非常跟着感觉走的‘春天火锅’
18天不见了！虽然在春天吃火锅很像很怪，不过感觉还是很温馨，重点是人嘛！相信以后我们看到火锅，都会想到留学的这段日子；）
和你们聊天到爆肝，是幸福的！
大好きな二人と出会うことが出来て私はとても幸せだ～神様に感謝します！
これからも仲良くしてくださいねv(^▽^)vわーい♪
posted by prancingPony @ 12:34 AM
0 Comments
Friday, April 25, 2008
v(^▽^)vわーい♪
Thursday, April 24, 2008
ありがとう！良平君～
In Japan, on V-day, girls gave guys presents (2 kinds: we-are-friends-present or you-are-my-bf present) while on White-Day (14th March), the guys will give presents （お礼） to the girls they had received presents from. Very commercial, i know, but this is consumerism-city ;D
Anyway, got this from my Japanese classmate, Ryo-hei kun, cos i got him a box of friendship chocolates for V-day during Feb this year. Didn`t expect him to get anything for me since White Day occured during our Spring vacation but he surprised me with this lovely tea set (my choice of poison, for those who know me!)!
Am such a sucker for pretty wrapping and classy packaging.. haha, i loved this present soooo much! Ryo-hei was saying that he didn`t know what to get, but I told him he was spot on! This sakura tea is so exotic, i am so excited! Check out the pretty little jar of jam (for you to sweeten your tea, yes, no boring cube o`sugar for highclass sakura tea ha!) and cutesy tiny spoon...
*swoon* ok enough gushing... ;D here`s 深谷良平-kun in action:
posted by prancingPony @ 11:55 PM
0 Comments
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Why Bach is 必修101 - Daniel Barenboim
"I was reared on Bach. My father was virtually my only teacher, and he attached great importance to my growing up with Bach's keyboard music. He considered it to be very important, not only for its musical and pianistic aspects, but also for everything else that is played on the piano. For him polyphonic music-making was simply one of the most important issues concerning everything relating to piano-playing.
In itself the piano cannot seduce by virtue of its sound alone. The listener can be seduced by the lovely sound of, for example, a violin or an oboe. The piano, on the other hand, is a neutral instrument, and the art of playing it involves a sleight of hand. It is possible to create the illusion of a legato on the piano although, in the physical sense, it is impossible. But it is possible to create the illusion of sustained sound similar to that of a string instrument. The most important part of piano-playing is the symphonic element. The music can only be of interest if the different strands of the polyphonic texture are played so distinctly that they can all be heard and create a three-dimensional effect - just as in painting, where something is moved into the foreground and something else into the background, making one appear closer to the viewer than the other, although the painting is flat and one-dimensional.
In my childhood I played practically all the Preludes and Fugues from Das wohltemperierte Klavier and many other pieces by Bach. That was my basis. At the age of twelve I moved to Paris to study harmony and counterpoint with Nadia Boulanger. When I arrived for my first lesson, Das wohltemperierte Klavier was on the music stand of the grand piano. She turned the pages forward and back; finally she settled on the Prelude in E minor from Book One and said: "Right, my boy, now play it for me in A minor". She held a wooden ruler in her hand and every time my fingers played a wrong note she tapped them with it.
Thus Das wohltemperierte Klavier became the foundation for everything. In addition my father communicated something to me that I only found expressed in words when I was an adult - in a book about Franz Liszt in Weimar. It describes how he explained to a pupil that the piano should not be played with two hands or as two units. Either you play with a unit consisting of two hands, or with ten units in which each finger is independent. This is a very important piece of advice. I was really pleased to read that, because I recognised once again what my father had taught me without putting it into words.
This is the only way to tackle Bach. One might well imagine a nocturne by Chopin with the melody in the right hand and the accompaniment in the left, without any polyphony. But Bach's keyboard works definitely call for ten fingers that are independent of one another. And if they are, they can be brought together to create a unit.
