Greetings from the land of the rising sun! I'm a little late with this update, oops!
My excuse is that I've had a bit of a crazy week sorting myself out, and getting my butt to Tokyo (among other things).
Anyhooo - I didn't think I would be making another music update because I didn't think I would have the chance to record before I left town, but by some bizarre miracle, my friend and I actually managed to get our hands on two pianos, something like 2 days before I had to leave Hong Kong. It was all a bit of a mad rush and I only just managed to upload the video, but it thankfully all worked out in the end!!
Here's the related story for anybody who's interested!
Quite honestly, I didn't think we would be able to get the chance to do the two pianos thing, as these music rooms are frequently fully booked in advance, and because my friend is a very busy lady and I'm also pretty busy myself. But I suppose miracles do happen?! Granted, we hadn't practiced at all, so this performance isn't all that great. We only had 1 hour to play and we'd only learned about the availability of the pianos the night before. I also arrived a little late (oops) because I got lost on the way (lol!) so it was really only something like 45 minutes. We played around with a number of hymns, but we only recorded this one, and then spent the rest of the time just having fun. I'd been wanting to play this particular hymn ever since I heard it again recently in the movie "Atonement" (there's a scene in Dunkirk in which a group of soldiers sings this hymn). Great movie by the way, though a little sad *sniff*. James McAvoy = yummy Scottish dewd = what's not to love? And I would say nice things about Keira Knightley too if I wasn't so jealous of her lolol~ Kidding of course. Love Keira, what's not to love about her too!
Neeways we both flubbed a little in the video because we only played the hymn twice before I set up my digicam to record it (it was one of the first pieces we tried out, and I only recorded one take because I just wanted us to enjoy the rest of the session loll!), both of us were playing by ear and I didn't really know what she was doing at first in terms of chord progression, and she didn't really know what I was doing either. XD In the end she made a quick note of the melody and chords before we recorded (you can see her looking up sometimes - that's what she's looking at, a piece of paper with some scribbles on it!!) just so that she remembered which chords I was using haha~ There are some points where we kinda overlapped instead of taking full advantage of the range of keys available to us. I think it sounds very pretty nevertheless - I just love her improvisations (you can hear that she is doing something different every time) and I can only dream of being as good as her one day!! And it's one of my favourite hymns so I'm just really happy that we managed to do this. The sound quality isn't great but you can still hear some very pretty chords and melodies ^_^ Sorry about my weird laugh at the end - yes I know I have the most annoying laugh hahahahahaha!!
About my friend (named "R" in the video!)... wow such a long story, which I can't properly do any justice in this short paragraph, but she is very dear to me so I feel like I should explain my relationship with her just a little. She started out as my piano teacher but I have long considered her to be more than just a teacher (not to mention I haven't had a lesson with her in years haha!) - she is and has been a lifelong friend, and such a strong support at all times. Sometimes when we are out and about together, people ask whether or not I am her adopted daughter haha! She is also one of the most amazing people I know - a brilliant musician and linguist who has done quite extraordinary things in her life (don't worry I shan't list them here haha, but I keep telling her to write an autobiography), it is so easy to overlook the fact that she had no formal qualifications to speak of besides a high school education in the US, and that she was also hindered by a great many personal circumstances. Now I'm not one to diss a good education (by the way in case you were wondering, my previous sentence was not intended to be a slight against the US education system), but it just goes to show that with a bit of talent and sheer determination, you can do just about anything! XD
I dunno if this will actually happen but I hope we'll be able to do a proper recording with two pianos some day. Not quite sure when the two of us will be in the same country again though. T_T Playing on two Steinways would be really cool (but very unlikely to happen hahahaha~) I can't remember what the pianos we had were - they deffo weren't Steinways, but they were grand pianos in any event and we were glad just to have anything at all!
Anyways... so I don't have a piano (or a guitar) here in Tokyo so this is gonna be my last music update for a couple of months. My updates will be non-music related in the meantime haha!
In other news - I am now a proud owner of a Macbook Pro!
I love everything about it except the "delete" button isn't really a "delete" button and it works more like a "backspace" button haha (it works when you hold the function key though XD). Also trying to get my head around some of the hotkeys, but anyway! XD
Enough TLDR for today methinks! Thanks for stopping by as always, and I hope you had a good week!
Orsum Artist: Derlaine8! 
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