Have you ever wondered how the digits and letters within your NRIC relate to one another? The most recent news shrouding the NRIC concerns the nature of its collection, use, and disclosure. According to a Straits Times article published last August, it will be illegal for organisations to collect, use, or disclose NRIC numbers or make copies of the identity card, under stricter rules spelt out by the PDPC (Personal Data Protection Commission), from 1 September 2019.
Why are NRICs treated more highly than other personal particulars? Well, that’s because the NRIC number is a “permanent and irreplaceable identifier which can be used to unlock large amounts of information relating to an individual” (quoted from the Channel NewsAsia article).
The structure of the NRIC number is as follows: there is a prefix (which can be either S, T, F, G), followed by 7 digits (each ranging from 0-9), and a suffix (which can be one of many possible letters, as we shall we shortly). The following information regarding the structure of the NRIC number has been adapted from the relevant Wikipedia article:
The structure of the NRIC number/FIN is #0000000@, where:
A. # is a letter, the prefix, that can be “S”, “T”, “F” or “G” depending on the status of the holder.
1) Singapore citizens and permanent residents born before 1 January 2000 are assigned the letter “S“. 2) Singapore citizens and permanent residents born on or after 1 January 2000 are assigned the letter “T”. 3) Foreigners holding long-term passes issued before 1 January 2000 are assigned the letter “F”. 4) Foreigners holding long-term passes issued on or after 1 January 2000 are assigned the letter “G”.
Fun fact: Before 1 January 2000, it was commonly thought that “S” stood for Singapore” and “F” for Foreign. In 2000, the “T” and “G” ranges (which are one letter after “S” and “F” respectively) were introduced to avoid conflicts with previously issued numbers. As “S” is the 19th letter of the alphabet, it was reinterpreted as denoting that the person was born or registered in the 1900s (1900–1999), “T” is the 20th letter of the alphabet, denoting that the person was born in the years 2000 to 2099.
B. 0000000 is a 7-digit serial number assigned to the document holder.
For Singapore citizens and permanent residents born on or after 1 January 1968, their NRIC number will start with their year of birth e.g. 71xxxxx#. For those born on or before 31 December 1967, the NRIC number does not relate to year of birth, and commonly begins with 0 or 1. Non-native Singaporeans who were born before 1 January 1967 are assigned the heading numbers 2 or 3 upon attaining permanent residency or citizenship. They are randomly assigned according to the issuance number. Subsequent numbers are only for people attaining permanent residency or citizenship after 2008 (“4” or “5”).
C. @ is the checksum letter calculated with respect to # and 0000000.
Fun fact: Special NRIC numbers that are numerically significant have been issued to notable people:
S0000001I (Yusof bin Ishak, first President of Singapore, deceased November 1970) S0000002G (first Chief Justice of Singapore Wee Chong Jin, deceased June 2005) S0000003E (first Prime Minister of Singapore Lee Kuan Yew, deceased March 2015) S0000004C (Kwa Geok Choo, wife of Lee Kuan Yew, deceased October 2010) S0000005A (first Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore Toh Chin Chye, deceased February 2012) S0000006Z (second Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore Goh Keng Swee, deceased May 2010) S0000007H (first Minister for Culture S Rajaratnam, deceased February 2006)
I quote from the Channel NewsAsia article yet again: “The NRIC algorithm was never meant to be an impenetrable cipher, but a check for input errors,” Mr Lee said. “With a large enough data set, any budding cryptoanalyst would be able to solve this algorithm.”
Indeed, some people have reverse-engineered the algorithm. See references [5] and [6] for more information. All information below has been obtained from reference [6]. Now, we get to the part which you have been waiting for.
Consider the following random IC: S1234567@, where @ is the valid letter that we shall determine.
Step 1) You take the 1st number and multiply it by 9, then take the 2nd number and multiply it by 4, take the 3rd number and multiply it by 5, take the 4th number and multiply it by 6, and carry on until you take the 7th number and multiply it by 9. Now, take the sum of all these products. In the case of our example, the number will be 202.
Step 2) Divide the sum by 11 and determine the remainder. In other words, 202 mod 11 = 4. This remainder value is known as the checksum.
The above two steps are illustrated in the image below:
Step 3) Look-up the corresponding suffix letter from the following checksum table.
Since the original NRIC (S1234567@) has a prefix letter of ‘S’, we shall consider the first row of values. We see that the checksum value of 4 corresponds to the suffix letter of D. Hence, given the prefix and seven digits of S1234567, we can deduce that the valid NRIC must be S1234567D.
In Singapore, we drive on the left side of the road. As such, people use the right lanes for overtaking, and so, it is natural for expressway exits to branch out from the left-most lane on the highway, so that cars on the right lanes can continue on their journey without let. However, not every expressway exit in Singapore branches from the left lane. There is still one left that has the exit on the right. I present to you:
Having previously lived in the vicinity after the exit, I am familiar with this road. For people unfamiliar though, this must certainly be a source of momentary confusion. There are so many problems with this design.
The main problem with this layout is that all the buses and trucks which need to use that exit have to filter from left side of the expressway all the way to the right. This is a safety hazard for the road users. This is particularly challenging for the trucks and buses (they also not allowed to exceed certain speeds) because they normally have a nice exit on the left to just follow. It certainly isn’t the case here.
Moreover, it certainly doesn’t help that the right lane will have many speeding motorists. It is quite common for there to be cars which travel around 100-110 km/h in this region. Imagine having to change your lane and/or halve your speed for buses which are filtering lanes to get to this exit.
What a mess.
As such, the LTA has decided to do something about this situation and made the following announcement last April:
“The Land Transport Authority (LTA) has awarded a contract to Megastone Holdings Pte Ltd for the construction of a vehicular underpass at PIE. The new underpass will replace the existing PIE Exit 26A leading towards Clementi Road.
When completed, motorists will be able to exit the expressway via the left lane leading towards Clementi Road, improving overall traffic flow for this stretch of the PIE. As part of the works, part of Hua Guan Avenue will be realigned and widened to a standard dual-1 lane road.
Works are expected to commence in the second quarter of 2018 and scheduled to complete in the fourth quarter of 2021.“
In order to have an exit on the left at this region, there will need to be an underpass. See this map for a clearer view of how this is exactly going to play out.
What image is conjured in your mind when you encounter the word “Latin”? You would probably think of a bunch of old priests in parishes chanting in an esoteric language, and indeed – you would be right. As I type this, I am reminded of James Joyce’s phenomenal encyclopaedic novel, Ulysses. I shall first talk about this book and one of its passages before I talk about the legacy of Latin in general.
According to its Wikipedia article, Ulysses is a modernist novel and since its publication, the book has attracted controversy and scrutiny due to its anti-Christian rhetoric. The novel’s stream-of-consciousness technique, careful structuring, and experimental prose – replete with puns, parodies, and allusions – as well as its rich characterisation and broad humour, have led it to be regarded as one of the greatest literary works in history. The book even has its day of celebration (known as Bloomsday) – June 16! This is because the events as chronicled in the book all take place within a single day: 16 June 1904!
This is a quote from the author himself: “I’ve put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant, and that’s the only way of insuring one’s immortality.”
This book certainly appeals to those who are very well-read. When I say “very”, I mean “very“. To fully appreciate the book would require one to be well-acquainted with the Bible, classical works in various fields (philosophy, literature, history), practices of the Roman Catholic church, Greek and Roman culture and mythology, etc. Fully appreciating even just the title of the book requires familiarity with Greek mythology. It requires one to recognise that “Ulysses” is the Latin variant of “Odysseus”, the name of an entity in Greek mythology. Unsurprisingly, the events of the book resemble the events that Homer’s Odysseus undergoes. This is but one of the many examples of the contextual knowledge required to appreciate this monstrous work.
On a relevant Wikibooks page of the book, it is stated that the book’s encyclopaedic nature and voluminous display of erudition have proved to be stumbling blocks for many readers. The reader’s initial enthusiasm for the book is whittled away at the expense of a growing sense of bewilderment, as a mass of unexplained references and quotations piles up. Bewilderment inevitably gives rise to frustration, and this frustration provides the reader with an excuse to give up.
I would argue that it is precisely because this book is so challenging to the casual reader, that many people would strive to understand all the puns, parodies, and allusions. Moreover, there is much that can be learnt if one goes to the extent of probing into why Joyce writes about a particular thing or why Joyce writes in a certain way. Learning new information this way is certainly more accessible than doing what Joyce did to procure all of the knowledge he needed to produce this work.
The book opens with the following passage:
Meanwhile, here are the annotations to the above passage:
Mind-boggling, isn’t it? This is madness. God bless the soul of any student of English Literature who dares attempt to trudge through this labyrinth of a novel on his own.
The reason I gave such an extensive introduction to Joyce’s work is that I ultimately wanted to talk about the Latin phrase which is used just on the first page alone.
“Introibo ad Altare Dei”. I self-studied some basic Latin previously, so allow me to help in dissecting this phrase for you so that you too, can understand its meaning. 1) Perhaps the most challenging word for most people in this phrase would be the first-word “Introibo”. Doesn’t this bear resemblance to the word “Introit” that we see during church services? It shares the same root prefix as the word “introduce”. Indeed, the word “introibo” is an inflection of the word “introeo” – specifically, the first-person singular future active indicative (Latin is a highly-inflected language). The ending “-o” in “introibo” tells us that it is the first-person. Hence, the word “introibo” has the meaning “I will enter”.
2) The word “ad” should be fairly easy to understand. It is a preposition in Latin and usually means “at”. It can also mean “to; for; on”. In fact, “ad” and “at” are cognates. It is seen within set phrases such as “ad hominem”, “ad nauseam”. “ad infinitum”.
3) The Latin word “altare” should be pretty self-explanatory. It bears much resemblance to the English word “altar” and is unsurprisingly, the word from which the word “altar” is derived.
4) The Latin word “Dei” is the genitive form of the nominative “Deus”, which is Latin for “God”. When we say that the word X is in the genitive form, it is helpful to think of it as “of X”. Hence, “Dei” means “of God”. It is from “Deus” that we get words such as “deity”, “deus ex machina” (this plot device literally means “god from the machine”). As I was typing this, I suspected that the word “Deus” might have come from the Greek word “theos” which also means “God”. It is where we have words such as “theology”. Surprisingly, despite the superficial similarity in form and meaning, “Deus” and “theos” are not related as the two come from different roots. Kudos to Wiktionary for that piece of information.
Hence, we can piece everything to decipher the meaning of “Introibo ad Altare Dei”. It thus means: “I will go in to the altar of God”. I will now quote the relevant portions in the above-mentioned annotations.
Consider that first sentence once again: “Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed”. By the way, this first sentence in Ulysses is rated by The Guardian the top 10 best first lines in fiction. A stairhead is a level space at the top of a flight of steps. Buck Mulligan, in mockery of the Catholic ceremony of the Tridentine Mass, has just ascended the steps in imitation of a Roman Catholic priest ascending the steps to the altar.
