Campus Superstar Roadshow at Bugis Junction 28 Feb 2009 (6 Revivalists only)

Campus Superstars 3 Roadshow at Bugis Junction:

I took some time in the afternoon to go down to Bugis Junction to show support for primarily the six revivalists for the coming Monday's revival round. Unfortunately, I could not see all the twelve contestants onstage because it was beginning to rain at around 4pm so I had to find shelter or risk getting sick (which will be a bad thing if being sick affects continuing the performance commentaries properly).

As usual, I used a camera phone and I was taking the photos from quite a distance because I did not want myself to be captured on the MediaCorp cameras which were sweeping from side to side at the audience close to the stage.

No detailed commentaries about the six revivalists' singing because as Lee Teng had said onstage, all six of them will need more encouragement in the highly-stressful revival round so there's no point adding anything to their shoulders in specific details. Perhaps the only thing I would want the six of them to take note would be their volume projection control because almost all the six of them had singing which suddenly increased in volume at certain parts without warning or necessity. Maybe it was the microphone controls there but just be careful during revival round because volume projection control will be one of the considered factors in both the judges' considerations as well as my performance commentaries.

Enough talking, get on with the photos.

The four hosts of the day.
Jeremy
Jeremy
Mavis
Mavis
Lee Teng imitating Hsiao Jing Teng's way of singing and he was pretty good with it. Hahaha.
Shelly
Shelly
Adrian
Adrian (with trembling hands). Hope he keeps his nerves during the highly-charged revivals.
Rachel Chua
Rachel Chua (her voice projection was clear and firm throughout the entire atrium)
Rachael Chang
Rachael Chang (brilliant smile - I could see the smile all the way from the back)
The six revivalists onstage.
Personal Random Photos Backdated:
Some French Beans with wedge potatoes salad which gained no favor from SC or myself - it was a very dry new salad dish from Swensen's. I advise against trying it because it was very dry on the throat and I ended up washing my share of it down with at least three glasses of ice water.
The chocolate fondue shared by SC and myself when I suggested an impromptu ice-cream treat last week because it was so warm and stuffy for that whole week. SC simply refused to dip the ice-cream balls into the chocolate but we had a lot of fun talking the afternoon away over the delicious dish because it was a good day to sit back, indulge in ice-cream and relax.
This was the carbonara spaghetti dish from one of the small restaurants near Bugis after the temple visit. The waitress there could not understand English properly and had to apologize profusely after she took such a long time to get our orders right. My family was displeased with the service but at least the waitress was nice enough to bring glasses of plain water when she saw our drinks were finished before our meal ended.
The human meat crunch and squeeze outside the temple of Guan Yin near Bugis. It was a legendary temple for Singapore so many people wanted to get good luck angbao packets from it. The incense smell was overwhelming and so was the heat that day but it was a family outing so I kept my mouth shut.
Another closer shot of the temple worshippers' rush despite the loudspeakers urging the worshippers not to run and rush, toasting one another's hair and shoulders with the incense sticks. The place was serious guarded by at least twelve visible Cisco guards with semi-automatic pistols in their holsters - it seems like the temple was doing all it can to prevent any chaos or trouble from brewing on that sacred day of Goddess Guan Yin's (it's actually a he) birthday.

Book Review: Lords of The Bow

I have just finished reading the above-mentioned book about Genghis Khan, one of the most prominent leaders of Mongolia and how he managed to unite the barbaric and highly-diversified tribes of Mongolia into a massive army of fierce Mongolian horse bowmen and lancers.

He was quite a brutal leader to his enemies, slaughtering them by the tens of thousands as he razed and plundered many cities of the Xi Xia and Jin Dynasty. He was very disciplined when it comes to military matters and did not hesitate to punish any Mongolian who failed to deliver up to military expectations. The book offered a glimpse of Genghis Khan as a father and a husband who tried to keep his large family of wives and sons in order to find a proper heir amongst them.

My memories of the book were strongest at one of the key battles fought when he led his army of forty-thousand across the sweltering desert to avenge years of oppression by the Chinese empires. In the first battle, Genghis Khan took the advice of a bright-eyed youth who volunteered to lead a hundred men to attempt to knock down a mountain pass fort's gates with hammers and a flimsily-constructed wooden shelter against the Xi Xia's ballistas (huge crossbows). Although only two of the hundred men survived the inital attack, Genghis Khan was able to launch a lightning cavalry charge, storming the fort by surprise and thus opening the gateway to the rest of the Chinese empires.

