*Eddy groans*
*Pained laughter*
*More sighing and groaning*
AI-yuhh!
I can't believe that happened.
Ahhh.....
Hello, everyone!
Welcome to another episode of TwoSet Violin!
Woo!
Today, we are going to be reviewing our past performances.
We will give you our honest critique!
TwoSet roast themselves from the past!
I've actually never sat through some of these recordings,
- from top to bottom. - I mean, it's too painful, right?
- Ahahaha! - Yeah, it's too painful.
Let's get started!
We have a video here from 2018, 29th of September.
And this performance was in Helsinki.
I wonder who's watching this, who were in this clip,
that might be coming to our concert
next month in Helsinki.
- True! - I wonder. We might see...
familiar faces again!
*Brett groans*
Ahahahah!
Hey, my octaves were all right!
Brett: Yeah, your octaves were all right.
I just had to ruin it with my harmonics.
I love the setup too, like,
you can see the Viola King hat at the back.
You'll see in a bit, the recent concert we did with Davie,
how far our stage production has come,
but this is our first one, and so we just put the costume
right under the piano.
- Brett: I don't know what they're laughing at... - (Eddy: What I meant to say was...)
- (Why don't we join forces...?) - Ohhh, yeah, it's...
- That was a join... yeah.The banana joke. - You said join bananas.
Those that were in the first tour
know what we were talking about.
Haha! Yeah.
Ooh!
- Nice. - Not bad.
Oof!
Hah...
Not sure about the top D,
but the B flat was good!
Our limit was reached on that.
We couldn't play any higher.
Yeah!
It's so weird looking at yourself back then.
Even just things like dress sense.
I used to, I used to wear... that?
Bro... what is that?!
Wow!
Eddy: Brooo...
Wardrobe choice, ten out of ten.
Ah, man...
Let's go, Viola King!
- Heyy! That was in tune! - That's all right! That's all right!
I was getting ready to, like...
I don't even, I was like anticipating the cringe.
It's an awkward key as well.
- Mm. E flat. - E flat.
- And I was projecting with a viola, - You were.
which is, like...
- you know, it's a viola... - That's something else.
Blessed with the Viola King helmet.
That's true, it's the helmet.
(Robot voice: Generation complete.)
(Brett: Eddy, why do I feel like this?!)
*Pained noises from Eddy*
Woo! Woohoo! Woohoohoo!
TwoSet Violin World Tour, come on!
I can't believe that happened...
Oh, man...
Okay, so fast-forward a few years,
I mean, we've told this story a million times...
So we were about to start a new world tour,
and then COVID hit.
And so we had to cancel it right before we booked
our first venue.
COVID turned out to go on for AGES
so at the end of 2021,
we decided to do a virtual tour concert.
Here we gooo!
Three years afterwards.
(All right, so, I'll say a joke,
and uh...)
Oh, I know what this, this is...
(I'll see if you guys, uh...
laugh in the comment section.
You guys ready?)
Viola.
(*Canned laughter*)
Ugh...
I promise the world tour will not be like this.
- Hah, are you sure? Are you sure?! - Or maybe it will be,
if that's what you're into.
Dude, my wig is so off!
You can see my black hair underneath!
Ah, okay. That Bach part was actually okay.
But I remember there was a funny, dicey part before.
That fugue is hard to play.
It is one of the most scary pieces to play solo.
You're by yourself; everyone can hear every single
- nuance, every note. - ...note.
And you gotta make it interesting,
every line, every melody, every harmony.
And the thing with that Bach is it's so easy to repeat,
and you jump to the wrong place.
You can just skip by accident,
or have a memory slip.
- Yeah. - Haha!
Can I just say though, like,
even just then, the difference in the lighting onstage,
and the costumes are a little bit better, too,
- Yeah. - than the... whatever that hoodie was before.
Aiyuhhh!
AI-yuhh!
Practice, bro! Why didn't you practice?!
Hey! Nice.
- I like that. - Nice.
Nice. Nah, it's good, it's good!
- It's okay, it's okay! - It's all right.
I definitely think I sound better
- than the first world tour as well. - Yes.
Oh, okay. Let's move on. Next one!
(I have to go back!)
(What? I still can't hear you.)
Why are we so lame?
What the hell is that ending pose?!
AAAH!
You played it well!
