Yesterday was technical challenge day. Izumi's been hounding me awhile, since most of the time I hog all the piano/keyboard pieces, and the poor dear's stuck with lead and vocals. She was considering a career in music previously before bailing out, and she's actually more of a violinist - thank Shinju for leading her astray with the guitars. So we sat across each other at the studio and battled it out. Shinju wanted in, naturally, she's a pretty competitive girl.

To make it fair I let them go first; I play the keyboard practically everyday, that would be a huge advantage, no? Izumi was merciless though, she went with Rachmaninoff's concerto 3 in d minor. As a warm up. I don't know if you guys know your pieces, but when I was younger and less skilled I listened in awe to maestros who play that kind of stuff.

Shinju's not much of a pianist, but she's fairly good. She went next, I think hers was Liszt's La Campanella (from Grandes Etudes de Paganini no.3), and her playing style sounds much different than what I expected. Her specialty is stuff like the flute, and it's only recently that she picked up the guitar. Itami on the other hand doesn't play the piano, she's pretty much a dedicated drummer. We like her upbeat atittude though - she's like the solid base which anchors our flights of fancy.

My choices were Lizst' b-minor piano sonata and Islamey (Balakirev). I daresay modesty is not one of my virtues :P

Ach, to be so young again. They're almost as good as me, and I need to practise more - I'm getting sidetracked with all this new crap. I mean, you don't exactly see an abundance of harp soloists do you? Guess it's back to the scoresheets for me, I've been neglecting the classics for way too long.

Oh, and I realise many of you out there don't think highly of the classics. Well, they're classic for a reason; nobody remembers yesterday's manufactured pop (of which unfortunately we ourselves indulge in playing so much), but the names of the maestros live on. That's one of the big reasons we like game music, there's some interesting technical stuff out there that intrigues the technical musicians in us. True, there's a lot of crap as well, but as Sturgeon observed, 95% of everything is, we just have to sift through it.

We're getting together early today, I have a surprise proposal for all of them. It's got to do with my hare-brained last minute travel scheme.