A Year of Music

As I was reflecting on this year that is about to be part of history, I realize now that music has played a big part of my 2011. It's funny because in my younger years I haven't really considered myself a fan of music, although back then I already had some favorite bands (or, well, band, but more on that one later). In fact, it was only in my high school days that I realized that I loved to sing, whether it is in a choir, or alone singing just for the fun of it. Those were the days when people were starting to notice that whenever a karaoke machine was around, once I get hold of the microphone I would never stop singing, song after song after song. Haha. Although I didn't really have any other singers, musicians, or bands that I consider myself to be an avid fan of back in those days, I was starting to appreciate listening to music more and exploring different genres of music out there.

Anyway, back to my musical 2011. Or, well, my musical 20th year. Since my birthday is pretty close to Christmas and the New Year, I sometimes think of my birthday as the 'hallmark' or new page in life for me in general, though yes technically it indeed is. So let me recall to memory the events that happened in the past year from my 19th birthday that has deepened my appreciation of music in general.

[Warning: This is a loooong post, for it is, after all, a year's worth of stories. :P]

 

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12 December 2010: Destiny Thanksgiving/Christmas Service

It was the day after my 19th birthday. There was a Thanksgiving service at the church I attended back then, which was also a Christmas celebration with a lot of games, performances, raffles, and festivities throughout the service. Then came a game that was a sing-off between representatives of the twelve networks of the church. My cellmates, aware of my love for singing, encouraged me to go represent our own network. Me being the shy girl that I am, I initially refused, but eventually since inwardly I also really did want to give it a shot, I gathered up the courage to go up the stage.

I was wrong in my last blog when I wrote about the first time I sang in front of a large audience. This is the first time I did. We were in the Film Institute of our university, which at that occasion was just about full. They gave us contestants just 30 seconds to belt out the best lines from the best song we could come up with, and so I sang the chorus of my then current (and still is) favorite song, My Kind of Perfect. I was so nervous, but the audience was supportive and though they did not really know the song, the clapped along as I sang. Well, I didn't win in that particular game, but it sure was memorable for me, especially with what happened afterwards. We were about to go home when a random guy (whom I later remembered to be the guy we were sitting beside with the whole service), went out of his way to approach me, shake my hand, and tell me that he "really liked" that song I sang. I have never been complimented by a stranger like that! The guy's name was Matt. I never forgot that kind gesture of his, which from then on I tried to do for others as well.

Photo credit: Hazel Yuga

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 27 January 2011: MBB Idol

I do not have a decent picture of this particular moment, unfortunately. The picture on the right is a screenshot from a video taken by one of my blockmates of my performance. Dim the lights, here we go. This...is...MBB Idol. Haha.

This is the performance I have mistakenly referred to in my last blog as the first time I ever performed for a ~big audience. But this is the first time I ever tried to play an instrument while singing. Which...may not have gone as well as I would have liked, haha. My multitasking skills (i.e. singing while playing) are not exactly superb. Again, I sang My Kind of Perfect on this occasion. And again, I did not win in this contest, but hey, it was really a worthwhile experience.

 Video credit for this screencap: Larielyn Aggabao

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24 February 2011: CS Battle of the Bands

I have never witnessed a real live band perform, close-up, before (that changed a lot this year, but we'll get to that). Therefore it goes without saying that I have never experienced being in a real live band prior to this. Out of a whim, two of my friends and I thought it would be fun to join this annual event of the College of Science, and immediately asked three other friends to form a group. After a lot of funny ideas for a name later, we settled on calling ourselves Groundplay. Sort of like an inverted playground, or something derived from Coldplay. I don't know, haha, but we liked it, and so Groundplay was born.

The first time we ever practiced as a group, I was overcome with a sense of...wonder - I really really really enjoyed that first band practice we had! I can't even describe it, it was like realizing a lifelong dream you didn't even know you had. Haha, really it was like that. We only had just a little under a month to practice, and being...amateurs, I'm really glad we pulled it off on the day of the contest. We were the first band to play! We performed three songs: Senti, an OPM by Moonstar88, in which I did the backup vocals; Ironic by Alanis Morisette, in which I was the lead singer; and Clocks, by Coldplay of course, where I played the keyboard. Again we didn't win, haha. It's not really all about winning, though, is it. We were really just after the experience, and definitely that was one experience I would always cherish.

Photo credit: R. Lorenz Chua

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20 July 2011: MKOP Yet Again

 

Played My Kind of Perfect for David's dad himself, Jeff Archuleta. There is nothing quite like it, and as I said before, never in a million years did I dream that this would happen!

Video credit for this screencap: Angel Mahinay

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CONCERTS GALORE!

