a soldier's rhsl

I've just got back from my first rehearsal for TPO's The Soldier's Tale (come watch me plz! 12 July!) and it felt like I was being slapped on the head by a bunch of seals, a different number of slaps each bar, but equally intense and painful throughout. 

Mr Lim Yau's conducting is... for this one piece... ignorable. On purpose. As far as I can tell he's just waving his hands in a manner vaguely remniscent of the beat, while we play like heck and well... ostensibly I'm supposed to feel the rhythm, the harmonic rhythm, but I'm certainly not familiar enough with the piece to do that -.- need more practice.

And it was only two people at today's rehearsal: me and the violinist Kathleen. O.o she's pro - and has either practised much more than me, or has extremely good rhythm, or both. (I'd only played through the whole thing twice... asking for trouble.)

I'm completely noobified. Still counting every single quaver for dear life. I'm glad Mr Lim hasn't thrown me out yet ^^ It's an awesome piece, and he's one of the luminaries here... all in all a crazy musical challenge.