One element in tonal music that is frequently neglected these days is harmony. Harmonic tensions have a crucial effect on a work and the way in which it is played. Of the three elements - harmony, rhythm and melody - which have such a profound influence on tonal music, harmony is perhaps the most important, because it is the most potent. You can play the same chord with millions of different rhythms. It can cope with them all without needing to change. A melody is uninteresting if it does not move harmonically. That implies that the impact of harmony is much greater than that of rhythm and melody. And it exists in every tonal work. There are thousands of distinctions between Bach, Wagner, Tchaikovsky and Debussy, but they have one thing in common: harmonic impact. This implies that a chord exerts a kind of vertical pressure on the horizontal movement of the music. When a chord moves, the horizontal flow of the music is changed. This has nothing to do with Bach or Chopin or anyone else; in my opinion it is a law of nature. The study of old instruments and historic performance practice has taught us a great deal, but the main point, the impact of harmony, has been ignored.
This is proved by the fact that tempo is described as an independent phenomenon. It is claimed that one of Bach's gavottes must be played fast and another one slowly. But tempo is not independent! And you do not hear it! You only hear the substance of the music. It is this very audibility that informs every kind of musical theory. I could develop a theory that applies to any phrase of any prelude or fugue by Bach. But all theory is useless if it cannot be heard when you play. I think that concerning oneself purely with historic performance practice and the attempt to reproduce the sound of older styles of music-making is limiting and no indication of progress. Mendelssohn and Schumann tried to introduce Bach into their own period, as did Liszt with his transcriptions and Busoni with his arrangements. In America Leopold Stokowski also tried to do it with his arrangements for orchestra. This was always the result of "progressive" efforts to bring Bach closer to the particular period. I have no philosophical problem with someone playing Bach and making it sound like Boulez. My problem is more with someone who tries to imitate the sound of that time. Knowing that in Bach's day this appoggiatura was played slowly and that ornamentation fast and copying it is not enough. I must understand why it was like that. This is why I consider a purely academic approach to the past very dangerous because it is linked to ideology and fundamentalism, even in music. Today we are witnesses to the suffering and violence that are the product of fundamentalism.
In Bach's works there is a powerful bond between rhythm and harmony. There is a symbiotic relationship between these two elements which is probably unique among composers. Maybe this is what one might term the epic quality in Bach, just as there is a dramatic quality in Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. Thanks to this epic quality everything in Bach's music achieves unity. An excellent example is the C sharp Fugue from Book One of Das wohltemperierte Klavier. It is like a dance with enormous rhythmic vitality. Any knowledge acquired when dealing with harmony is immensely helpful. Now, when I delve more deeply into or play the Das wohltemperierte Klavier, I often remember many musical experiences - with Mozart, Wagner, Schoenberg and many others - and observe that the greater the general knowledge of music, the more interesting is the performance.
Why did Bülow describe Das wohltemperierte Klavier as the Old Testament? What is the Old Testament? On the one hand it is the narrative of a people and its experiences. On the other it is a compilation of thoughts about life on this earth, love, ethics, morals and human qualities. Thoughts on the experience of the past provide a statement about the present and also a lesson for the future, showing thoughtful people where and how they can find their own way. That is what the Old Testament means to me, as does every other masterpiece, including Das wohltemperierte Klavier. It makes a statement about everything that preceded it in music. It makes a statement about music in the time of Bach. But it also indicates the direction which music might take as it develops - as indeed it has developed. For example, the chromaticism in the Prelude in C sharp minor from Book One brings Wagner's Tristan und Isolde to mind. Or the Fugue in E flat, which could be straight out of a symphony by Bruckner. In other words, Das wohltemperierte Klavier is not only the sum of everything that has preceded it, but it also points the way ahead. In the history of European music there are very few composers whose works that applies. This is one of the main reasons for the towering stature of Bach's music. "
From http://www.danielbarenboim.com/journal.htm
In itself the piano cannot seduce by virtue of its sound alone. The listener can be seduced by the lovely sound of, for example, a violin or an oboe. The piano, on the other hand, is a neutral instrument, and the art of playing it involves a sleight of hand. It is possible to create the illusion of a legato on the piano although, in the physical sense, it is impossible. But it is possible to create the illusion of sustained sound similar to that of a string instrument. The most important part of piano-playing is the symphonic element. The music can only be of interest if the different strands of the polyphonic texture are played so distinctly that they can all be heard and create a three-dimensional effect - just as in painting, where something is moved into the foreground and something else into the background, making one appear closer to the viewer than the other, although the painting is flat and one-dimensional.