Moreover, the shaving bowl which Mulligan carries is a mockery of the chalice that a Roman Catholic priest would hold (the chalice holds the wine). Interestingly, Roman Catholicism adheres to the doctrine of transubstantiation (they hold the view that the wine transforms into the actual blood of Christ upon consecration). Such audacity – that the shaving bowl is being compared to a chalice that holds the blood of Christ. Outrageous indeed.
Within the practices of the Roman Catholic Church, the Latin Tridentine Mass (Traditional Latin Mass) opens with the Prayers at the Foot of the Altar. After making the Sign of the Cross, the priest and his servers intone an antiphon (a short sentence sung or recited before or after a psalm) based on Psalm 43:4 (Psalm 42:4 in the Vulgate), Iudica Me, Deus (Latin for “Judge Me, O God“), which Buck Mulligan quotes. By intoning these words after he had ascended the steps, Mulligan has perverted the order of the liturgy.
Interesting, isn’t it?
At the risk of an oversimplification, Latin should have died totally when the Western Roman Empire ultimately fell. Of course, Latin didn’t totally die. It didn’t because of the world’s continuously functioning institution – the Roman Catholic Church. Since time immemorial, Latin has been the official language employed by the Church. In the medieval ages, the papacy was highly influential and there was always a tension between the monarchs and the Pope: who wielded more influence? On one hand, the monarchs were the ones with direct control over the troops, but on the other, the monarchs had their positions only by the grace of God (note that the Roman Catholic Church affirms that the Pope is the Vicar of Christ; hence, the “divine right of monarchs” would not be valid without the Pope’s approval). The Church was a dominant influence on Western civilization from Late Antiquity (fall of the Western Roman Empire) to the dawn of the modern age (Renaissance).
I briefly mentioned the Vulgate earlier. For those who are unfamiliar with the term, it refers to the late 4th-century Latin translation of the Bible. It was basically the only Bible translation that people ever knew for over a thousand years (AD 400-1530). It was, unsurprisingly, the invention of the printing press that led to the widespread dissemination of translations of the Bible in other languages. The printing press made it much tougher for the Church to curb the dissemination of alternative translations (basically anything other than the Vulgate). Prior to the printing press’ invention, Bibles were painstakingly produced by manual copying, and virtually all these Bibles were Vulgates. How laborious indeed. Latin was the language of the Church, the educated, the elite, and the whole system just ensured its continued usage.
The Vulgate had a large influence on the development of the English language, especially in matters of religion. Many Latin words were taken from the Vulgate into English nearly unchanged in meaning or spelling: creatio, salvatio, justificatio, testamentum,sanctificatio, regeneratio, and raptura. The word “publican” comes from the Latin publicanus (cf Mt 10:3), and the phrase “be it far” is a translation of the Latin expression absit (cf Mt 16:22). Other examples include apostolus, ecclesia, evangelium, Pascha, and angelus.
Regarding the English language, borrowing from Latin occurred from ecclesiastical usage established by Augustine of Canterbury, and indirectly after the Norman Conquest in 1066 through the Anglo-Norman language. During the Renaissance and beyond, as the term suggests, many writers “re-discovered” the works of classical antiquity. As such, English writers cobbled together huge numbers of new words from Latin and Greek words, dubbed “inkhorn terms”. The title of my first blog post is a partial example of an inkhorn term: “Blogogenesis”!
The influence of Roman governance and Roman technology on the less-developed nations under Roman dominion led to the adoption of Latin phraseology in some specialized areas, such as science, technology, medicine, and law. For example, the Linnaean system of plant and animal classification was heavily influenced by Historia Naturalis, an encyclopedia of people, places, plants, animals, and things published by Pliny the Elder. We have terms such as Homo sapiens (literally Latin for ‘wise man’) to describe our species. Binomial nomenclature characterises the Linnaean system.
Roman medicine, recorded in the works of such physicians as Galen, established that today’s medical terminology (e.g. atherosclerosis, hypoglycaemia, ophthalmology) would be primarily derived from Latin and Greek words, the Greek being filtered through the Latin. Roman engineering had the same effect on scientific terminology as a whole. Latin law principles have survived partly in a long list of Latin legal terms (e.g. mens rea, in absentia, ex post facto, habeas corpus).
Basically, in any technical field, Latin and Greek roots will be used to come up with new terms to describe a particular phenomena or object. It certainly sounds fancy and certainly makes the people who use such jargon to appear more sophisticated.
Now, I shall talk about Latin’s legacy in some words and contractions that I find interesting. You may be surprised by some of the words’ history.
AD/BC: As a child, I knew that the Gregorian calendar uses Jesus’ life as a reference point that demarcates the two eras: the era before Jesus’ birth and the era after Jesus’ birth. I knew that BC meant “Before Christ”. So, I had just thought that AD meant ‘After Death’ without giving it much thought. Of course, 10 seconds of thinking about it seriously would tell you that this didn’t make any sense at all since Jesus didn’t die the year he was born. AD is short for the Latin “Anno Domini” which translates to “In the year of the Lord”. People sometimes erroneously translate it as “In the year of our Lord”. While that would still be factual, that isn’t strictly what “Anno Domini” says. For the translation “In the year of our Lord” to be valid, the phrase would need to be “Anno Domini Nostri”. The word “Nostri” is what gives the meaning “our”. We see this somewhere else too. The Romans would call the Mediterranean “Mare Nostrum”, which literally translates to “Our Sea”. At its peak, the Roman Empire occupied all the territory that surrounded the Mediterranean Sea.
You might notice how some people use CE/BCE (Common Era/Before Common Era) instead of the AD/BC system respectively. The change is simply one of semantics—that is, AD 100 is the same as 100 CE; all that changes is the label. The advocates of the switch from BC/AD to BCE/CE say that the newer designations are better in that they are devoid of religious connotation and thus prevent offending other cultures and religions who may not see Jesus as “Lord”. The irony, of course, is that what distinguishes BCE from CE is still the life and times of Jesus Christ.
Auspicium Melioris Aevi: Rafflesians should recognise this. The word ‘auspicium’ comes from the word ‘auspex’ which means ‘augur or priest’. ‘Auspicium’ can mean ‘sign or indication’. It is where we get the English words “auspicious”, “auspice”, The word “melioris’ comes from the nominative “melior”. It means “better” and this is where we get words such as “ameliorate” – a fancy word for “improve”. The word ‘aevi’ comes from the nominative ‘aevum’ and means ‘time; eternity; age’. Both ‘Melioris’ and ‘Aevi’ are in the genitive case. “Melioris” is an adjective, and it describes “Aevi”. Thus, one rendering of this motto is “Hope of a Better Age”.
am/pm: We use these contractions all the time. They stand for “ante meridiem” and “post meridiem”, which literally mean “before the mid-day” and “after the mid-day” respectively. Fascinating, isn’t it?
Dominus illuminatio mea: This is Oxford’s motto and it means: “The Lord is my light”. Not too tough, right?
eg/ie: These are among the most frequently used Latin contractions. They stand for the Latin “exempli gratia” and “id est”, which mean “for the sake of example” and “that is” respectively. Many people use them wrongly. The use of the former is self-explanatory, hopefully. The latter is used when when you are re-phrasing something (ie using other words). See what I did there?
etc: This is short for the Latin “et cetera”, which means “and others”.
ibid: You might see this in research papers and academic writing. This is short for the Latin “ibidem” and means “in the same place”
LLB/LLM: These mean “Bachelor of Laws” and “Master of Laws”, which come from the Latin “Legum Baccalaureus” and “Legum Magister” respectively. You might now ask: why then are there two letter ‘l’s in LLB/LLM? Well, that is because ‘legum’ is the plural of ‘lex’, the Latin singular for the word ‘law’. Latin plurals often abbreviate by doubling the first letter (eg ‘pp’ for pages).
NB: When you use BC, ensure that you put the year before the term BC (i.e. 37 BC), whereas the year comes after the term AD (i.e. AD 2019). Were you wondering what NB means? Well, it is short for the Latin “Nota Bene” which literally means “good note”. It is from the Latin word “bene” that we get words such as benevolence, benediction (literally means “good words”) and of course, the name Benedict.
Nil Sine Labore: This is VJC’s motto. The word “sine” here means ‘without’ and this word also appears in the phrase “sine qua non”. As you might easily guess, the motto means “nothing without labour”.
PhD/DPhil: Some people have told me jokingly that a ‘PhD’ stands for ‘Permanent Head Damage’. Well, see that lowercase ‘h’ over there? That means that ‘Ph’ is a contraction of a single word. The term ‘PhD’ stands for ‘Doctor of Philosophy’, which comes from the Latin ‘Philosophiae Doctor’. Do you see that ‘-ae’ ending in ‘Philosophiae’? Well, that is the genitive for you right there. ‘Philosophiae’ thus means ‘of Philosophy’, just as ‘Dei’ means ‘of God’ as we discussed earlier.
PS: This is short for “Post Scriptum”. Traditionally, it is used when you realise that you forgot to write something but you unfortunately, you already signed off on your letter. Given that digital communication is increasingly ubiquitous, using PS doesn’t make sense anymore, strictly speaking.
QED: Some people erroneously think that this means “Quite Easily Done”. This is actually a contraction of the Latin “Quod Erat Demonstandum”, which loosely translates to “that which was to be demonstrated”. It is often found at the conclusion of mathematical proofs.
Veritas: This is Harvard University’s motto. It is Latin for ‘truth’. Veritas is the goddess of truth in Roman mythology. It is where we get words such as ‘verify’ and ‘veracity’. It also follows that we are not using the word ‘very’ correctly.
viz: This is short for the Latin “videlicet”, which means “namely”. This is another one of those terms you will encounter in academic writing. This belongs to the realm of words with “et al”, “ibid”, etc.
As I hopped on to my computer to conduct a search on Google this morning, I noticed that today’s doodle featured lanterns. Did you notice that there is a pig in lieu of what would be the second letter ‘o’? Hahaha. In Singapore, people are busy with their work and school and oftentimes, if there isn’t a public holiday associated with a particular event or festival, it gets overlooked, and nobody knows about it.
According to the relevant Wikipedia article, the Lantern Festival, also known as the Spring Lantern Festival, is a Chinese festival celebrated on the fifteenth day of the first month of the lunisolar Chinese calendar. It marks the final day of the traditional CNY celebrations. It is the Chinese equivalent of Valentine’s Day. Since the Chinese calendar is lunisolar (read my previous posts for more details), the day of the Lantern Festival would thus not fall on the same day from year to year in the Gregorian calendar. Likewise, the first day of CNY varies from year to year.
I know what you’re thinking: are there years where the Lantern Festival falls on February 14, Valentine’s Day?
Indeed, such years exist. However, they are uncommon. The last year in which the coincidence occured was 2014, and the coincidence occurs every 19 years. Hence, the next year where such a coincidence occurs again would be 2033.
Today, 19 February 2019, marks the day of the Lantern Festival. As early as the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 25), it had become a festival with great significance. During the Lantern Festival, children go out at night carrying paper lanterns and solve riddles on the lanterns (simplified Chinese: 猜灯谜; traditional Chinese: 猜燈謎).
In ancient times, the lanterns were fairly simple, and only the emperor and noblemen had large ornate ones. In modern times, lanterns have been embellished with many complex designs. For example, lanterns are now often made in the shape of animals. The lanterns can symbolize the people letting go of their past selves and getting new ones, which they will let go of the next year. The lanterns are almost always red to symbolize good fortune.