 

Before this year, the only concerts I have ever attended aside from school fair concerts was back in 2009, in the epic back-to-back concert of David Cook and David Archuleta, and in 2010, Kris Allen + Jabbawockeez live at McKinley Hill, Taguig. In the former, I was only in the Bronze section where I was like two kilometers away from the stage, and in the latter, we were in the section before Silver, but that was only because we got the tickets for free. So, you get the picture. I have no money to spend for concerts!

This year, however, was a different story.

1 March 2011: Paalam Pilipinas: The Sugarfree Farewell Concert (this was a free concert, but still.)

16 April 2011: The Script Live in Manila

18 July 2011: David Archuleta Live in Manila

29 September 2011: Westlife Gravity Tour - Live in Manila

30 October 2011: Jason Mraz Special Acoustic Evening with Toca Rivera - Live in Manila

I'm not going to write a recap for each of these concerts anymore. Suffice it to say that every single one of them was pure EPIC.

Photo credits: Kristine Alcantara, Dayly Entertainment('coz I can't find my sister's photos of three of the concerts)

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MEETING MUSICIANS

It's so cool that I didn't have to go far to meet some awesome men and women of music. My own university gives me the opportunity to meet some of them in person - and in class. Haha.

23 March 2011 - Sir Jalton Taguibao, the bassist of the recently disbanded Sugarfree, was my professor in Social Science 2 during my second semester in my junior year. It was quite a special sem, too, for that was just in time for their farewell performances in the UP Fair last February and the farewell concert in Eastwood I mentioned earlier. On our last day in his class, he shared stories about his band and the whole thing about them going separate ways, and even signed autographs for us students, haha.

18, 20, 21 July 2011 - Met David and Jeff, of course.

9 August 2011 - And then just last sem, in our STS class, we were thrilled to have Barbie Almalbis as a guest speaker in one of our lectures. She talked about the math in music, and math being my least favorite subject, her talk really made me appreciate math and music more. And a funny thing, because I was seated right in front of her during the lecture, I was the first one she asked when she was having an ice breaker before the lecture proper. Asked me what the most recent song I heard on the radio was, and I said Crush, lol. I'm sorry, it was the first song that popped in my starstruck mind. ((:

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2 December 2011: CS Carolfest

 

It is the most wonderful time of the year! Christmas time is really something I look forward to every year. And one of the reasons is getting to sing again with my org for the annual CS Carolfest. It is a chorale singing contest in which the various organizations under the College of Science sing their hearts out as a choir with Christmas songs and songs of whatever theme it was on a particular year. I have always taken part of this event every year of my college life, and I've always loved the experience, whether we win or lose (thankfully, though, we always come either 1st or 2nd place).

What I didn't expect this year, however, was that I would be singing the solo part of our contest piece, a pop OPM song called Limang Dipang Tao by Barbie Almalbis (whom I met just months before, haha)/Barbie's Cradle. I wasn't originally the one selected to do it, but the one who was supposed to be the soloist personally asked me to take her place, because she felt she would be too busy that week of the contest and couldn't take any more load upon her.

So I did it. I was very nervous, because I was not only singing for myself but for my whole org as well. If I fail then that would surely ruin our number and any chances of winning a place in the Carolfest this year, my last year that I could ever get to perform with the MBBS Star Activity. And then of course singing in front of a huge audience is never not a nerve-wracking thing to do!

But I guess I did well enough. At least I didn't cause our performance to come crashing down in front of the whole CS student body, lol. But what was really surprising was that we won! Second place, yes, but by just a mere point away from the champions. I was not expecting that at all; I was not even expecting that we would win! But we did, and for that I am really happy and thankful.

Photo credit: Cel Yap

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 15 December 2011: DMBEL Christmas Presentation

 I feel very blessed to be in a thesis lab where everyone gets along together so well - especially musically. We all love to sing in our lab! Plus, our thesis adviser is superb when it comes to playing the piano. Haha. It was wonderful that we had the chance to showcase our talents to everyone only very recently.

Every year in our institute's Christmas party, it has become a tradition that each of the year levels would put on a performance, with the exception of the senior year, wherein we were expected to perform with our respective thesis labs. It was a really fun way to close the year with a bang! I enjoyed every performance, but most of all I really enjoyed our own three-part act! The musical part was in the beginning, where we sang Pasko na Sinta Ko complete with four voices and our thesis adviser playing the keyboard for us. The haunting cloaks, I realized, made us look really creepy! Haha. But actually we had those on to cover our hilarious Dream Girls/Dream Gays costumes underneath (I [un]fortunately have no photos of that). ((;

 Photo credit: Jhanna Molina

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Phew! What a long post! But then again as I said it was a year's worth of musical adventures, so yeah. :)) It just really amazes me how music has played a big part of my life this past year. I could only hope for an even more musically awesome 2012! Ü