In my childhood I played practically all the Preludes and Fugues from Das wohltemperierte Klavier and many other pieces by Bach. That was my basis. At the age of twelve I moved to Paris to study harmony and counterpoint with Nadia Boulanger. When I arrived for my first lesson, Das wohltemperierte Klavier was on the music stand of the grand piano. She turned the pages forward and back; finally she settled on the Prelude in E minor from Book One and said: "Right, my boy, now play it for me in A minor". She held a wooden ruler in her hand and every time my fingers played a wrong note she tapped them with it.
Thus Das wohltemperierte Klavier became the foundation for everything. In addition my father communicated something to me that I only found expressed in words when I was an adult - in a book about Franz Liszt in Weimar. It describes how he explained to a pupil that the piano should not be played with two hands or as two units. Either you play with a unit consisting of two hands, or with ten units in which each finger is independent. This is a very important piece of advice. I was really pleased to read that, because I recognised once again what my father had taught me without putting it into words.
This is the only way to tackle Bach. One might well imagine a nocturne by Chopin with the melody in the right hand and the accompaniment in the left, without any polyphony. But Bach's keyboard works definitely call for ten fingers that are independent of one another. And if they are, they can be brought together to create a unit.
One element in tonal music that is frequently neglected these days is harmony. Harmonic tensions have a crucial effect on a work and the way in which it is played. Of the three elements - harmony, rhythm and melody - which have such a profound influence on tonal music, harmony is perhaps the most important, because it is the most potent. You can play the same chord with millions of different rhythms. It can cope with them all without needing to change. A melody is uninteresting if it does not move harmonically. That implies that the impact of harmony is much greater than that of rhythm and melody. And it exists in every tonal work. There are thousands of distinctions between Bach, Wagner, Tchaikovsky and Debussy, but they have one thing in common: harmonic impact. This implies that a chord exerts a kind of vertical pressure on the horizontal movement of the music. When a chord moves, the horizontal flow of the music is changed. This has nothing to do with Bach or Chopin or anyone else; in my opinion it is a law of nature. The study of old instruments and historic performance practice has taught us a great deal, but the main point, the impact of harmony, has been ignored.
This is proved by the fact that tempo is described as an independent phenomenon. It is claimed that one of Bach's gavottes must be played fast and another one slowly. But tempo is not independent! And you do not hear it! You only hear the substance of the music. It is this very audibility that informs every kind of musical theory. I could develop a theory that applies to any phrase of any prelude or fugue by Bach. But all theory is useless if it cannot be heard when you play. I think that concerning oneself purely with historic performance practice and the attempt to reproduce the sound of older styles of music-making is limiting and no indication of progress. Mendelssohn and Schumann tried to introduce Bach into their own period, as did Liszt with his transcriptions and Busoni with his arrangements. In America Leopold Stokowski also tried to do it with his arrangements for orchestra. This was always the result of "progressive" efforts to bring Bach closer to the particular period. I have no philosophical problem with someone playing Bach and making it sound like Boulez. My problem is more with someone who tries to imitate the sound of that time. Knowing that in Bach's day this appoggiatura was played slowly and that ornamentation fast and copying it is not enough. I must understand why it was like that. This is why I consider a purely academic approach to the past very dangerous because it is linked to ideology and fundamentalism, even in music. Today we are witnesses to the suffering and violence that are the product of fundamentalism.
In Bach's works there is a powerful bond between rhythm and harmony. There is a symbiotic relationship between these two elements which is probably unique among composers. Maybe this is what one might term the epic quality in Bach, just as there is a dramatic quality in Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. Thanks to this epic quality everything in Bach's music achieves unity. An excellent example is the C sharp Fugue from Book One of Das wohltemperierte Klavier. It is like a dance with enormous rhythmic vitality. Any knowledge acquired when dealing with harmony is immensely helpful. Now, when I delve more deeply into or play the Das wohltemperierte Klavier, I often remember many musical experiences - with Mozart, Wagner, Schoenberg and many others - and observe that the greater the general knowledge of music, the more interesting is the performance.