- I mean it's not really hard. - It was like... at least it was...
It's not hard to play.
The dance moves are harder.
- Damn, this is... a trip down memory lane. - This is something else.
End of 2022,
Brett with the Mendelssohn and
the Singapore Symphony Orchestra!
Whoa, nice!
Brett: Ugh, man. I can feel the nerves, just watching it.
Yeah.
I remember how nervous we were.
I gotta say, given how nervous we were
and how you had to start the concert just like that,
that was pretty good.
Ugh, man...
But I can definitely hear where the edges...
- Yeah. Even my shifting, - ...where you're a little bit...
my first finger was so tense,
you can still hear my slide.
I went *sings sliding shift*
That's not bad, though.
*Sigh* ... yeah, it's true.
It's not like we play concertos every day...
I mean... I think you sound a lot better than my Paganini.
I don't even wanna watch the Paganini.
But to be fair, the Paganini was under very short notice.
Yeah, like few, couple weeks, right?
And also, 'cause we're playing on the Strads here,
and we only had about one month
- to learn on Stradivarius instruments. - That's true. Actually,
playing on a Strad is different. It feels very different as well.
Yeah. It sounds amazing, but it's very different.
*Heavy cringe*
It's always the shifts on the E string, man. I'm telling you.
I practiced that part like, so hard.
I did that so often... and I still messed it up.
- It's the worst feeling, hey? - I also...
You know, it was so weird,
I also kinda knew I was gonna mess up there.
I was like, "Oh..."
Like, I knew I had to get my finger positioned there,
and get to that G.
*Singing shift*
- ...I still missed it. - Damn.
I think it's the nerves, man.
I remember, too, with my Paganini it's like,
in my practice I nailed it 20 times, like Ziyu said.
"Nail it 20 times, and you won't go wrong onstage!"
But then onstage, it went wrong.
And I was like, "Brah!"
It's the worst feeling.
- Ugh. And it's not like you get to... - It's like, "Come on!"
It's not like we get to practice performing
- like this often as well. So it's... - Yeah.
I mean, having said that, though,
our first concert with Hong Kong IS with an orchestra.
Thrown right into the deep end, our first one!
Let's see what happens.
Oh, that sounds good.
It's so funny.
I'm used to seeing like,
famous soloists have this close-up shot of the hand.
- And now it's your hand. - I know.
- It's like– - I'm like, "LOL!"
I'm looking at my hand, and I'm like,
"What the heck is that?!"
It was so tense!
This part sounds really good though.
- It was alright, like– - A bit flat.
A little bit.
Oh! Dude, that–
That was good.
That shift-down is so hard!
It sounded good!
- Yeah, it sounded alright. I was surprised. - Yeah!
Nice...
The tone is really sweet.
And it's singing...
Props to the Strad.
I was gonna say, you projected over the orchestra.
That Strad was so nice though, so...
Mm...
You know what I was thinking here?
In my mind, I was like, "Don't rush."
I remember I was like, "Don't rush!"
It's one of those like leggiero places where
if you tense up, you're right, I'm gone.
- Yeah. - Like, you lose control.
- You can't just– - Ah, yeah, yeah...
You just gotta have to keep going.
Yeah.
- Oh! A bit flat. - Oof!
Look at my hands.
Oh here! Can I just say?
I was so safe here.
I was so scared.
Yeah.
Nice! The–
Nice.
Made it.
How were you feeling at that part?
I don't even know.
I don't even remember playing this, honestly.
It's just like a blip in the timeline.
I felt like it never happened.
This didn't happen. It was actually–
- An alternate reality. - Yeah.
- This is a multiverse recording. - See, I'm back in the studio filming.
That never happened.
We're just reviewing someone else's playing in the parallel universe.
I refuse to watch the Paganini.
But we can watch a bit of the Bach.
Why did you turn to–
I was like, "That was out of tune, bro."
Bro!
You were supposed to play along!
And I was like...
reflex.
"The f***?"
It's alright.
I played way out of tune later.
I...
Karma comes for me later.
Look at me. I'm so happy.
I'm like, "Yeah, I'm done!"
I was so– I was legit–
There's so much relief when I walked off stage.
I was like...
"I am out of here!"
This is the point where I wanted to...
just die.
It's alright!
Okay.
That is actually okay.