It should not to be confused with the Mid-Autumn Festival; which is sometimes also unhelpfully also known as the “Lantern Festival” in locations such as Singapore and Malaysia. The MAF celebrations are significant, particularly in my alma mater, Hwa Chong Institution, where it serves as one of the significant celebratory events of the year!
I can still remember exactly how I started learning the piano. My family had paid a visit to Plaza Singapura and as a boy at the tender age of six, I marvelled at the majesty of the grand pianos that were showcased at one of the top levels of the mall. For those who are familiar with Plaza Singapura, the store which showcased the pianos was, and still is, the flagship branch of Yamaha. I enjoyed visiting malls as a child because of the sheer myriad of products that would be displayed. Hitherto, I was intrigued with music. This first-time visit to Plaza Singapura was my first time in real-life seeing grand pianos displayed in their full grandeur.
Previously, I had known that pianos were common instruments used for music-making, and that pianos were perhaps among the most versatile instruments. One of my favourite shows as a child was “Tom and Jerry” and I remember one episode to this day. It was entitled “Cat Concerto”. As you might guess from its name, that episode has something to do with music. Basically, it featured Tom playing the well-known Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 by Franz Liszt. A single sentence summarises the narrative of the episode: “Tom fights off Jerry as he tries to disrupt his concert without missing a note on his piano.”
Here is a video of someone trying to synchronise her actual playing with the chronology of the episode!
As typical of Liszt, this piece is a somewhat show-off piece and is appropriate indeed for this episode. One thing I greatly enjoyed about the piano (or keyboard instruments in general) was its ability to allow the pianist to play more than one voice at once. Potentially, up to ten notes could be played in a single instant. The bass and the treble are covered. Thus, a piano is a “complete instrument” in its own right. I once learnt a piano transcription of Bach’s famous aria from his third orchestra suite in D Major, BWV 1068, better known as “Air on the G String”. This is one of my favourite pieces of music. The piano transcription was comprehensive in that it basically covered all the voices that would be played by the various stringed instruments. The ability to play multiple voices on the piano allowed me to cover the parts of the first and second violins, violas, and cellos.
So, as a six-year-old, I stood rooted to the ground as I appreciated the beauty of the pianos within the store and soon enough, I found myself sheepishly imploring my parents if I could learn how to play the piano. They replied in the affirmative. It wasn’t an immediate decision, though.
My parents had no formal musical training and they must have been surprised at my question. I constantly look back and am grateful that my parents had faith in me that I would learn it well, despite knowing that they were treading unknown territory. After all, I was the oldest child and I was almost always the guinea pig. I essentially served as a precedent to guide the path for my younger siblings to follow. It wasn’t an entirely smooth-sailing journey, but I am glad with where I am today. My situation is quite unusual in that usually, it is the other way around. In a society such as Singapore where many parents have a “kiasu” mentality (a fear of “losing out” to other people) and want the best for their kids, music lessons are authoritatively inflicted upon their children. The harsh reality is that many parents live vicariously through their children. They want their children to achieve their dreams because they were not able to do it themselves while they were younger.
I suppose a major factor that made my parents decide to support my endeavour was the fact that there was a well-known pianist who lived just a few floors above us in our block. She had students who would come from as far as Woodlands to her house for 1-hour piano lessons. She was a concert pianist who had studied music at university. Her fees were somewhat high, as you can imagine. Nevertheless, her students’ parents must have felt that it was worth it, given her impeccable qualifications.
What truly astounded me was what I saw when I first walked into her penthouse. It was my first time seeing a grand piano in a house. She had not one, but two grand pianos! Who in the world has two grand pianos in his house? It is already amazing that a house can have a grand piano. Most homes only have an upright! What was even more incredible that one of them was a Steinway! Of course, I did not know that I was playing on such an exquisite and fine piano when I first started lessons as I did not know about Steinway’s reputation then. Before I played on the Steinway each lesson, she would make it a point that I use the hand-sanitizer!
One of the first songs I learnt which involved playing both hands was a simplified rendition of the hymn “As The Deer”. It was a simple two-part piece (with each hand playing once voice). The hymn is based on Psalm 42:1-2 which reads from the Authorized Version:
1 As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. 2 My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?
Fun fact: The word “hart” is a more specific word than the generic word “deer” as “hart” refers specifically to an adult male deer. You might then ask, “What is the word for a female deer then?” Well, I think the first line of a famous song from the musical “Sound of Music” is instructive. After all, “Doe, a deer, a female deer…”.
I enjoyed playing the piano initially but somewhat lost interest as I progressed through primary school. This can be attributed to various reasons. However, I opine that the most significant factor was that the popularity of computer games was experiencing burgeoning growth. My classmates introduced it to me while I was Primary 2. Naturally, I was intrigued by how computer games work. I was most fascinated with the fact that you could communicate with someone from another part of the world by simply transmitting information across the “Internet”, which was novel to us primary school students then.
It also didn’t help that progression in piano learning was marked by the milestones of passing the grade examinations of music boards (for ABRSM, the most well-known music board in Singapore, the grades range from 1 through 8). I suspect that many music students have their interest in music waned because a huge component of the ABRSM grade examinations is the “Set Pieces” section. Students are required to present three set pieces (each of which has a maximum mark of 30; the grade examination has a total mark of 150). Hence, the set pieces account for 90 of the maximum 150 marks. Parents who are results-oriented (*cough cough* basically the typical parent in Singapore) would thus encourage their children to practise the same three pieces over and over again. Each of the three pieces has its own category (A, B, C). For the grade examinations, there would be a range of pieces to choose from within each category. A huge factor that goes into the decision-making process for choosing which piece to prepare for the exam is its technical difficulty. Once again, it goes back to the marks. Whether the student enjoys the chosen piece is secondary to the technical difficulty of the piece. After all, to us, the ends justify the means, doesn’t it?
As such, I would imagine that in many cases, teachers choose the pieces which they think their students can score the highest marks in. Often, this is a piece which presents the least technical challenge. After all, for a teacher to continue attracting students, it is certainly helpful if he can speak of how his students have achieved stellar results in the music examinations. Of course, I was quite fortunate in that this concert-pianist teacher of mine was not like that. She allowed me to choose the pieces I wanted to play for the examination. Nevertheless, the monotony associated with practising the same three pieces incessantly for an examination got to me. When coupled with the increasing popularity of video games, other time-consuming activities, and increasing academic rigour, it is not difficult to see why so many students today abandon their initial musical endeavours. Many parents’ desires are insatiable. Their children must go for swimming lessons, ballet classes, tuition, taekwondo classes, and in some cases, even abacus classes for better mental calculation. Wow.
My first-ever piano exam was an ABRSM Grade 2 (2005), followed by a Grade 5 (2008). I think the reason I stopped lessons with my first piano teacher was that I was preparing for the PSLE. Furthermore, I no longer had much interest in piano. As such, the high fees were not justified, and lessons were stopped.
Shortly after I completed the PSLE, my parents got me to learn under another teacher within the same condominium complex. However, the arrangement was ephemeral. We changed piano teachers yet again and alas, I started attending a music school near my house. The teacher under whom I learnt piano would be my last piano teacher. I wasn’t a serious student. Nevertheless, I just did things for the sake of doing things, went with the flow, and managed to get my Grade 6 (2011), and Grade 7 (2013) exams under her tutelage.
On a fine afternoon while I was attending the music school, everything changed. On that day, while waiting for my turn to enter the room within the music school for my piano lesson, I listened intently to the piece that the student before me was playing. I liked it so much, but I did not know what it was called. I was determined to find out what it was called so that I could learn it. Eventually, the door opened and out walked the girl who had been playing that piece (which turned out to be one of her three set pieces for her Grade 6 exam). It was that day that I learnt about Dussek’s Sonatina in E-flat, Op. 19, No. 6: Rondo Allegretto (A2 of the 2013-2014 Grade 6 Piano Syllabus). It is a charming piece. I highly recommend you to listen to it!
Soon enough, I looked at music through a different lens and started learning all the pieces I liked, and re-learnt past exam pieces that I enjoyed thoroughly. Most importantly, I spontaneously learnt pieces that were beyond the examination repertoire of the grade examinations. I flipped through the music books that I had, and learnt one of Mozart’s most endearing piano sonatas: Piano Sonata in C Major, K545. I also learnt transcriptions of soundtrack from film, animation, and even games. This was done by actively scavenging the Internet for sheet music that other musicians had painstakingly transcribed.
However, one of the most serendipitous events that motivated me to aim for even greater musical heights occurred while I was a Secondary Three student in 2012, perhaps a few months after I had heard the rondo in the music school. At that time, I had already completed my Grade 6 and was preparing for my Grade 7 exam. One day, I was walking along the backstage of the school hall when I chanced upon my classmate playing on the piano. I knew that he was a bassoonist in the school’s symphonic band, but I never knew that he could play the piano. I found out that he was an accomplished pianist, percussionist, and violinist, in addition to being a bassoonist. This was a student who truly embraced music. I played my Grade 7 exam pieces for him and I was encouraged by his particularly kind remarks of my performance of the piece from the A category, a piece by Scarlatti:
When I encountered him in the school hall, before I performed my piece, he was playing Scherzo No. 2 by Chopin. It is a very famous piece. In fact, in the established general repertoire, it is over-played.
We became quite close and we would share our musical insights with each other. In fact, I am very grateful to him for introducing IMSLP to me. That platform has been useful in allowing me to obtain even the most obscure sheet music. All sheet music and resources on IMSLP are public domain! That helps many people because published music books in music stores are often expensive. Often, one is faced with the scenario where one is only interested in a particular piece among a set of pieces. However, music stores often will not sell the sheet music of a single piece that is part of a larger set on its own, unless the single piece is so famous to the extent that it gets its own product (e.g. the Pathétique sonata by Beethoven). As such, if one were to get sheet music from music stores exclusively, one would have to pay a lot.
Eventually, I passed the Grade 7 exam in 2013, which also happened to be the year I took my GCE ‘O’ Level exam. Due to the fact that I wanted to focus on preparing for the ‘O’ Level and that I had attained a milestone, I decided to stop lessons. Who could have known that that would be the last time I would have a piano teacher? From that point on, I self-learnt and prepared for all subsequent music examinations all on my own.
I actually did not want obtain my Grade 8 Piano initially, at least so soon after my Grade 7 exam. However, a few months before the GCE ‘O’ Level exam, in September 2013, I met another person in yet another moment of serendipity and inspired him to take up music again. He learnt the violin from a young age and attained Grade 8 when he was Primary 5 (c. 2008). However, from what he related to me, he did not enjoy it one bit. He saw it as a chore and had the mentality of “Good riddance” when he finally obtained the Grade 8 Certificate. He told me that ever since he passed the Grade 8 Violin exam, his violin case had been left dormant in his cupboard, untouched for half a decade. I am glad I managed to play a role in helping him rekindle his passion for music, because he is currently undergoing a Music Performance diploma at NAFA (Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts), majoring in violin. I think life would be very different for him if I had not met him on my way back home from school one fine afternoon.
