Happy Chinese New Year

Dear Readers,

theokwek, after a long hiatus, brings us a latest - short - essay about the sharing of CDs among musicians. Here's Hi to all fellow CD-lovers out there, and here's Happy chinese New Year to all our readers.

Gong Xi Fa Cai
The Straight Times Editor

There is something special about CDs in the heart of every musician.

A year ago I wouldn’t have conceded this point, not having discovered the joys of recorded music, but now, together with the widening of my musical circle has come a widening of appreciation for those who have gone before us. Testament to this is the gradually expanding collection of records that I have on my work-table; listening to the immortal Heifetz or the exploratory Yo-Yo Ma has become a must-have for any homework session.

Now for a young and impatient musician, one’s own CD library is never enough to satisfy the ears – we are a greedy lot, always pining for more. But then again, there’s nothing to stop us from a mutual exchange of music. As we meet each other along the time-worn corridors of the school, we find the conversation drifting towards: “Have you heard the Heifetz Scottish Fantasie recording?” or “I’ll lend you my Tchaikovsky 5 DVD at our next rehearsal!”

It becomes something like a quiet addiction, a hot topic for the canteen table, material for rehearsal-breaks chit-chat, objects of mutual admiration. Someone has a great new autographed CD? Pass it around.

However, there isn’t a spot of filthy-green envy among us in this open-minded exchange. One may think that the clash between technology and age-old musical traditions would lead to hot-blooded jostling and jealousy, but the reverse is true. Even as new-fangled devices break the market, we musicians once again prove to be an adaptable lot, keeping a healthy friendship in the musical circles and sharing CDs like we would share musical ideas.

Every other musician should never be denied a chance to taste of the sweetness of ‘forbidden fruit’, never be refused an encounter with a great maestro of time past, never be separated from opportunities to better his music-making.

In these exchanges, musicians cannot be stopped. On the last day of school before the Chinese New Year break this year, I met a friend from Raffles Junior College along the link-bridge that connects our schools. Just the day before, he – a trumpeter – had lent me a rare recording of Isaac Stern playing the Tchaikovsky and Mendelssohn concertos, and I, after a night of cutting and burning the CD, was ready to return the treasure to its rightful owner.

I fished in my – messy – bag and pulled out the famed record and passed it into his waiting hands.

In that instant, it wasn’t just a piece of art passing through our hands. Neither was it just music, or the notes and intervals that composed the piece, or merely a piece that we both loved.

A spirit of trust and a shared passion passed through our hands, from junior to senior, from one music-lover to another. We both smiled.