Grinning Geckos and Maestros

This morning I caught a baby lizard crawling on my kitchen counter and all over my oranges. I secured it in a plastic bag and released it (to know why I did that, refer to point 3 below) outside my home later.

Here are some things I've heard about lizards over the years.

1. Ms Sarah Birchwood said lizards like nibbling on the tails of aquarium fish.

2. A friend of mine told me how her grandpa used to feed lizards, and the geckos would tap their claws on the table as a sign of gratitude (or so she claimed)!

3. You can see a lizard's heart pounding hard against its chest when it's caught. So poor thing!

4. Lizards have a forked kind of tongue and are supposed to eat mosquitoes.

This is a comic I saw in today's newspapers.

It's making fun of the ongoing global debate on climate change, where you get plenty of differing voices and opinions from the international community.

It's just like in the comic, with so many conductors trying to direct the poor solo cellist.

Speaking of conductors, here are some thoughts.

1. Some people think that a conductor is just a human metronome who beats time. How wrong that is! The conductor is one who trains the orchestra/ensemble and is responsible for the overall conception of the music.

2. The conductor is a very powerful person in the orchestra. S/he has to be charismatic, a leader, a communicator and must know the technical and musical capabilities of all the instruments intimately (s/he doesn't need to be able to play all of them though).

3. Most conductors are male. However, there are also some great international women conductors, such as JoAnn Falletta (music director of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra), Marin Alsop (music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orch) and Wang Ya Hui (music director of the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory orchestra at NUS), just to name a few.

4. A lot of players in student orchestras are buried in their scores/instruments most of the time and do not look at the conductor. This is very wrong because they will miss all their cues, won't know when the conductor's going to take more time/accelerate at certain places in the score and when to cut off. So don't be surprised if a conductor loses his temper when you are so preoccupied with your playing and fail to look up.