This person was also somewhat decent at the piano. He was self-taught as I knew that he had never gone for formal piano lessons. Apparently, his older brother learnt piano but stopped at Grade 6, if I remember correctly. So, he had a piano in his house. It must have been after the ‘O’ Level, sometime in December 2013, that I went to house and was surprised to see that he had purchased the Grade 8 Piano Exam Pieces book. I was impressed by his ambition and so I thought: if a self-taught person dared to attempt the Grade 8 exam on his own without having had any formal piano lessons ever, surely I, a Grade 7 holder, could?
My first day in junior college was 6 February 2014. There had been approximately a three-month interim period between the conclusion of my last paper of the GCE ‘O’ Level and the start of JC. It was during this three-month period that I chose which pieces I would want to play, based on what I felt was the most musically enjoyable. Remember that I was on my own. I had to learn the scales, arpeggios, and all the pieces on my own without the help of a teacher. It was daunting.
By that time, I had grown to like the music of Bach, Mozart, and Chopin (for sheer majesty of musicality, Bach’s music reigns supreme; however, Mozart’s melodies are unparalleled). Hence, my choice pieces were quite easily selected (for the Grade 8 Piano 2013-2014 syllabus):
I chose the following three pieces: A5: J. S. Bach – Praeambulum, 1st movt from Partita V in G, BWV 829
B6: Mozart – Rondo in D, K. 485
C9: Chopin – Waltz in F, Op. 34 No. 3.
These are all such charming pieces. Even though I practised the pieces repeatedly, I never felt that they were stale. Somehow, now that my learning and preparation was entirely self-motivated, everything was different. I yearned to quench my thirst for musical prowess and perfection.
Eventually, I sat for my Grade 8 Piano exam. I still remember how that morning went vividly. It was around 9:30 am on 19 August 2014, Tuesday. I was having an Economics lesson and when it was appropriate, I told my teacher that I needed to take my leave to attend the exam. I then proceeded to the area outside one of the school’s auditoriums to have my last-minute practice on the piano while waiting for my father to come to the school to fetch me to the venue: Regent Music Centre Pte Ltd (Schubert) at Peninsula Shopping Centre. My exam timing was 11:15 am.
I remember telling the examiner prior to the examination’s commencement that I was feeling anxious. He reassured me and told me to remain calm. I suppose I was quite encouraged by his gracious gesture. Then, the exam started. “Would you like to play the scales or pieces first?” he asked. “Scales”, I replied, heeding the advice by my previous teachers to always play the scales first because they served as a form of ‘warm-up’ for one’s fingers. I remember doing the sight-reading section better than I normally would. The rhythm and note accuracy was great. However, the tempo was just too slow. I also played the three pieces somewhat well. After the exam, my father drove me back to the school and all I could think about were the aspects of the exam that had not gone as well as I had expected. When I returned, it a Physics class.
Soon enough, I received the results of the Grade 8 Piano exam and…
I had obtained a distinction as icing on the cake!
I was ecstatic. I had never achieved this before. Also, I achieved this without a teacher’s help. The highest I had previously attained was a merit!. I was incredibly humbled by this result.
After receiving this result, I was glad that I had attained this milestone. Having their children attain a Grade 8 qualification is something that many Singaporean parents hope for. For many Singaporean parents, this milestone would mean a sigh of relief as they no longer have to fork out money for expensive piano lessons or having to endure listening to the same exam pieces over and over again. For the children of such parents,such an achievement would also warrant a sigh of relief because it would mean they no longer have to “waste time” on music-making. They could now spend the time on hanging out with their friends, or dedicating the time on their academic pursuits. What is the one thing we see in common in the most typical mindsets?
Music is not treated as an end unto itself. Rather, it is used as means for something else. Parents and their children may use it for superficial “bragging rights” when “comparing” with other parents’ children; some use it to boost their portfolio for admission into prestigious institutions. What happened to the intrinsic joy that music is supposed to fundamentally spark?
Do the learners use the skills they have acquired from their musical training to learn pieces outside the examination syllabi which they would genuinely enjoy? From what I have observed among my peers, that does not seem to be the case. Most of my peers whom I have observed were somewhat glad when the ordeal of music lessons came to an end (either when they hit a satisfactory milestone or they stop lessons due to commitment issues, financial burdens, reluctance to practise, etc.)
I did my two years of junior college from February 2014 to November 2015. I then did my two years of full-time NS from January 2016 to November 2017. Then, I started my medical studies February 2018. From the time I passed my Grade 8 in August 2014 till the end of my first semester of my first year in university in June 2018, I entertained the idea of doing a diploma. Although Grade 8 is still seen as the “standard” end-game milestone for most learners of music in Singapore, I nevertheless knew of friends who went beyond Grade 8. Perhaps they (or their parents, hmm) wanted more of a challenge.
After the grade examinations, there are what we call ‘Diploma’ examinations. For Trinity College London and ABRSM, they each award three levels of music diplomas. For simplicity’s sake, let us only consider performance diplomas, since these constitute the diplomas that the majority of learners would take. For Trinity College London, the three levels are: ATCL (Associate), LTCL (Licentiate), and FTCL (Fellowship). According to Trinity College London’s website, an ATCL award is equivalent in standard to the first year of an undergraduate degree; an LTCL award is equivalent in standard to the final year of an undergraduate degree; an FTCL award is equivalent in standard to a postgraduate course at a conservatoire or university. For ABRSM, its three diplomas are DipABRSM, LRSM, and FRSM. They are equivalent to the ATCL, LTCL, and FTCL diplomas respectively.
All but one of the people whom I know personally took the ATCL. Regarding that one person, she took the LTCL. I do not know anyone personally took the ABRSM diplomas. This could be because of the disparity in the assessment criteria for the ABRSM and TCL diplomas. ABRSM demands a more holistic assessment of the candidate’s musicianship. There are more regulations associated with the exam and there is just a lot more to deal with. On the other hand, TCL places an emphasis on the performance component. Here is some information pertaining to the DipABRSM syllabus (with effect from 2015):
Having considered all the above information, I made the pragmatic decision to do the ATCL instead of the DipABRSM for the following reasons:
1) In strict consideration of qualifications, an ATCL is equivalent to a DipABRSM. The general public would probably not even know that there are three different diploma levels, let alone the differences between the music boards regarding assessment criteria for performance diplomas.
2) The presence of additional components of Viva Voce and Quick Study in the DipABRSM requirements strongly suggests that the weighting of the performance component is lower in the DipABRSM (60% performance; 25% Viva Voce; 15% Quick Study) than in the ATCL (90% before 2019 syllabus revamp; 10% Programme Notes). Considering that most people associate a Performance diploma with one’s ability to perform music, I feel that giving the performance component as high a weighting as possible is desirable. After all, we are not dealing with a general musicianship diploma, but a performance diploma.
3) I felt that I could excel more in the performance component than the Viva Voce and Quick Study. Hence, I felt that I had a much better chance of overcoming the hurdle of meeting the assessment requirements. It is easy to see why many people would be somewhat more uncomfortable with the requirements of the DipABRSM. There is so much more uncertainty associated with the non-performance aspects of the diploma. The fees for the diploma are certainly not cheap. I doubt anyone has the intention of failing when registering for the diploma examination!
4) Performing ability was, and is, ultimately what I, and probably many others, deem to be the most important element of being a musician.
Apparently, the ATCL examination I took turned out to the be one of the last of its kind as the Trinity College London diploma syllabus had undergone a revamp that would be valid from 1 August 2019. Among some of the changes include detailed programme notes no longer being required for the ATCL and LTCL, and that there would be increased mark weighting for performance. This would mean that candidates can be sure that their result fully reflects their performance standard.
By June 2018, nearly four years after passing my Grade 8 in August 2014, probably no fewer than a dozen people had asked me if I were going to take a performance diploma after finding out that I was a Grade 8 Distinction holder. My answer had been that I had no intention of pursuing a diploma as there were many things that deterred me from doing so. However, as time went on, I learnt more pieces and I felt that perhaps this next milestone would be a better reflection of my musical abilities and that it would certainly be a nice pat-on-the-back. Furthermore, as the wise words of a friend’s motto go: “Anything worthwhile doing will often be difficult, but doing the difficult is often worthwhile.”
Nevertheless, here were the issues that discouraged me from deciding to get a diploma in end-June 2018.
I only had short time frame to decide whether to register for the diploma examination. TCL Diploma examinations are held twice a year in two periods: mid-May through June and mid-November through December. The former option would not be feasible since I would still be studying in Australia during that time. I have only two major breaks as a university student every year (a winter break of around three weeks in July, and the much longer summer break of around three months from late November to late February).
Since the mid-year exam period was not an option for me, I could decide to do the examination either in November/December 2018 or November/December 2019. Remember the syllabus revamp I talked about that would be effective from 1 August 2019? Well, I considered the syllabus changes when I contemplated the two options.
At the time of decision-making (end-June 2018), I was of the view that the Programme Notes would offer easy marks, at least relative to the performance component. Seeing that the latter option had a decrease in weighting, I felt that I would have a much better chance of doing better in the old syllabus. Hence, being more inclined with the examination being in November/December 2018 period, I would have had to deal with full-time university commitments during my second semester of 2018 while preparing for the ATCL from scratch in only 4.5-6 months. 4.5 months would be the worst-case scenario (if I had gotten an exam date which marked the start of the examination period). Hence, when booking the exam date, I requested to be given a date which was as late as possible, since I would only be back in Singapore on 23 November 2018 (imagine the horror of getting an exam date before you fly back; they are very strict about exam dates and one can only change the dates without penalty under very limited circumstances).
I had no teacher to guide me. It had been five years, since 2013, that I had a formal piano lesson. I was treading on unknown territory as this was nothing like the grade examinations I had taken previously. There were so many more requirements, and the pieces were much more challenging. Anybody who thinks that an ATCL is a linear step-up from Grade 8 like the step-up from Grade 7 to 8 should reconsider his perspective. Doing the ATCL without any guidance from a teacherwas unheard of since even the syllabus explicitly recommends the following:
I had absolutely 0 of the suggested 54 guided learning hours, and if one were to consider 900 hours over a 5-month period, that would work out to be an average of 6 learning hours a day every day just to prepare for this exam. That is excluding the fact that some of the hours are supposed to be guided. It is because of such proscribed requirements that it is quite common to take around 1-1.5 years to prepare for the ATCL (54 guided learning hours would be 54 weeks of weekly 1-hour lessons). The stakes were high as the examination fees were nearly 1k SGD.
Everything seemed to suggest this was a suicide mission.
Yet, the sheer sense of adventure was exhilarating. It also helped that I truly liked all the pieces I chose for the exam (more on that in another blog post).