The reason - of the hundred men who went in with hammers, Genghis Khan actually provided ten of them with the best armour he had in the army and gave all the hundred men beautiful weapons and chests of glittering treasures to lure the Xi Xia soldiers to open the gates to loot those who fell. The costly ruse worked and as one of the greedy Xi Xia officers examined the chests by opening one of them, a flight of white pigeons flew out of the chest, signalling the remaining one thousand horsemen hiding behind the valley to charge in. The pigeons were also a signal to six of the ten-man team who survived the arrow showers to suddenly leap up from the sand (they were feigning death all the while) and held the fort's gates open until the Mongolian cavalry arrived. And I thought the pigeon thing was really ingenious of Genghis Khan..haha.

Nothing much else is going on this week - work, gym, blog-hopping, getting my lost hours' of sleep and going on an chocolate-fondue spree with one of the singing enthusiasts during last Saturday. Oh, I am also trying to design some medieval castle game of my own to play whenever I am bored so I was twiddling with the programs for quite a few nights.

Hope my readers are doing well with their lives! Will update again when I have more blog-worthy news! ^__^

Campus Superstars 3 Round 3 Part 2 of 2 Performance Commentaries

Blog post to be updated as soon as possible after the performances! Stay tune! ^__^

C1 黄慧婷 Joselin - 《我相信》 原唱者：楊培安
-肩， 现 notes were sounding weak at the end
- 乐园 was sung too careful, dragging the verse unnecessarily
- 发音不净 her notes at the chorus sounded strained
- 音散 the strained notes were not gathered or sustained properly
- judges' scores were 6.0+7.5+7.5+7.0= 28.0
- I would have given Joselin a 6.5 because even though I was aware that Joselin was sick, I wanted to be fair to other contestants who managed to protect their health during this competition round. Firstly, I applaud Joselin's immense courage for attempting what is generally regarded as one of the most difficult songs to perform during competitions because this song required tons of self-confidence and a solid technical foundation in singing because of the scaling techniques within. However, Joselin's illness is getting the better of her and she could not deliver that kind of vocal energy and vibrance necessarily to reach out to the audience. Yes, the stage-confidence was there and she did not fumble on the lyrics, but the overall feeble note delivery undermined the grades from my perspective and thus she did not move beyond a reasonably good grade.

C2 李奕贤 Jarod -《改变自己》 原唱者：王力宏
- notes did not reach out properly
- attempted accent warped most of his enunciation during all the verses
- microphone angle was still incorrect at certain portions
- chorus finally picked up significantly
- twisting his neck and slapping the microphone worsened enunciation problems
- judges' scores were 7.0+8.0+7.0+7.5= 29.5
- I would have given Jarod a 6.5 because even though I thought he made quite a mess of his enunciation during the performance, he did what was sorely pressing of him - moving away from sentimental love ballads just like Xiao Han Laoshi said and hence another 0.5 grade was awarded. I thought Jarod did try to give his best but he still did not really bring out his own rendition of the song. I kept feeling that he was trying to mimick Lee Hom's style of soft-rock but that parroting would reflect negatively. He also tried putting effort in his stage presentation of the song, which was quite a bright point in the performance but it was not properly coordinated and like Fei Hui Laoshi said, his facial expression was blankly compared to his bodily gesticulations.

C3 叶嘉敏 Jiamin - 《有你多好》 原唱者：蔡淳佳
- 原来 in the first verse was too low to be enunciated properly
- her heaving breaths were getting a little distracting
- very clear notes to deliver the chorus portions
- 2nd last verse 面 was broken off when it could be smoother
- judges' scores were 8.0+9.0+9.0+8.5= 34.5
- I would have given Jiamin a 8.0 because Jamin remains one of the most consistent performers in this competition so far. Her delivery was still the smoothest amongst all the contestants and thus has been able to garner both grades and votes to send her all the way till this stage of the competition. Unfortunately, Jiamin would not be able to move further if she is not going to show versatility onstage with more genres, more singing styles and more variation in emoting songs. Two of the judges seemed to think Jiamin had the glimmerings of a potential Superstar but I think she needs a breakthrough to truly impress the audience if she makes it through to the upcoming stages of the competition.

