Musicians' Perspective: Week 3, Day 4

We started out today with a meeting at the University of the Philippines Los Baños to discuss the day-long workshop and concert collectively titled, "Pasalubong," which comes from the root word "salubong" which means "to welcome" or "to meet." Unfortunately, the music director was unavailable for the meeting, but it was still great to see the campus and to start planning the workshop.

We taught a goal-setting masterclass, which we thought was important for the first day, since both we both agree that setting goals and knowing what you are aiming for is usually step one in becoming better at…well pretty much anything! We discussed having long-term as well as short-term, weekly, and daily goals, and to make sure they are WRITTEN DOWN. We were able to hear one of the students, Matthew, who was preparing to compete in the Thailand Mozart International Piano Competition the following week. At that point we split up, and both taught several half-hour lessons that the students signed up for. We both had really good first days of teaching. We both agreed that the most challenging part of these two weeks was trying to teach lessons to those who played different instruments than us, since most of the students at PHSA are voice, violin, piano, or guitar players. However, this was also the part of the trip that taught us the most about our OWN musicianship.

That evening, we were able to go back to Los Baños and meet with Angel, the music director at UPLB. We discussed what we wanted to collaborate on, and learned about the UPLB "Rondalla," an ensemble of Philippine folk instruments called bandurrias, along with violins, guitars, and double basses. In the end, we hoped to learn some traditional Filipino music, and also share with them some kind of American music. At the time we thought a jazz piece might be interesting, but what we ended up doing was a lot cooler.

After our meeting, Brian had to do a furious search for internet in order to make an online phone call to the US for a job interview! He finally found a place thanks to the help of our friend Reg. Once that was out of the way, we all went to Chow King, which is basically like a Burger King that serves Chinese food. They had REALLY good Halo Halo, which literally translates to "Mix Mix," understandably so, as Halo Halo is a mixture of shaved ice, evaporated milk, and some combination of fruits, jellies, beans, and is often served with ice cream. VERY delicious and VERY refreshing. Almost every Asian country has its own version of Halo Halo. In fact, we had recently had a Malasian version in New York, but we liked the Filipino version better. We had a really great time hanging out with Angel, Reg, and the other professors from UPLB.