So, the ambitious and perhaps over-confident Nicholas registered for the exam in early July 2018, while he was in Singapore for his winter break of a few weeks. In that short time in Singapore, I put in the effort in obtaining the currently-published music books which contained the pieces that I was going to perform. I had the choice of performing pieces absent from the syllabus list. However, I already had a full plate and I did not want to add another element of uncertainty. Besides, self-selected pieces were subject to prior approval. I had inspected the syllabus, and after much contemplation, I decided to perform the following four pieces:
1. Bach – Prelude & Fugue in A-flat Major, The Well-tempered Clavier, Book I, BWV 862
2. Beethoven – Piano Sonata No. 8 in C Minor, Op. 13 – ‘Pathétique’
3. Chopin – Nocturne Op. 48 No. 2
4. Rachmaninoff/Kreisler – Liebesleid (from Piano Compositions No. 2)
The examination had strict regulations regarding music protected by copyright. For the examination, I was required to present the examiner with photocopies of the sheet music of the music that I would be performing. To ensure that the music was not illegally obtained, I had to bring the original sources, and that meant having to bring legitimate music books.
Strictly speaking, I could have used music from IMSLP, since resources from that website are public-domain. However, I wanted to play it “safe”.
The pieces by Bach and Chopin were not an issue since I already owned reputable editions of The Well-tempered Clavier, Book I and Chopin’s Nocturnes. Hence, I needed to purchase books for the pieces by Beethoven and Rachmaninoff/Kreisler. Astute readers would remember that I mentioned how single pieces get published alone despite being part of a well-known larger set of works only if these single pieces are very famous. The Pathétique sonata was the perfect example. I managed to find a seller on Carousell who was selling a second-hand ABRSM edition of the sonata for only $4. How happy I was when she agreed to sell it to me for that price! Music books are typically very expensive and I was glad that I could a well-maintained second-hand copy which contained just the piece I needed.
On the other hand, attempting to procure the Rachmaninoff/Kreisler piece was an absolute nightmare. The piece is not that well-known because it is a piano transcription by Rachmaninoff of a piece for violin by Kreisler. The transcription is part of the second volume of Rachminoff’s “Piano Compositions” (the second of three volumes).
I called up stores. “Out of stock”, and “Check the other branch” were all I got over these phone calls. Time was tight and I had less than a week at that time before I flew back to Australia. There was no way I could wait for shops to re-stock. Over the course of a few days, I checked out Synwin’s two branches at Tanjong Katong Complex and Marina Square, a music store at the Esplanade, and music shops at Bras Basah Complex and Serangoon NEX which sold piano books, all to no avail. It was absolutely futile.
Can you imagine how ridiculous this situation was? Many music shops I visited were within the CBD area. I remember one afternoon where I walked from one location to another, under the unforgiving rays of the Sun. It was ruthless. It was a cycle of finding temporary solace in the air-conditioned music shops and trudging in vain to yet another location in the sweltering heat.
Then finally, as a last stand for one of the days, I decided to go to Yamaha’s flagship branch at Plaza Singapura, the place where my musical journey had begun nearly a decade and a half ago. It was a long walk from Marina Square. I was so disheartened when I realised that the store did not have the book. Before the leaving the store, I decided to ask the counter staff if they could help me probe their database to check if they had any other branch which had it.
Words fail to describe the joy I felt when I was told there was one last copy at Yamaha’s Tampines Mall branch. It was the only one of two copies left across all of Yamaha’s branches in Singapore (I was told there was another copy at Yamaha’s Thomson Plaza branch). However, I had already made plans to visit a friend briefly to collect some stuff from him that afternoon. So, that was what I did. I left for my friend’s house after leaving Yamaha’s flagship branch. After collecting the stuff, I made my way for the Tampines Mall branch. I chose the Tampines Mall branch instead of the Thomson Plaza nranch as it was more convenient for me. At my friend’s house, I gave the Tampines branch a call, asking if I could reserve the book. They told me that I would need to come by tomorrow, and if not, the reservation would be forfeited. To their statement I replied, “I’ll be there in 40 minutes”.
I gave them my phone number and off to the Tampines branch I went. I was unfamiliar with the region of Tampines and confused Tampines 1 (another mall) for Tampines Mall. No sooner did I arrive in the Yamaha store at Tampines Mall than I headed straight for the counter, telling them that I had a reservation. The counter staff opened one of the drawers at the counters and revealed a book. Yes, that was the book. I did a final check by flipping to the sheet music for the examination piece within the book.
By the time I purchased the book, it was 8pm – one hour to the store’s closing time. I had not eaten my dinner; yet I was satisfied beyond that which words could describe. The bus ride was unpleasant. It was raining and the roads were congested. The bus was packed. However, that didn’t matter. I finally obtained the book.
How apt that the name of the piece within this book was Liebesleid, which is German for “Love’s Sorrow”.
With the four books that I now had which contained the pieces that I would perform for the ATCL, I headed back to Australia for my second semester. I knew that I had to master all four pieces before I came back to Singapore to sit for the ATCL exam.
While in Australia, I learnt of this app called forScore. It is a paid app, and is used by many professional musicians. How it works is that instead of learning from the physical music books, you can instead learn from the digital sheet music. So, I scanned the relevant pieces from the four books and imported them as PDFs to the app. In retrospect, getting the app was an excellent decision. I should have gotten the app much earlier. This app offered me the following advantages:
1) I would not have to deal with the physical weight and space that is associated with the books. The app is on my iPad and the display is just perfect. The Apple Pencil truly allowed for a realistic experience of annotating the music just as I would with normal book-and-pencil.
2) I wouldn’t mind annotating the book as I deem fit to aid my learning. Personally, I treat books with a lot respect and the most I am willing to do to physical books is to put a faint mark with a pencil!
3) Since my iPad would usually be with me (I use it for a lot of my work), I could access the scores readily and study them with much flexibility.
To cut the long story short (well, this blog post has been quite long), I managed to finish learning the pieces in the short time I had. I was very glad when the administrators of the exam told me that they had given me one of the latest dates within the examination period: 19 December 2018. I was so grateful for this as I had nearly a month to practise even after arriving in Singapore on 23 November 2018.
Finally, the day had come. My examination time was 10:10 am. I had not tickled the ivories for two days leading up to the exam because I had been attending my church’s youth fellowship camp.
I was the second candidate for the day. I sat outside the examination room, thinking, while hearing the magnificent playing of the candidate before me: “It has been two full days since I touched the piano, four years since my last piano exam, and five years since a piano lesson“.
What could go wrong, right?
There were so many things that could go wrong.
Here was my examiner’s profile:
The piano was a Kawai grand. I sat down on the bench, and the examiner’s bench was on my right.
Before I knew it, the examination was over. I headed back to church immediately after the examination to continue my participation in the camp.
Then came the dreaded wait for the examination results.
On my registration form, I had indicated that I wanted to collect the certificate and results from Parkway Parade branch (the main branch) since that was where I took my examination. However, a few weeks after the examination, I requested for a change in collection venue to the Paragon branch. I was quite surprised when that request was granted.
On Wednesday, 13 February 2019, during my visit to National Gallery Singapore with a friend, I received an e-mail which I knew also had the scanned copy of the mark sheet attached to it. I did not check it immediately, for I feared that seeing a fail mark would kill the mood of what would be a highly enjoyable afternoon.
At some point during the visit, I was alone in the toilet and I had an internal debate: “Should I check the results only after I get home?” “I’m going to regret checking this if it turns out that I failed.” Eventually, I decided to check it after about thinking for about half a minute. Though it was only about 30 seconds, those 30 seconds felt like an eternity. I decided to do the rational thing. If I had failed the exam, then so be it.
I clicked on the blue-and-white Mail app icon on my Home Screen.
I clicked on the second e-mail under “All Inboxes”.
I flicked up and clicked on the attachment entitled “Loh Chieh, Nicholas.pdf“.
A chunk of text appeared – revealing the examiner’s detailed comments. My eyes darted straight for the lower right-hand corner of the screen.
“Total: 66/100”
I had PASSED!! What a relief! So many thoughts ran through my mind. I shared the news with my family and thanked God. I also shared the wonderful news with my friend. It was a joyous occasion indeed!
When I got back home that evening, I arranged for a lunch meeting with the doctor with whom I had done a clinical attachment. Since I intended to go to Paragon the next day to collect the result, I figured I might as well pay him a visit. After all, his clinic was one of the private suites in Mount Elizabeth Hospital Orchard (just opposite Paragon). It had also been a month since I had finished the fortnight-long clinical attachment with him.
Everything fell perfectly into place. I reached the music school at Paragon at 11am (as stated in the e-mail, it was the earliest I could go to collect the certificate and results). It was a painless process. There was this other lady who was a piano teacher collecting the results on her student’s behalf. She thought I was a piano teacher who was collecting the exam results on his students’ behalf. HAHAHA. After the collection of the certificate, I went for lunch with the doctor and other students who were doing their clinical attachment with him. We had an enjoyable time together at a Japanese restaurant.
For the ATCL, the pass mark is 60, and the minimum mark for a distinction is 80. I was slightly disappointed that I did not achieve a distinction, but oh well, I guess one cannot have his cake and eat it too. As I reviewed the examiner’s comments, I managed to draw some precious insights. First of all, what was most jarring was that I had actually fared worse for the non-performance component (10% allocated to the Programme Notes) than the performance component! How ironic. I had assumed the opposite initially!
Also, as expected, she felt that my best-performed piece was the first piece: the piece by Bach. I was not surprised by this as Bach is my favourite composer and an overwhelming majority of the pieces that I have learnt are by Bach. So, one mistake is that I didn’t focus on my strengths. The piece by Bach was the shortest piece among the four pieces and it only accounted for slightly more than 10% of the total performance duration (excluding breaks).
In retrospect, I might have gotten a distinction if I had 1) chosen to take the examination in 2019 instead of 2018 (having essentially an extra year to prepare), and if I 2) had chosen to focus more on Baroque pieces. Besides, 3) year-end 2019 is also when the new syllabus takes effect (where the performance component accounts for 96% instead of 90% of the marks). Who knows? Hindsight is 20/20 after all.
I definitely will take these learning points into account if I ever do try for the LTCL. Haha. With all that has been said, I nevertheless still remain grateful for the result I obtained.
To conclude this lengthy blog post, my final word to all aspiring musicians and current learners of music would be to seek the intrinsic joy that music can bring to the table. Music transcends languages, cultures, and time. Cultivate your musical ability and use it to learn music that is beyond that which is established within the music examination syllabi. If you attend a church, learn some hymns and edify the brethren! You could also learn how to play soundtrack from a particular film or game. Make your own transcriptions and covers. The list is endless! Don’t let a piece of paper or the prospect of getting a piece of paper extinguish the flames of passion for music. If it has, then, well, rekindle it.
‘His Robes For Mine’ is a hymn consisting of text by Chris Anderson and tune by Greg Habegger. I first heard of this hymn at the conclusion of my church’s youth fellowship camp last December. This hymn was used as the background music of the church camp’s montage. The montage was shown at the end of the camp and yet again during the combined anniversary service of the Youth Fellowship and Young Adults’ Fellowship on New Year’s Eve – which took place prior to the Watchnight Service (a late-night service which commemorates God’s faithfulness in the past year and prepares us for the coming year).
When I first heard the hymn, I was amazed not just by the majesty of the melody and harmony of the tune, but also the sheer theological depth of the hymn’s text. This hymn has had an indelible impact on me, to the extent that I feel much compelled to write this post.