C4 丁文淞 Jeremy - 《专属天使》 原唱者：Tank
- 人间 was sung quite weakly
- verses and chorus did not have a clear emotional distinction
- 2nd chorus sounded choppy and thus wasted the potentially romantic tone
- judges' scores were 6.0+6.5+6.5+5.5= 24.5
- I would have given Jeremy a 6.0 because first, Jeremy did not manage to challenge himself with another genre of songs nor vary his singing style to show his versatility on the stage. Secondly, his rendition of the song seemed to lack that earnest feeling that necessitates the gist of the lyrics. I admit that he made very few mistakes in this song but the relative blandness of his rendition is costing him from my perspective. So many people are able to sing this song so I really expected him to deliver something superior than the masses' renditions but he fell short.

Good luck to all the contestants for the voting round tonight! By the way, take a leaf from Fish Leong's singing. For those who were observant enough or those who bothered to watch the repeated telecast, Fish's notes were enunciated clearly and with a kind of bounce that separates her from the mediocre singers. Learn how to treat each note with care and give that beautiful bounce whenever it was necessary. ^__^

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Reply to tags about 16 Feb 2009 Performance Commentaries

ridhwan supporter: Well, I am one of those people who is expecting Ridhwan to be technically as good as the other Chinese contestants because I ardently believe it should be a fair contest of singing skills and performance capabilities between the contestants, reflected in the judges' scores and as far as possible, in my performance commentaries. To me, it doesn't matter whether the contestants are Chinese, Malays, Indians, Caucasians, or any ethnic groups, as long as they are enjoying singing and giving their best but all should do their best to overcome technical problems.

musicrox: Perhaps but stage 3B would be quite a fight to watch out for, right? =)

pew: pew is better sounding than peunice. Hahaha. I did not check back Shawn Tok's version so I could not do any comparison but I still felt that Ridhwan, given his familiarity with JJ Lin's songs, could have given a much better rendition than what he did last Monday.

passer: Joselin sick? I did not know. If you see her, send my regards to her for speedy recovery.

Apparently, my commentaries seemed to have caught the attention of some of the prominent figures in Singapore's music scene because I was being contacted by one of them to comment on the quality of this year's Campus Superstars 3 contestants in the areas of vocal quality as well as suitability for cutting albums.

Surprisingly, this prominent figure managed to locate me over the MSN because another prominent figure in the local music scene was passing my blog address around. While I wondered who else might have my blog URL in hand, I pondered the questions posed to me carefully as I was quite tired from work and the recent heat and haze. I did not want to say anything misleading which might ruin the possible album chances of the contestants unknowingly. Although nothing is set in concrete at this stage of the competition, this prominent music figure do indeed has the resources to organize albums for the Campus Superstars 3 contestants.

A few names were mentioned in our exchanges and we discussed about their singing skills, stage skills, vocal quality, suitability for album marketing and even quality of character and the reason why I want to bring this up is because I want the Campus Superstars 3 contestants as well as singing enthusiasts who are reading my blog to know that these prominent figures do care about the younger generations and how they fare in their performances and henceforth encourage to give their best every time onstage.

Although the identity of this prominent figure as well as the names mentioned during our exchanges will be kept top-secret (I haven't thought of a code-name for this person yet) , it is important to remind all the CSS 3 contestants as well as those interested in going onto the public stage to perform that every single performance on a live stage counts as these may even reach the eyes and ears of those prominent music figures who may already be assessing these performances in their minds.

Good luck to all and I believe I am obliged to reply back to this prominent figure again who left a series of comments while I was offline but I'll do it tomorrow when my energy gives a clearer mind. In any case, my performance commentaries remains unbiased because I'll still be commenting as strictly and fairly as I can on a performance basis.

Have a good week ahead! ^__^

Campus Superstars 3 Round 3 Part 1 of 2 Performance Commentaries

Hi Campus Superstars 3 blog readers!

So sorry but without the official confirmation by the CSS 3 website, and none of the contestants' fanblogs have revealed their song choices, we can only wait until the competition starts in 30 minutes' time to find out.

