First Weekend of Performances

By Allan Yap & Nigel A. Skelchy

The 1st weekend of performances is over! Hallelujah! Aaaaa-mmennnnn!

Tiring but ultimately satisfying. Colin is supportive as a conductor and the choir responds well to him. I feel the men seem to be shouting too much and a rough sound is developing in the Bass section. That coarse edge when you yell too much. However, the overall balance is decent, despite the fact that we had to contend with a sound guy who was late for our 1st 3 performances out of our 5 this weekend. Hmmm!

Perhaps it's time to have a word with him. Really congenial guy and means very well. AND I know he takes the Phil seriously. But punctuality is also about respecting other people. And if you're late, it seems to indicate that you don't care about people and you don't care about wasting other peoples' time. Something I will have to think about and see how I can communicate to him without walls going up, whether directly or indirectly.

I had an interesting chat with Aariye tonight. Crux of it was about freedom of speech in all it's guises.

My opinion has for a very long time been that I have no quarrels with the notion. It's the consequences of taking the notion to an extreme that I have a problem with. People bandy the phrase "freedom of speech" (especially in America) to the point that it's become this religion, this end in itself. As far as I'm concerned, the only end for me is to live in harmony with my fellow people. My community. I'm a filthy tempered fellow but happily enough I'm finding more balance every day. Thanks to my other half.

So, the challenge is, how do you find a way to get your message accross without it being still born. That's what all this "communication"/blogging/talking/speechifying is all about isn't it? If this is the end itself, then it seems sterile.

We live in a community of mostly like minded people. I'm an optimist. I believe that people are generally good and when it comes down to it, if you can speak their lingo (and I don't mean a foreign tongue) people will generally want to do what you want to do. In my 40 years, I've found people are reasonable. Only thing is that, the way I think and speak, may not be how someone else thinks and speaks. So how do I find a way to communicate what I think to another person without that person erecting a wall to my message? The onus is on me surely.

Furthermore, if you, for example, cause offence to someone, the first thing they will do is erect a brick wall 100 m high and it'll be a very tedious job tearing it down so you can communicate to them again. And for what? Just so you can have the satisfaction of saying what you want to say? Why not just try rephrasing it? Sit down with them specifically and tell them...nicely. If it's not as well received as you'd like it, move on. They don't have to agree with you. And it's not necessarily personal if they don't agree with you...unless YOU make it so.

So you can still have your freedom of speech but the consequences are that you get to pass your message on and still have a decent relationship (and that's what it's all about) with the other guy. No PERSON (for you "womyn" out there) is an island after all. But THAT is a whole other story.