With much gratitude to reference [1], here is the lyrics for ‘His Robes For Mine’, along with my insights from the lyrics:
1. His robes for mine: O wonderful exchange! Clothed in my sin, Christ suffered ‘neath God’s rage. Draped in His righteousness, I’m justified. In Christ I live, for in my place He died.
Ask a typical ‘Christian’ in contemporary Singapore, who is only Christian because of his parents’ religion status: what the effect of Christ’s death on the cross at Calvary was. Most will only say that Christ has forgiven them of their sins as our sins have been imputed unto Christ. Their explanation stops there. They fail to address what the sins were exchanged for. This is haply the consequence of an anthropocentric culture that pervades modern liberal Christianity. The first line of this stanza tells us that this is not all. An exchange has taken place, and how wonderful it is! An exchange is two-way. On one hand, our sins have been imputed unto Christ, the sacrificial Agnus Dei. On the other, his righteousness was imputed unto us (cf 2 Cor 5:21; Rom 3:19-4:8; Phil 3:9). Such is the essence of an exchange. The imagery of ‘robes’ in this hymn is supported by Scripture (Isa 61:10; Zech 3; Matt 22:1-14; Rev 7:9-14), as the doctrine of imputed righteousness and unrighteousness is often pictured by the exchange of garments. Kudos to reference [1] once again for the valuable verse references.
This counters people, particularly those whom are fed the heretical ‘Hyper-Grace’ messages in certain churches in Singapore and around the world, who treat the Son’s expiation as a total farce. They go to the extent of even saying that they can continue indulging in sin because Christ has forgiven them and would forgive them of their sins as long as they ‘believe’ in Him. In sum, hyper-grace teachers turn ‘the grace of our God into lasciviousness‘ (Jude 4), and into a license for immorality. They and their followers flirt with antinomianism (the false belief that there are no moral laws God expects Christians to obey; see reference [3] for more information). It is indeed unfortunate that such people have been imbibed with a spurious understanding of the work of Christ at Golgotha. The rest of the stanza elaborates on the mechanism of substitutionary atonement.
I truly appreciate the structure in this hymn because the latter part of the second line in this stanza alludes to its analogue in the refrain. The idea of Christ suffering underneath God’s rage baffled even the earliest of theologians at the Council at Nicaea. Are not both God? How can God exist as three distinct persons, where the Son is subordinate but not inferior to the Father? The core of this statement is the doctrine of the holy triune God, better known as the Trinity.
The last line reminds me of Galatians 2:20, which was coincidentally the theme verse for the youth fellowship camp last year. Many years ago, I was given a gift of memory verse cards which, as you might easily guess, aid in memorising verses. One of the first verses I worked on was Galatians 2:20. Time and time again, this verse has cropped up. When I was still in Adelaide last September, I attended the church’s Integrated Fellowship Retreat, and its theme was “Not I, But Christ” (no prizes for guessing the theme verse). The hymn of the same name (which was also used as the theme hymn in the youth fellowship camp) has its roots in *surprise surprise* Galatians 2:20.
Refrain: I cling to Christ, and marvel at the cost: Jesus forsaken, God estranged from God. Bought by such love, my life is not my own. My praise-my all-shall be for Christ alone.
I did not think much of the words of this hymn until a friend told me about how she was so amazed by the words of this hymn’s refrain: ‘God estranged from God’. To quote her, ‘Who can comprehend such love? The Trinity, which has always been in perfect union since the beginning, had to be broken in order to redeem Man from his sinful state and become the sons of God’. Indeed, for Christians, our existence and entire being should be centered on Christ and the Godhead. The first point the Westminster Shorter Catechism addresses this issue: What is Man’s chief end? Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and enjoy him forever.
2. His robes for mine: what cause have I for dread? God’s daunting Law Christ mastered in my stead. Faultless I stand with righteous works not mine, Saved by my Lord’s vicarious death and life.
The word ‘vicarious’ is a big word and those unfamiliar with the faith might not know it. One definition of this adjective is as such: ‘acting or done for another’. Hence, Christ’s death can be described as a ‘vicarious atonement’. The word comes from the Latin word ‘vicarius’, which means ‘substitute’. Basically, this is a fancy word for ‘substitutionary’. Similarly, we have the English word ‘vicar’. According to Wikipedia, a vicar is a representative, deputy or substitute for a superior.
Fun fact: Linguistically, the word ‘vicar’ is cognate with the English prefix ‘vice’ (cf Vice-President = Deputy President).
3. His robes for mine: God’s justice is appeased. Jesus is crushed, and thus the Father’s pleased. Christ drank God’s wrath on sin, then cried “‘Tis done!” Sin’s wage is paid; propitiation won.
The cry of “‘Tis done!” brings to mind John 19:30, which reads ‘When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost.‘ The wages of sin is death (cf Rom 6:23). However, instead of us who rightfully deserved such a death, Jesus received the wages on his sheep’s behalf. Such is the essence of vicarious atonement. What stark contrast – the Word incarnate who was absolutely free of sin, and at the other end of the spectrum: a group of depraved wretches. The word “propitiation” is yet another one of those theological terms which can confuse those who are unfamiliar with such jargon. According to Google Dictionary, the “propitiation” is “the action of propitiating or appeasing a god, spirit, or person; atonement, especially that of Jesus Christ”.
4. His robes for mine: such anguish none can know. Christ, God’s beloved, condemned as though His foe. He, as though I, accursed and left alone; I, as though He, embraced and welcomed home!
The word “accursed” just means the state of being under a curse. This is similar to the word “athirst”, which describes the state of being thirsty.
Congratulations if you have read this far. I hope this hymn and my insights on it have blessed you.
On the evening of the first day of the Lunar New Year, my family paid my maternal grandparents a visit. In the living room of their residence sat an upright, and it was the piano with which I had grown up. In fact, my earliest videos on my Youtube channel feature that Christofori upright. That upright was the first piano that I used and it was the piano that my home would ever know until late 2017, when my family moved to a larger apartment. The upright was then moved to my maternal grandparents’ place while we procured a grand for our new residence. Since then, I have been playing on the grand while the upright has been lying dormant within the confines of my grandparents’ house.
After dinner at my grandparents’, I approached the upright and opened the lid that I was supposed to be familiar with. Yet, it felt foreign. What a peculiar feeling indeed. I had played on this upright for more than a decade. Yet, merely after a year of not playing on it, even the mere act of opening its lid was strange.
I started playing it and I was shocked. Compared to the grand which I had become accustomed to, this was so…bright. The notes lacked depth, and the sound wasn’t as rich and full as the grand back home. What exactly makes a grand piano better than an upright piano?
The development of the piano goes all the way back to Europe. Originally, all pianos had the shape of the modern grand piano. There were no uprights. Uprights were devised because people either had issues with space and/or cost.
Despite the title, grands don’t necessarily always sound better than uprights. In a holistic assessment, one would consider the material quality, craftsmanship, string length, soundboard size, etc. However, uprights are usually better than grands in somewhat ‘extreme’ cases. For example, the tallest uprights will have longer strings and larger soundboards than the smallest grand pianos (around 5 feet or even shorter). Nevertheless, generally speaking, people who get uprights don’t get the tallest ones, and people who get grands don’t get the smallest grands. Larger soundboards and longer strings will lead to greater tonal quality and volume, ceteris paribus. It goes without saying that a Steinway D-274 would absolutely destroy a 45″ upright any day.
With that being said, why would people not just get the tallest uprights to save on space? After all, they do sound as good as the smallest grand pianos and moreover, space would be less of an issue. The answer lies in the action of grand pianos. Kudos to reference [2], for allowing me to learn the information that I am about to present.
The mechanical components that start with the keys that your fingers depress and end with the hammer that strikes the strings creating the sound constitute the action. In a grand piano, most of the components move up and down, and take advantage of gravity to reset them to the resting position, ready to be played again. From one end of the keyboard to the other, gravity acts uniformly. In an upright piano, many of the parts move in a horizontal direction, and since gravity does not work in that direction, springs are used to move these components back into the rest position. The key takeaway is that while these springs can be regulated to be uniform, they can never bring the same degree of uniformity as gravity!
Springs succumb to wear and tear over time, thus leading to unevenness from one note to the next throughout the keyboard. Moreover, in order to repeat a note on an upright, the key must be allowed to come all the way back to the top of the stroke before it can be played again. In a grand, a note can be repeated after the key has come up about a third of the way to the top. This means that a grand’s action gives the player more control. There is also thus a greater limit to the number of times the same note can be played per unit time when a grand is used.
For most beginning pianists, who deal with incorrect rhythm and notes when playing elementary pieces such as ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’, what I have discussed is far beyond what they need to consider. In most cases where the sound comes out uneven from an upright, the pianist’s inability to depress the notes evenly is the main culprit, rather than the variation in spring tuning. In such cases, the pianist ought to work on finger independence in order to cultivate a tone which is even. However, for seasoned pianists who have mostly overcome these elementary hurdles, the differences between the average grand and upright are magnified when playing pieces which test the limits of the piano.
I used to wonder why the train ride between Caldecott (CC17) and Botanic Gardens (CC19) was unusually long (5-min) while taking the train home from school. I looked at the MRT network map and then realised that there was a skip from CC17 to CC19! Usually, train rides are 2-3 minutes. Sometimes, they can be as short as 1 minute (e.g. ride between Potong Pasir station and Woodleigh station).
Public transport is the most common form of transport in our land-scarce city-state. Singapore’s public transport consists of buses and trains. For the train network, the following lines have been established (when they commenced operation chronologically): North-South Line (red), East-West Line (green), North-East Line (purple), the Circle Line (yellow), and most recently, the Downtown Line (blue).
Fun fact 1: The red, green, and yellow lines are operated by SMRT, while the purple and blue lines are operated by SBS Transit.
It turns out that there is, after all, a CC18 station – Bukit Brown. The station is located in the Novena planning area. It is non-operational due to a lack of development in the area. Being a ‘shell’ station, its facilities are only used as emergency escape shafts. As you might guess, the station sits on the former Bukit Brown Cemetery.
There are stations that were once in Bukit Brown station’s shoes. Two such stations are Woodleigh (NE11) and Buangkok (NE15). Woodleigh MRT station was opened on 20 June 2011. When the North-East (purple) line first commenced operations, Woodleigh and Buangkok were non-operational due to low development in their vicinities then.
Readers who use the North-South line frequently might notice that, similarly, NS6 and NS12 are not present on the list of currently operational stations. Let us talk about NS12 first. For this station, it is set to open this year!
The new station is Canberra and is located between Sembawang (NS11) and Yishun (NS13) MRT stations. According to the LTA website, the Canberra MRT station will ‘serve commuters living in nearby estates such as Sembawang Springs, as well as a mix of upcoming public and private residential developments in the neighbourhood’. With a direct connection to the MRT network, the new station will reduce travelling time towards Jurong East or the city centre by about ten minutes.
Fun fact 2: Canberra is Australia’s capital, NOT Sydney. Basically, it was because Australians couldn’t agree between having either Sydney or Melbourne as their capital that they compromised and decided that a region geographically between the two cities would constitute their capital!