It's alright.
I have to explain here, too.
- We had two rehearsals only with the orchestra, right? - Yeah.
The second rehearsal was an open rehearsal.
And because we wanted to keep the Paganini a surprise,
- We can't rehearse. - we didn't rehearse it in the open rehearsal.
Which means...
- effectively, I only had one rehearsal for this piece. - One! Oh...
- And then– - And a lit– a tiny, like, 10-minute run-through on the day.
- Yeah. - So...
there were moments like this with rubato where
it just wasn't quite together with the orchestra.
But that just– It's just a matter of rehearsal time loss.
- Yeah, I think it was rehearsal. - And I think–
I remember we decided we wanna keep it a surprise.
We thought the element of surprise is funnier.
Aiyuh...
Flat, bro!
Listen!
Next part. Let's see.
Oh wait... I wanna hear more Paganini.
Aiyuh!
Tsk! Ugh... Man!
AHHH!!!
That's not even the hard part.
Yeah!
That's the easy part and I messed up.
Like, the hard part–
like those arpeggios...
- Yeah, yeah, yeah. - But I'm–
Why did you mess up the easy part?
You got to nail the hard part. That's–
I think something happened with my nerves where I just–
I wasn't listening to my intonation in the easy bits.
And non-musicians, in case you don't know,
when musicians get nervous,
their concept of intonation kind of disappears when you're performing.
It's like beer goggles, but for your ears.
Like you're drunk, but in your hearing.
Let's skip to Davie concert!
This is our most recent concert,
and it was really really fun.
It was the craziest concert in terms of moving parts in production.
- We've had so much effects. - Yeah.
Like, freakin'...
jet cannons on stage, sparklers...
Brett: We had animators.
- Brett: We had voiceovers and everything... - Eddy: Yeah.
- It was like a symphony to put together. - Yeah.
It was insane!
Can I just say it too?
This was Davie's first proper time performing.
- His stage presence for a first time was so good! - Oh, it was incredible.
Look at our first time.
Right?
Like, compared to our first time?
- Holy moly! - Yeah, that's great.
Yeah, so this bit...
So he was meant to be hiding in the audience,
but his– the mic...
- Something happened with the mic. - Something happened with the mic.
You saw panic in his face!
He's like...
"What was that?"
- Nice save, nice save. - I remember I picked up on that.
I saw him talking,
and I heard no sound.
And I was like...
Oh, nice slide.
Can I just say...
That bit is like...
I think one of my highlight bits ever.
- I don't think I've ever sounded that good on the stage. - You played really well.
Like, full legit soloist tone.
I remember editor-san clipped that bit
for like a little short,
to post on TikTok.
I remember messaging.
I was like...
"Why are you using a soloist recording?"
"Why don't you just use our actual–"
She's like, "No, that's you."
I'm like...
Yeah, that is legit.
But then, I think that was just that bit.
- And then afterwards it kinda– - Yeah, that's like a few moments of glory.
No, but you had a really nice, like, solid sound.
Yeah, I lost it for the Rach. That's for sure.
I was so nervous about the Rach.
I was like, "No..."
As a classical musician,
- it was so hard to play with an earpiece in. - Yes.
I don't know about you, but for me,
well, for most of us, we rely on hearing our violins from here.
Not from the speakers which is like...
10, 20 metres high up.
And that was very confusing.
We spent so much time on intonation, tone,
- and also projection. - Yes.
But to have that kinda removed from us,
it was a bit weird.
We're used to hearing how sound bounces from the room,
but this venue was massive,
and we were in an amplified setting.
So rather than hearing the natural echo,
you just hear a feed.
And in your ear you can hear the keyboardist
and the bassist, and everyone, like, right there.
Like, pristine clean.
- And then with the click track as well. - Oh yeah!
- Oh bro, the click track was... - Oh, don't get me started.
Oh, this is like classical musicians' nightmare.
- Yeah. - Anyway.
That's it for today.
No more review. We spent enough time.
Because we have to go practise.
And you have to go practise, too.
Don't forget, we have a world tour coming up,
and if you are in the following cites:
Tickets are already out.
Check them out before they're gone.
And we can't wait to see you guys soon.
Accent the like button, legato the subsbrc–
I forgot how to talk.
Hey, that was just like my Paganini!
Yeah!