ones, where i can let my guard down (did you know that sleeping in new places keeps your brain up? so home is a place that wont happen) https://www.newscientist.com/article/2085409-sleeping-away-from-home-half-your-brain-is-still-awake/ with the ongoing situations of refugees all over the world, fight to keep doors closed to others (brexit or us election campaign, anyone?), very real face of poverty i saw in asia (especially in phnom pehn), i am certainly appreciative of calm of home...

beresford, new brunswick spring 2016 summer sun rose, with humid air, pearly blanket that holds on to every bit of heat. we had no spring to speak of, not the ones with cherry blossoms scattered on street, for each step to be dyed pale pink. nevertheless, the leaves came. they unfurl, grow, towards the sun, unafraid, no waiting, certainty. tulips will fade soon,  lights long and hot, water glass covered in dew. mirage. on the road. cars. houses. people. departing soon, to east to east to east where i will chase the sun, of stories, not of mine, but to make it mine. but for now, im a pool of blue. a small puddle of blue. but it will lift, like a fog, once i am airborne. if you blinked you wouldve missed spring. like a bubble, it was, this year. started so tiny, filled up with hope and air, and it popped. gone. it was beautiful. and it wont ever return again. when i go back to my heart to revisit, it will chang...

mother wanted to sleep. i clearly did not. mother sang to me. i cried and fidgeted. colicky baby. mother wanted to teach me. i wanted to teach her. mother wanted me to say yes. i said nothing, stormed out. mother left me a message. in frustration, i pressed '7' immediately. then regretted as soon as i hung up the voice mail. i call back with smile, with smidgen guilt. i give her advice. i buy her iron supplements. i gently pull her away from extra groceries, as cart is full and so is my fridge. she cant stop though. what if mother wasnt there to tell me all the things im doing wrong of the importance of my wacky haircuts inquiring about my incomes as musicians always seem to be in brink of debt packing me way too much food that i leave half of it in the car what if i think of calling her up texting silly cartoon emoticons and nothing came back one day time will flow and i will have to look inside to find her that she is there may...

today, my work brought me to a quite an important junction point of many people's lives: russell hartenberger's retirement concert at the faculty of music, full of percussionists of all ages and times. especially the young ones. snowy april, dreadful outside. but people trickled in all afternoon, carrying snare drums, for the snare drum olympics (haha this is an annual ritual… i wonder if i can find a vid clip of it); and by 730pm, the walter hall lobby was full of friends, families, students, mentors, just people who shared memories, laughters and marking of passage of time. all these people came because they have been given something real when they crossed prof hartenberger+nexus. nexus is bit special, the first percussion group that became a western classical music standard format.  AND they are all good people. throughout their entire career, life and performance. https://youtu.be/h2Rm8oFIMmk *here's a lovely performance from 1980s! i have seen them in so man...

caravaggio: kiss of judas, c. 1602 often people are surprised to learn that i used to be a catholic bible study champion in entire city of seoul, way back when i was twelve. i remember meeting the cardinal for the ceremony.  wearing my sunday best, eyes casting down, i was somewhat confused what the big deal was, as i have not learned how big, powerful and old the catholic tradition was.  after all, south korean isnt one of the 'traditional' catholic countries.  my dad, upon religion shopping, chose catholicism for the family (a whole another story about that).  since my mother was heavily involved in the local church community, i grew up with loads of bible stories in my childhood. some things did not make sense and some things raised questions rather than answers.  but as a little kid, most of my life didnt make much sense, so i just chose to let the differences go and did my bible studies.  the fact there was a league and i could do well in it...

https://youtu.be/hma1ug9Rl6w *could have been: by david braid born to be blue- the initial interest for this movie came from a small update from a dearest friend during TIFF 2015: hey, i wrote movie tracks- argh, it was not possible to get to the sold-out showing then.  finally, today, coupla months later, i cleared schedule to go see it as it's doing a briefest stint of a week at the lightbox.  the project intersected so many lives of utoronto- i went with curiosity and beaming enthusiasm for friends and teachers. then i walked out the theater with blue, smudging off from my trail, as melancholia filled my heart and brought down the daunting weight of the pursuit of happiness. a young boy from the big field of oklahoma whose life consisted of repeated launchings into the stratosphere of highest euphoria and the consequent crashes, whose life could have been full of- well, i did end up being full of beauty which was sustained through consumption of his own life, ove...

https://youtu.be/VWPFqWXSeVM often, feelings come at rather inconvenient times. more one tries to escape, more one gets sucked in, to the bottom of the maelstrom.  in midst of drowning, reality shatters, death- if briefly. today's morning was full of big, heavy wet snow, turning into freezing rain. big flakes being guided by the wind, slapping against the waterproof jacket hood.  hazy, heavy and opaque. not at all calm, menacing, as it continued to pour down these big frozen tears. i often wonder what is going on in midst of something beautiful.  when i see beauty, do you also see beauty? but what do you see? and what do i see? what did anyone else see? it is fleeting, it may not even last long enough to register into one's own consciousness. some days, the familiar beauty, in conjunction with other alertoric passage of the day, becomes too hot to handle- and one falls into the alternate reality- the reality comprised solely of imagination, memories and project...

image from twitter http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/10/us/politics/new-hampshire-primary.html 1. glad to see bernie pushing through. if this was back in 2008, i wouldve been in the bandwagon for hilary.  but 8 years later, gratefully, feminism had time to cultivate next generation of girls who are willing to be more inclusive, of other minorities- the poor, undereducated, legally suppressed; this is progress, where women feels less pressure to concentrate all their voting influence for the single reason of female figure(s) visibility.  i understand the older women's frustration, but in contrary, they should be proud of us, the girls, for being able to reach out to larger minority: the have-less, even if that means overseeing age and gender of sanders 2.  trump's lead among the conservatives arent surprising.  he polarizes and other nominees appear to be moderate in comparison to trump, hence the even split on the field among kasich, cruz, bush and rubio. ...

http://media.gettyimages.com/photos/beyonce-performs-during-super-bowl-50-between-the-carolina-panthers-picture-id508986958 so there it was, 50th superbowl halftime show, with cold play, bruno mars and beyonce. and yes, YOLA (youth orchestra of los angeles).  shot with new drone cams, i thought it looked bizarre. i personally enjoyed last year's katy perry's show better, but it's probably all to do with the left shark. haha. then the postings started. about how cold play was outshadowed by beyonce. about the weird visual effects from mashing drone feeds with wide cams. and oh. the tragedy of 'underappreciation' for classical music. huh what? so superstar orchestra conductor did not get same visibility as beyonce. YOLA kids did not get their own segment. but with beyonce on program, even coldplay couldnt fight her for the attention.  i wondered why is the conductor even on the side of the stage- as the drummer, heavily amped, was clearly marking beats for ...