For NS6, it is likely to be named ‘Sungei Kadut’, if it ever does become operational. Similar to the case involving Caldecott and Botanic Gardens, the train ride between Yew Tee (NS5) and Kranji (NS7) is about five minutes!
Likewise, DT4 is missing from Downtown Line. It is probably going to be called ‘Hume’. However, just like the case of ‘Woodleigh’ and ‘Bukit Brown’, DT4 is not operational because there is not enough development in the region to justify its operation.
I hope you have found this article interesting! Stay tuned!
People in their early twenties will remember Disney’s High School Musical series. The first of the existing HSM trilogy was released on 20 January 2006 as a Disney Channel Original Movie (DCOM). It has been the most successful DCOM yet. Songs from its soundtrack such as ‘Breaking Free’ and ‘We’re All In This Together’ became highly popular. When Youtube first became popular, ‘Breaking Free’ was one of the first few videos I looked up then! HSM 2 had songs such as ‘Gotta Go My Own Way’ and ‘Everyday’.
Why did ‘Everyday’ leave me somewhat puzzled? When HSM 2 had been recently released, I was still in elementary school and naturally, I was relatively impressionable then. It was this song’s title and lyrics that gave the erroneous lasting impression that ‘everyday’ and ‘every day’ were interchangeable. The reality is that they are not!
In fact, before this blog post, some of you might not realise that there is a difference between the two terms. Allow me to elaborate. According to my trusty Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (7e), which I was gifted to me whilst studying in elementary school, the single word ‘everyday’ is an adjective; as such, the word is used only before a noun. In addition to the self-explanatory meaning, it can also mean ‘ordinary’. Here are some example sentences.
1. ‘The Internet has become part of everyday life’. 2. ‘This is a small dictionary for everyday use’.
The adjective runs in contrast with the adverbial phrase ‘every day’. Since it is being used as an adverb, every day (two words) will be modifying adjectives, verbs, or other adverbs, but not nouns. Only adjectives modify nouns.
Here are two stanzas from ‘Everyday’ (the lyrics are quoted directly from azlyrics.com):
Everyday of our lives Wanna find you there, wanna hold on tight Gonna run while we’re young And keep the faith
Everyday from right now Gonna use our voices and scream out loud Take my hand Together we will celebrate
Interestingly, the most popular video of this song on Youtube actually has the grammatically correct forms in the lyrics etched onto the video. Kudos to the person who was responsible for editing the video. Perhaps the people in charge of the HSM 2 soundtrack felt that a single word song title (‘Everyday’) would be more appealing than a two-word song title (‘Every Day’).
As a child, I visited my grandmother weekly and one thing that caught my attention was a calendar with which I was not familiar. Compared to the calendar I was accustomed to, this one had more ‘annotations’ and peculiar symbols. It looked something like this:
This calendar has many names; it is known as the Rural Calendar/Former Calendar/Traditional Calendar/Lunar Calendar. It is a lunisolar calendar (a calendar whose date indicates both the moon phase and the time of the solar year).
The Chinese calendar is based on observations of astronomical cycles, whereas our Gregorian calendar uses set dates that approximate astronomical cycles. The Gregorian calendar is a solar calendar because it is based on the Earth’s revolution of the Sun and the progression of seasons. Consequently, every Gregorian year is the same (except in the case of leap years).
On the other hand, the Chinese calendar tracks time according to the cycle of the moon’s phases as well as the progress of the Sun. Each month begins with the occurrence of a new moon. This results in the Chinese calendar sometimes having an extra month included in the year, and from one year to the next, a variable number of days to make up the length of a year.
Since the months of the Chinese calendar are derived from the lunar cycle, which lasts 29.53 days on average, Its months are either 29 or 30 days long. Like the Western Calendar, the Chinese calendar’s ordinary year has 12 months. However, there will be a leap month every leap year (occurs every two or three years). The ordinary year in the Chinese calendar runs between 353 and 355 days, while a leap year has between 383 and 385 days. The system of having leap months helps ensure that the average duration of a year in the Chinese calendar is reasonably close to that of a solar year.
Unlike some lunisolar calendars, the Chinese calendar does not mark its years chronologically. Rather, the Chinese calendar names its years with two components. The first component denotes an element (e.g. metal, fire, or earth), while the second component denotes an animal (e.g. dragon, ox, monkey). For example, 2019 is the year of the Earth Pig, and it lasts from 5 February 2019 to 24 January 2020. As there are five elements and twelve animals, it follows that there are 60 different combinations (i.e. the next Earth Pig year will occur in 60 years). The following paragraph is a near-direct quote from reference [4]:
Also named the sexagenary cycle or the stem-branch cycle, the Chinese 60-year calendar cycle is based on the combinations of a cycle of ten heavenly stems and twelve earthly branches, as espoused by traditional Chinese myths. Each year is named by a pair of one stem and one branch. The Year of Jia Zi (Jia from the heavenly stems and Zi from the earthly branches) is the beginning of the sexagenary cycle. The next Jia Zi Year will come 60 years later. Jia Zi has had a figurative meaning a full lifespan in ancient times (cf ‘threescore years and ten’ in the Bible (Psalm 90:10)). People would be obviously blessed if they can meet the second Jia Zi in life. Therefore, a 60-year cycle is also called a Jia Zi.
You might be wondering: in combinations, why use a pair of one stem instead of not using a pair of one stem (i.e. a lone stem; one of the ten stems)? With 10 stems and 12 branches, shouldn’t there be 120 combinations? Apparently, the pair comes from the fact that for each of the five elements, there is a ‘yin’ and a ‘yang’. They go together and are always paired up. Hence, we have 60 combinations instead of 120.
Fun fact: Singapore’s prime minister, Mr Lee Hsien Loong, was named with a ‘dragon’ character in his name probably because he was born in the year of the dragon (1952)!
The tenth and twelfth month in our calendar are October and December respectively. Yet, the prefixes of these months suggest otherwise. Has this ever puzzled you? The prefixes ‘oct-‘ and ‘dec-‘ come derive from Greek and they mean eight and ten respectively.
With the prefix ‘oct-‘, you have words such as ‘octagon’ (an eight-sided polygon), ‘octane’ (an alkane with eight carbon atoms), ‘octopus’ (an eight-limbed mollusc). For those of you who are musically inclined, consider the word ‘octave’. Its symbol is ‘8va’ and this is no coincidence as it is a shortened form of the word ‘octava’ (why an octave is divided into 12 semitones should be given a separate blogs post!).
With the prefix ‘dec-‘, you have words such as ‘decimal’, ‘decade’ (period of ten years), ‘decibel’, ‘decagon’ (ten-sided polygon), and ‘Decalogue’ (another term for the Ten Commandments).
Given that December should then be the tenth month by virtue of its name, you might have guessed that the first month of the year might have been March at some point in history, and you would be right! The modern calendar that we use can be traced to the Romans.
Before we go on, it helps to talk about the following terms: ‘equinox’ and ‘solstice’, as some readers might not be familiar with them. Let’s consider the term ‘equinox’ first. The term literally means ‘equal night’ (derived from Latin ‘aequinoctium’), and refers to the instant of time where the plane of the Earth’s equator passes through the centre of the Sun (i.e. the centre of the visible Sun is directly above the Equator). On the vernal (spring) and autumnal equinoxes, the duration for day and night are nearly the same throughout the entirety of Earth, which makes sense, when you think about it.
Let’s consider the term ‘solstice’ next. A Google search defines it as ‘either of the two times in the year, the summer solstice and the winter solstice, when the sun reaches its highest or lowest point in the sky at noon, marked by the longest and shortest days. This should also be quite intuitive.
We have all the above phenomena because the Earth is tilted on its axis by about 23.5 degrees. If not for the tilt, the plane of the Equator would pass through the Sun’s centre throughout Earth’s solar revolution, and there would not be any seasons. There are seasons because in different time periods of the solar year, each location on Earth gets a different daily (as in every day and during the day time) exposure to the Sun’s warmth. This explains why a country such as Singapore (near the Equator) will not experience the four seasons. This is because throughout the year, the Sun strikes equatorial regions at approximately the same angle, and so, these regions have an approximately equal amount of day and night throughout the year.
N.B. Some incorrectly believe that the four seasons are due to the fact that Earth’s solar orbit is elliptical (leading to points at which the Earth is closest to and farthest away from the Sun – perihelion and aphelion respectively). The difference in distances between the perihelion and aphelion (about 3.2 million miles) is not THAT significant, and has a negligible impact on the Earth’s climate.
The time between the equinoxes and solstices, and the duration of a solar year were calculated accurately by ancient astronomers. However, with Mother Nature providing such a prominently displayed Moon in the night sky, many cultures preferred to have their calendars based on the lunar cycle. The original Roman calendar (753 BC; the calendar was adopted by the Romans from the Greeks) had ten months:
1. Martius – March (named after Mars, the god of war in Roman mythology; apart from being the god of war, Mars was also deemed the god of agriculture; the beginning of March corresponds to the transition from Winter to Spring) 2. Aprilis – April (the word April is a variant of ‘Avril’ as in ‘Avril Lavigne’; yes, that singer) 3. Maius – May 4. Junius – June (named after Juno, Jupiter’s wife) 5. Quintilis – July 6. Sextilis – August 7. September 8. October 9. November 10. December
This ten-month did create problems though. As established earlier, many societies liked basing their calendars on the lunar cycle because it was easily observable (the lunar cycle is about 29.53 days long). Each of the ten months would have either 30 or 31 days, and the original ten-month year had a total of 304 days, around 61 days short of the actual solar year (325.242 days).
You might be asking: what happened to January and February? Well, those months correspond to the months during winter. Winter was a pretty harsh time for everyone, and so, people just simply took the new moon before the vernal equinox (aka spring equinox) as the start of the next year. Surprisingly, this arrangement worked relatively well (as long as you didn’t need to figure out the day in the interim 61.25 days)!
One day, Numa Pompilius, who may or may not have existed, felt that even numbers would only bring about bring about misfortune. Hence, he removed one day from all the months with 30 days. As such, Aprilis, Junius, Sextilis, September, November, and December all had 29 days, thereby reducing the total number of days to 298 days.
Numa wanted to have 12 lunar cycles in his calendar, with 56 days being added to the 298, thus bringing the new total to 354 days. This is gonna sound ridiculous (bear with me), but Numa felt that having 354 days would bring bad luck! So, he decided to have an extra day, in addition to the 56 days to be added. The 57 days were divided between two months and just dumped at the end of the year. As you might guess, the two months were Januarius (29 days), and Februarius (28 days), and THAT is how February ended up with 28 days!
I know what you’re thinking. 28 is an even number. How did they accept that? Apparently, February was the month of spiritual purification, so they closed one eye (Februarius derives from the Latin ‘Februum’, which means ‘purification’).
Although this new calendar (355 days) was a massive improvement from the original calendar (304 days), it nevertheless still fell short of the solar year (365.242 days)! As you might imagine, it was only a matter of time before all the seasons did not correspond to certain months, and the whole system was messed up.