Why did Bülow describe Das wohltemperierte Klavier as the Old Testament? What is the Old Testament? On the one hand it is the narrative of a people and its experiences. On the other it is a compilation of thoughts about life on this earth, love, ethics, morals and human qualities. Thoughts on the experience of the past provide a statement about the present and also a lesson for the future, showing thoughtful people where and how they can find their own way. That is what the Old Testament means to me, as does every other masterpiece, including Das wohltemperierte Klavier. It makes a statement about everything that preceded it in music. It makes a statement about music in the time of Bach. But it also indicates the direction which music might take as it develops - as indeed it has developed. For example, the chromaticism in the Prelude in C sharp minor from Book One brings Wagner's Tristan und Isolde to mind. Or the Fugue in E flat, which could be straight out of a symphony by Bruckner. In other words, Das wohltemperierte Klavier is not only the sum of everything that has preceded it, but it also points the way ahead. In the history of European music there are very few composers whose works that applies. This is one of the main reasons for the towering stature of Bach's music. "
From http://www.danielbarenboim.com/journal.htm
posted by prancingPony @ 1:33 AM
0 Comments
Don`t attempt Rachmaninov's prelude in C-sharp minor Op.3 No. 2. ....unless you have big hands :D
Funny :)
posted by prancingPony @ 12:54 AM
1 Comments
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Shinjuku Shalom Church presents: Youth Express `Smile`
26th April 2008
1800 hours at Shinjuku Shalom Church~
An evening of gospel music, dance and lots of fun!
バンドあり、ゴスペルあり、ダンスあり、最高のコンサートとなる事を信じます。
ぜひ来てくださいっ！！
posted by prancingPony @ 12:07 AM
0 Comments
Friday, April 18, 2008
神様はそばにいるよ！
God`s love is all around! 神的爱，写满在大自然中！
因为爱，所以坚持。
ずっと一緒さ
作詩：山下達郎 作曲：山下達郎
抱きしめて
しじまの中で
あなたの声を聞かせて
こびりつく
涙を融かして
冬はもうすぐ終わるよ
いくつもの悲しみを
くぐリ抜けたそのあとで
つないだ手の温かさが
全てを知っている
あなたとふたりで
生きて行きたい
それだけで何もいらない
昼も夜も 夢の中まで
ずっと ずっと 一緒さ
傷付いた
心のかけらを
ひとつ残らずひろって
愛という
不思議なジグソー
つなぐ欠片(ピース)を探すよ
本当の強さは
「ひとりじゃない」って言えること
風の中で寄り添う
花のように
秘めやかに
あなたとふたりで
生きて行けたら
何度でも生まれ変われる
たどリ着いた 僕らの場所で
ずっと ずっと 一緒さ
あなたとふたりで
生きて行きたい
それだけで何もいらない
時の海に 未来を浮かべ
ずっと ずっと
ずっと 一緒さ
ずっと ずっと 一緒さ
ずっと 一緒さ…
在寂静中擁抱
讓我听听你的声音
揮之不去的泪水融化的時候
冬季即将結束
撫平幾個
傷心情緒之后
牽著温暖的手
你的全部我都知道
想与你携手共渡人生
這樣的話 其它什麼都不需要
不論白天或是夜晩 甚至在梦中
一直 一直 在一起吧
受到傷害后
心的碎片
去一片不剩地收集起来
所謂愛
是不可思議的拼圖
尋找聯系其間的缺塊
真正的堅強
是能説出「我不是孤單一人」
在風中靠近
如花般
隱隱作痛
想与你携手共渡人生
縱使百轉輪回
尋覓属于我們的天堂
一直 一直 在一起吧
想与你携手共渡人生
這樣的話 其它什麼都不需要
時之海上 浮顯出未来
一直 一直
一直 在一起吧
一直 一直 在一起吧
一直 在一起吧
posted by prancingPony @ 11:18 PM
0 Comments
Friday, April 11, 2008
Monday, April 07, 2008
Fleeting moments~
Sakuras are blooming everywhere in Japan. They announce the much anticipated arrival of Spring, taking away the dreary winter with their pretty colors.
Before you can capture enough of them on your camera, they wilt and die. There it is. The transient nature of the beauty of the sakura. You see them bloom and flourish for about 7 days out of 365 days.
Seems to be reminding us of the fleeting moments in life. Am going to treasure my last year here in sushi-land until the sakura arrives again next year for me to bid farewell.
posted by prancingPony @ 3:22 PM
0 Comments
