Debut?

Okay, so I've joined an amateur pungnyu group.  Pungnyu is chamber music that was big with aristocrats during the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910).  It essentially is court music, but there are also regional variations as communities in the country side also had their pungnyu styles and performers.    My haegeum teacher teaches at this Korean music institute and she asked them if I could become a member of their club.  They consented and so I joined. I performed for the first time with them yesterday and it was, well, interesting.  It could have gone way better, but at least we did it.  These were pieces I know very well, but with rhythms and tunings not matching up on stage all did not go as planned.  That's the risk you take, I suppose.  But, having played in amateur orchestras since I was in my early 20s, I know that amateur groups can be good.  With some more work and individual practice, I'm hoping the next performance will be way better.   Still, it just feels good to play with other people.  There's nothing like it.  I've always prefered playing with others compared with playing alone--there's always a good energy.  Most of these people are not, and have never been, musicians, so the energy is a bit different.  But, if we keep playing together it can only improve.

Above and below, the small cafe and stage are ready for the performance.  The directors of the institute were running around lighting candles and burning incense to enhance the mood for the performance.  In this little space, there are performances every Friday.  On most Friday's the performers are professionals or people who rent out the space for their solo performances and/or events.  The Friday performance series is called "Pungnyu in the City [doshi pungnyu]."  Last night was amateur night, a regular part of the series. Here is a link to one of the pieces we played last night (or, a demonstration of how it should be played):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fKOALGNRyY
We played it way too slow so that the end result was both hard to play and hard to listen to.  It should have a march-like feel to it and it just bombed.  Oh well.  I, for one, am not sure who should set the tempo, but the directors blamed the daegeum (large transverse bamboo flute) team (whew--at least the haegeum team wasn't blamed, but the daegeum team was not happy with that).

The geomun'go teacher got us all prepped and ready.  She's a master with makeup and hair.  She even got my short wavy hair back into a little ponytail with the help of lots of hair gel.  She kept saying, "Wow, you're hair is like doll's hair."  She, and others, insisted I have the little bun appendage attached to my head.  They said, "We have a brown one so it should work."  Um, guys....um, it totally looks wierd. Brown and reddish-blonde are, afterall, completely different. But they were like, "No, it looks fine. It really blends in." Um, ok. I wanted to take it off, but they insisted I keep it on since they said it looked better than my little pony nub.

Above, I am all dressed and ready to go.  They have a whole storeroom full of hanbok, so the haegeum team all coordinated our outfits, as did the geomun'go and gayageum team.  We spent some time warming up before the show.

Above, the leader of our haegeum team (left) and one of our daegeum players.  He was a daegeum  player in college and also plays piri and danso.  He's very nice.

Jack and the kids arrived late, so I have no photos of the actual peformance.  But, it's just as well.  I need to work on my stage manners (this was the first time for me, afterall) as well as presentation. After the performance there was collective relief and regret.  It could have gone better, and the directors were not happy with the overall performance.  Me, too.  If nothing, a bad performance gets you determined to do better next time (well, except for one geomun'go guy whose playing is terrible but he blames the other instruments as to why he can't play in tune and time--I think he's hopeless).

 Above, me and my biggest fan and, below, with the lovely ladies of the haegeum team.  I really like them.

At this point, I was ready to go....can you tell?  It was a tiring, tiring day.