So I finally got internet at last. I should have updated my blog earlier, but kept putting it off (as usual). Been quite busy with college - I've finished my Foundation and am now starting my degree program. I found out that my college has this really stupid inconvenient ruling where students from the BMus program and Berklee Transfer program (BTP) are to be in separate ensembles. The college claims that it's not their idea and that they just are carrying out orders from 'somewhere else'. So this semester, there is a Rock ensemble and a Jazz ensemble. The BTP students get to choose either Rock or Jazz; however for us BMus students, since we are not allowed to mix with BTP students, we are all dumped placed in the Rock ensemble. The BTP students doing Rock get their own separate ensemble, so at the end of the semester we will have two Rock recitals and a Jazz recital. Does it make sense to you? Well apparently for the '5th floor' (ICOM's administration), it does.

So, yours truly, the sole horn player in ICOM, is not allowed to join the Jazz ensemble, because someone either in Berklee, Woverhampton University or '5th floor' decided that it would be detrimental to the BTP students if they mix with us BMus students. And it so happens that Eric Li, one of KL's most happening jazz /latin pianists, is tutoring the Jazz ensemble. So all the best stuff is reserved for BTP students (even though we BMus students pay more).

Maybe that someone who came up with this idea thinks that somehow we are a deadly virus who will taint and lower the playing abilities of the BTP students if we mix with them (even though we pay more). And then Berklee will complain about the standard of the intake from ICOM, and since we BMus students are of lower standard (because we are not going to Berklee), we must be the villains because we are playing in the same ensembles as the BTP students. So, someone decides that the only way to correct this problem is to isolate the BTP students, give them the best possible education, and let the BMus students rot elsewhere (even though we pay more).

As a result, yours truly who listens to the music of Clifford Brown, Miles Davis, Paquito D'Rivera, Oscar Peterson, Art Blakey, Benny Golson, Bill Charlap, the Brecker Brothers, Cannonball Adderley, Chick Corea, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Keith Jarrett, Arturo Sandoval, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Turtle Island String Quartet, Jean-Luc Ponty, Glenn Miller, Eddie Daniels, John Coltrane, Dave Brubeck, Dexter Gordon, Gene Ammons, Gary Burton, Eric Marienthal, Freddie Hubbard, Thelonious Monk, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Stanley Turrentine, Herbie Hancock, Horace Silver, James Moody, James Morrison (the aussie jazzer), Joshua Redman, Kenny Garrett, Lee Ritenour, Marcus Miller, Michel Camilo, Paul Desmond, the MJQ, Roy Hargrove, Sonny Stitt, Stan Getz, Wes Montgomery, Barney Kessel etc etc etc...

...is not allowed to join the Jazz ensemble. Therefore, he HAS to join the Rock ensemble. Playing the saxophone and clarinet. The very fact that there is a clarinet in the Rock ensemble probably entitles it to Fusion status. And to think I came all the way to KL to learn jazz. I'm paying a bloody lot of money for this and I can't even choose my own ensemble.

And the '5th floor' doesn't care about the students and just wants to make more money claims that it's out of their hands and nothing can be done about it. So folks, come along and watch yours truly play rock with his clarinet. How does that sound?

I feel like throwing rocks at certain people.




Disclaimer: I have nothing against BTP students, many of them are good friends of mine.