Sifu !

I went to attend piano lesson like usual today. What's different is that today I had nice long chat with my teacher. We started off with his frustrations at work and the topic slowly evolves to his experience when he was in US for his educations.

terrell heritage museum

wollongong town hall pipe organ

He said, degree was tough, like real tough. He went there with an accompaniment schorlarship. Means besides his own studies, he have to play piano accompaniment for all the voice, violin, cello etc. students. And he often have performances, recitals, choir, band etc. And at the meantime his degree covers other subjects like literature, maths, foreign language etc. oh em geeeeeeeee. Degree in piano performance is already a level 8 tough thing, what about second instrument? He took pipe organ. For your info, pipe organ is a type of organ that people use to play in the church. 2 rows of keyboard (using the hands) and also a row underneath your feet. You play like octopus lah. With piano, pipe organ, band and accompaniments practices, assignments, lectures etc etc. During his (if not mistaken) third year of degree, he had tendonitis (swelling of the tendons) on his right hand. The hand was swollen and fingers turned purple with veins obviously seen. He then undergo an operation to untangle his veins because his veins are tangled up due to his too-intense practices for 11 hours practice.

I was like mouth wide open there listening.

Okay, now I know my degree programme is like real nothing compared to his'. Seriously although I get involved in choirs,performances, assignments, band, piano exams, vocal exams, church etc, it's really nothing compared to him. He went through hell. And see how I'm doing now. Not good. Not so very good.

He then continued with his masters and phD life. He said masters was fine. Relaxed and much input. But then phD was another hell. Five times more hell than the "hell" he went through. Tough diagnogsis exam to test his ability and see if he was suitable to get into the phD programme, any single weakness detected, he have to retake the particular course with the undergraduates. And that's just the beginning. then there's courseworks, at the end, finals was really the hell's hell. He have to just go though scores (like, 30 of them) and then talk about who is the possible composers and whatever they want to know. It's like having the music dictionary stuffed into your head. Library was his second home.
But he said, only US' programmes are so dahsyat (terrifying).

I've heard many experience talks from music people around me and this is the most dahsyat one.
I know this path will not gonna be easy to me. If it's God's will... ...