The National Concert Hall (NCH) in Dublin is a very imposing building. It is a massive stone structure which would not be out of place as a Monarchial residence. It reminds me of the majesty of some buildings in places like Paris or London: buildings fit for Kings and Queens. Wikipedia tells me that it […]
Out of all the cities I visited on my Europe trip, Paris was the only one that I had visited before (other than London, but I barely spent any time there at all). I was heading there specifically because of a gamelan that I’d found when searching up groups to go and visit – gamelan […]
I always thought the UK was a train country. By that, I mean you always hear about how good the trains are there, how easy they are to take, and how connected the country is. I also think the Victorian steam era of the UK heavily features the development of its rail network, so it’s […]
The past two weeks I’ve had the pleasure of taking part in a marimba ensemble workshop. These marimbas aren’t orchestral marimbas, though, which I have some very minor experience playing. These marimbas are Zimbabwean: handcrafted and in four different ranges (soprano, alto, tenor, bass). It was a lot of fun to learn an unfamiliar (ie […]
Before I had travelled to Bali, I played in an Balinese gamelan (traditional ensemble) in Canberra. Friends there often expressed a sense of regret or sadness about the current state of Bali. “It used to be a beautiful, natural island,” they would say, “but now it has become overrun with resorts and tourists”. They would […]
Hi everyone, I’ve been very sick this week unfortunately so only a very short blog post from me. Unfortunately I came down with some kind of illness on Monday and so I spent most of this week resting up. I was even worse yesterday but once again I seem on the mend (though I recall […]
I’ve been in Bali for about ten days now. It is actually my first time being in the country of Indonesia – before being involved with gamelan (the traditional music commonly found in Java and Bali), I had no experience with Indonesia at all. I’ve slowly been playing catch-up as a result, now being about […]
You’re probably familiar with the concept of bi-lingualism, which is where someoneone is fluent in 2 languages (for example, English and Indonesian, or Chinese and Japanese). But did you also know there’s a similar concept in music, called bi-musicality? This is where one person is fluent within 2 musical systems. You may have heard the […]