Here’s where it starts to get confusing. February actually consisted of two parts: the first 23 days, and the rest. Every year, Numa’s calendar would be out of line with seasons by about 10 days (cf 355 vs 365.242). Hence, every other year (usually two), the ‘rest of February’ (the part after the 23 days) would be ignored and replaced by a 27-day leap month called mensis intercalaris. With this new arrangement, the new calendar would have 366.25 days on average (2 years with leap months and 2 years without leap months would give a total of 1465 days; 1465/4 = 366.25). That is about one day more than what we need, but hey, this is a massive improvement.
This could have worked, in theory, because every 19 solar years correspond to 235 lunar months (with a difference of about two hours). So, as long as there is due diligence in adding the leap months appropriately, things will be fine……except when there ISN’T due diligence.
Politicians would ask for leap months to extend their terms, or ‘forget’ them to get their opponents out of office. Things were worse when Rome was at war. Under such circumstances, the leap month might be forgotten for several years. By the time Julius came to power, things had gotten quite confusing. So, he reformed the calendar!
As we all know, Julius had a thing with *cough* Cleopatra. He spent some time in Egypt, which was a highly sophisticated region. They were perhaps the only culture that used a solar calendar with 365 days then. So, in 46 BC, Julius gave us the Julian calendar, a solar calendar which rendered the lunar calendar that had been used hitherto obsolete. January and February had been moved to the beginning of the year.
Remember how the lunar calendar (355 days) was still about 10 days short of the solar year? Julius resolved this by adding ten days to ten different months (without touching February).
Lastly, to account for the nearly extra average quarter-day difference (since the tropical year was 365.242 days), a leap day would be added to February every four years. This would bring the average Julian year to be 365.25 days long!
Of course, we are not using the Julian Calendar at the moment. There was one more calendar reform that took place. That reform took place to bring the average year from 365.25 days to 365.2425 days (much closer to the actual year). That reform was the Gregorian reform. To learn more about that reform, check out an earlier blog post I made.
I hope you have greatly enjoyed reading this post!
Yours faithfully, Nicholas Loh 3 February 2019
P.S. Quintilis and Sextilis were renamed July and August after Julius Caesar and Augustus Caesar (Julius’ successor) respectively.
We deal with them all the time. ‘Arrghh, I hate Mondays; Monday blues!’ is something that is commonly heard. ‘Let’s have lunch on Saturday’. ‘I have dinner with my family on Sunday’. ‘I have a dental appointment on Wednesday’. These sentences are not unusual, and we do not give the days’ names a second thought even as we cite them throughout our lives.
As with basically anything fancy, it can probably be traced back to the Greeks and Romans. The names of the days of the week are derived from the names of the then-contemporary deities; the planets were, and still are, associated with deities. What the Greeks did with the days of the week was highly influential. After them, the Romans adopted it. Soon enough, the whole world adopted a seven-day week. However, if we dig deeper, we learn that it didn’t begin with the Greeks. It goes all the way back to the ancient Babylonians.
Before the rise of the Greeks, it was the ancient Babylonians who were living in the cradle of civilisation. They were formidable astronomers and they devised their calendars to predict the movements of heavenly bodies. Unlike the year which closely corresponds to the period of Earth’s revolution around the Sun, and the month, which closely corresponds to the Moon’s revolution around the Earth, the week has no analogue. The week came to have seven days because the Mesopotamian astrologers designated one day for each of the seven most prominent objects in the sky: the Sun, the Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn. Do you see something familiar with the way I listed the seven celestial bodies?
After the ancient Babylonians, in came the Greeks with their extensive mythology, which had been around since 1800 BC. As we said earlier, the planets are associated with deities in Greek.
Between the 1st and 3rd centuries, the Roman Empire gradually replaced the eight-day Roman nundinal cycle (the nundinal cycle, market week, or 8-day week was the cycle of days preceding and including each nundinae) with the seven-day week. Our earliest evidence for this new system is a Pompeiian graffito referring to 6 February AD 60 as dies solis (literally Latin for ‘day of the Sun’). The Latin word for the Sun is ‘sol’. You see the suffix ‘-is’ as in ‘solis’ because the genitive case is being used (i.e. indicating possession; ‘of the Sun’). The word ‘sol’ is where we get words such as ‘solar’.
Another early witness is a reference to a lost treatise by Plutarch (a Greco-Roman biographer), written in about AD 100, which addressed the question of ‘Why are the days named after the planets reckoned in a different order from the actual order?’ I bet this must have been the question in your mind as I told you about the celestial bodies four paragraphs earlier. Well, you’re nearly two millennia late.
Anyway, let’s not get distracted. The days were named after the planets of Hellenistic astrology, in the order Sun, Moon, Mars (Ares), Mercury (Hermes), Jupiter (Zeus), Venus (Aphrodite) and Saturn (Chronos). Yes, that’s the same way the fashion brand is spelt – Hermes. The seven-day week spread throughout the Roman Empire during Late Antiquity. By the fourth century, it was used throughout the empire, and it had also reached India and China.
Let us dissect each day. Before we move on, we should note that people back then had the practice where gods across different mythologies would be one and the same. For example, the Roman goddess of the Moon (Luna) would be taken to be the same entity as the Greek goddess of the Moon (Selene). The Germanic people adapted the system introduced by the Romans by substituting the Germanic deities for the Roman ones (with the exception of Saturday).
Sunday
The Greek word for Sun ‘helios’ is where we get the word ‘heliocentric’ (cf the historical dispute between the geocentric and heliocentric model for the solar system; the phrase ‘solar system’ gives a hint as to what the correct model is; haha).
In OE (Old English) Sunnandæg, meaning “sun’s day”. That strange symbol in that word is called a digraph (a combination of two letters representing one sound). This is a translation of the Latin phrase dies Solis. English. Like most of the Germanic languages, it preserves the day’s association with the Sun. Many other European languages, including all of the Romance languages, have changed its name to the equivalent of “the Lord’s day” (based on Ecclesiastical Latin dies Dominica). In both West Germanic and North Germanic mythology, the Sun is personified as Sunna/Sól. Hence, we see that in Romance languages such as French and Italian, Sunday has become dimanche and domenica respectively. ‘Domenica’ is a Christian reference to Jesus.
In Russian,the word for Sunday is voskresen’je (воскресенье), and it means ‘resurrection’ (cf Christ was crucified on a Friday, which Good Friday commemorates, and resurrected on a Sunday, which Easter Sunday commemorates).
This change to a reference to Christ probably never happened in English because of a division in language between different classes after the Norman invasion of 1066. While the official Norman-French language in use among the lordly elite switched effortlessly into official Latin and used the ‘Lord’s Day’, Anglo-Saxon remained the vernacular of ordinary folk.
It should be noted that Emperor Constantine the Great had converted Rome to Christianity and standardised the seven-day week across the Empire. According to Dr Matthew Nicholls, senior lecturer in Classics at the University of Reading: ‘The Roman context of the spread of Christianity meant that Rome contributed a lot to the structure and calendar of the new faith.’ Rome may initially have acquired the seven-day week from the mystical beliefs of Babylonian astrologers, but it was the biblical story of creation, God’s creation of the heaven and the earth, and resting on the seventh day that would have led the first Christian emperor of Rome to ensure that the seven-day week endures to this day.
Monday
Monday is a shortened form of ‘Day of the Moon’. It shouldn’t be too difficult to see how ‘Luna’ relates to Monday. It is from the Roman goddess that we get words such as ‘lunar’, ‘lunatic’ and ‘lunacy’ – a condition which has been associated with the lunar cycle. In Roman mythology, Diana, the twin of Apollo the Sun-god, is the goddess of the moon, the hunt, and child birth. Diana is considered to be the same as Luna and Selene.
Tuesday
In Greek and Latin, we see that Tuesday is the ‘Day of Ares’ and the ‘Day of Mars’ respectively. As I said earlier, they were considered to be the same entity. Mars is known as the Roman god of war. It is where we get words such as ‘martial’ as in ‘court-martial’ and ‘martial arts’. The English word Tuesday is also derived from OE and from the Norse god of war Tiw (or Týr). Consider the historical development of Tuesday (ME tewesday, OE tiwesdaeg, OHG ziestac). By the way, ME and OHG refer to Middle English and Old High German respectively.
Wednesday
The following chunk regarding Wednesday is a direct quote from reference [1]:
Wednesday comes from ‘Woden’, the Old German and English name for the Norse god Odin. Odin is father and ruler of the gods and mortals, often called ‘the all father’. He is also the god of war, learning, poetry and the dead. He had only one eye, having traded his second for a drink from the Well of Wisdom. Odin was considered to be one and the same with Mercury. He is the ruler of Asgard, the home of the gods, and is able to shift and change into different forms. In contrast, Mercury, the Roman god for whom dies Mercurii is named, is a messenger god. While Woden survives in English, he disappeared from the days of the week in German. This dates from the time Christianity was displacing pagan beliefs in the centuries following the collapse of the Roman Empire. “In Germany they found themselves the heirs to classical Rome as the Carolingian leaders of the Holy Roman Empire, so along with Christianisation went a willingness to embrace all that that new title meant” explains archaeologist Iain Sodden. In German, Wednesday or Woden’s day was replaced with Mittwoch or ‘mid-week’.
Thursday
Thor, Jupiter, and Zeus were all gods of thunder. Thursday comes from ‘Thor’s Day’. Nothing much here.
Friday
Friday is linked with Venus. This day is unique because it is the only day named after a woman. Friday comes from OE/ME Frigedaeg or ‘Frigga’s day’. Frigg was the wife of Odin, and the goddess of love and beauty. Venus was the goddess of sex, love and fertility. She is also associated with marriage and fertility. Venus can outshine any of the other planets, and was the Roman goddess of love, beauty, sex, fertility, prosperity and victory. Venus was closely associated with the Greek goddess Aphrodite.
Saturday
This is an easy one. Saturday (cf OE Saternesdaeg) comes from ‘Day of Saturn’. This is in my opinion, the most interesting day. Saturday is the only day in English which is directly named after a Roman god. Its equivalent in Greek mythology is Chronos/Kronos, the ruler of the titans and the god of time. It is from the Greek word ‘chronos/kronos’ that we get words such as ‘chronometer’, ‘chronological’, ‘chronograph’, ‘synchronise’. Isn’t language fascinating? Saturn is the father of Jupiter, the chief Roman God. The following paragraph is a direct quote from reference [1]:
The association of Saturday with a Roman god in English helps date when the seven-day week came to Britain. According to Prof Mckinnell,, it suggests that the names of the days “may have arrived in the UK along with Latin learning – with or after the conversion to Christianity, between AD 597 and AD 685.” In the Romance languages of southern Europe which are largely derived from Latin, the word for Saturday was changed to mirror Church Latin. For example the Spanish word sábado comes from Sabbath.
The word ‘Sabbath’ is where we get words such as ‘sabbatical’. The Sabbath is observed by adherents of Judaism and Seventh-day Adventists on Saturday as a day of rest and worship.
There are more interesting things that we could discuss: 1) Plutarch’s question: ‘Why are the days named after the planets reckoned in a different order from the actual order?’ 2) Why modern Mandarin only has numbered days (with the exception of Sunday 星期日)? 3) Should Sunday or Monday, or even Saturday be the start of the week?
However, this blog post would be too long. In fact, as it is, this is my longest blog post yet. Thank you for reading!