All the best to the four contestants tonight! ^_^

C1 张慧诗 Rachael - 《至少还有你》 原唱者：林忆莲
- 我怕，愿意 were sung slightly off-key
- 力气 seemed to be swallowed up by her singing
- 们 note transition was not very stable
- judges' scores were 6.0+6.5+5.5+5.5= 23.5
- I would have given Rachael a 6.0 because she did not make any significant improvement in her singing skills at this late stage of the competition and I agreed with Zhan Lun Laoshi that she was being too careful with the song till the flavor of the song was overly-reined in. The song was indeed abit too difficult for Rachael to handle and thus she was unable to emote the full range of emotions intended by the songwriter.

C2 郑琪颖 Benita - 《恋之憩》 原唱者：张泛
- 幽幽， 水手 was sung slightly off-key
- 温柔 note did not seem to reach the desired high
- 回忆才天长地旧 buildup was not as distinctive as necessary
- judges' scores were 6.0+7.5+7.0+6.0= 26.5
- I would have given Benita a 6.5 because she made quite alot of mistakes in a song which I was familiar in. The techical mistakes were somehow soothed out by her confidence onstage but since the competition has already hit this stage, the criteria I set is consequently higher and I felt that Benita still did not have the 柔软度 in transiting between those beautiful lyrics so it fell a little short of my expectations of her command of the song.

C3 林瑞敏 Rachel Lim -《Beautiful Love》 原唱者：蔡健雅
- starting verses' notes were unsteady
- vibrato was overly-used when it was not unnecessary
- judges' scores were 7.5+8.0+7.5+7.0= 30.0
- I would have given Rachel a 8.0 because Beautiful Love is one of the most difficult songs to handle on a live stage but she did an above-expectation rendition of the song. As what Xiao Han Laoshi had commented, the song required a powerful feel and reach towards the audience and Rachel managed to bring that out even though she was fumbling with the unsteady notes at nearly every verse line before the first chorus. From there onwards, Rachel surprised me with a good control of the variations within the choruses and steadied out to give a good climax right till the end of her performance. It was that firm chorus control that won my grades over.

C4 Ridhwan Azman - 《翅膀》 原唱者：林俊杰
- 些 note was held back a beat too quickly
- facial expression was not in line with sad verse lyrics
- chorus was flatter than usual and did not build enough momentum
- 翱翔， 好了 reach was not stretched till desired length
- 眼泪 at the final verse was a beat slower affecting climax ending
- judges' scores were 6.5+6.5+7.0+7.0= 27.0
- I would have given Ridhwan a 6.0 because even though I noticed my grades were lower than all the judges, I thought Ridhwan had been singing too many JJ Lin-R&B styled of songs and never really moved far to improve his genre ever since the competition started. His rendition of this song was also not up to that kind of vibrancy and there were actually portions of downs and ups in the emotions of the song but he seemed to be stuck at only one mode of emotions. The incorrect angular holding of the microphone as pointed out by one of the judges in a previous round was not corrected as well. Without a distinctive improvement or self-challenge to his own vocals, Ridhwan is going to score downhill from here onwards from my end at least.

All the best in the voting rounds for all the contestants! ^__^

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Happy Valentine's Day 2009

Happy Valentine's Day to all my blog readers!

It's another supposed non-official holiday to celebrate romantic love on this planet so for those readers who continue to find meaning in romantic love - my congratulations and well-wishes to you all!!!

I always mused to my friends around me that romantic love is like a game with no definite rules, no definite rewards and no definite penalties. I would like to think of it as a chessboard located on a constantly-moving rubics cube. There are no fixed pieces on the chessboard and there are no fixed black and white squares for the players to move their pieces. Whenever the players turn the rubics cube shaped chessboard, the game takes on a new perspective and the rules change again for the better or for the worse. That is why nobody in the world can say they have it all set in the realm of romantic love because people, issues and circumstances change constantly.

Nevertheless, romantic love is still such an important aspect of human existence because it is one of the differentiating emotions that separates us from the beasts and the non-animated objects on this planet. It drives human beings to say words, do things, perform heroic deeds, make a fool of themselves for the sake of their loved ones and if it affects them deep enough, they would do all those things again and again willingly.

Some people in our lives would have encountered multiple episodes of romantic love; some would have continued one single episode, some relived their memories of old episodes in their minds; some may undergo positive or negative transformations from previous episodes of romantic love while others may continue to crave for new episodes to happen.

Whatever your individual situation or perspective of romantic love is, let's make today a happy or at least a peaceful day over whoever or whatever activity you choose to spend this day over.

Once again, Happy Valentine's Day to all! ^__^

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