soul searching n such

To live passionately....is to be ambitious? I don't know.

As someone who is not known for being ambitious, I have only a few memories of episodes in my life where I worked Really hard for something.

One that pops into memory immediately is when I prepared for my first ever vocal/singing examination, unfortunately, my first and last vocal examination.

It was the PC (Performer's Certificate) level exam under the Trinity College. The syllabus was that I perform four songs and prepare the program notes for these songs - an aria or oratorio, a Lieder, an art song and a musical song.

My repertoire for this exam was La Promessa (The Promise) by Rossini, Haydn's With Verdure Clad (The Creation), Schubert's Liebesbotschaft (Love's Message) and Green Finch And Linnet Bird from Sondheim's Sweeney Todd.

A scanned copy of the exam report in the handwriting of my examiner that year, 2004, Mr Harold Jones...

I can't remember what was the driving force or inner motivation then, I remember my sheer energy of practicing the songs over and over everyday, after work and in the weekends. I had a day job in an office then...every time I recall this experience a sense of proudness overcome me.

I guess I have to channel my spirit from 2004, to lead me through any dark days of low spirit...

The results came quite unexpected, I got a 90 over 100 in score, it was a distinction score I was told by my teacher Seng Tiang. I remember not believing him at first but being on cloud nine for days. When the results (report) came finally, they said I also received something called the Outstanding Achievement something for getting the 90 marks.

What happened after that I think it's not as important as what I did before the exam.

I didn't win any awards after the exam, didn't sit for anymore singing exams...

There were other milestones for me along the way after that vocal exam, I worked harder on some projects than others, sometimes I find myself slacking so much it shame me a lot. Each time I spring into an elaborate scale of plans & thoughts about having new discipline to curb my mistakes and flaws. Most of the time I start on these plans well and good, but falter halfway and don't have a follow-through action plan.

It's been a year of soul-searching in singing for me. Frustrating it may be, the journey is always fulfilling and rewarding at times...