I was just listening to some classical music. Some concertos, some symphonies. I’m a big fan of concertos, because I’m just fascinated by how bi-polar a concerto is; orchestra only, piano only then together. And the seamless manner the composer switches between the three mix is just intriguing.

Anyway, I was listening to one particular piano concerto composed by Mozart, letting each voice, part, theme, whatever you call it, run through my mind. And seamlessly it went through each note, each harmony, each instrument. Then it hit me, I was hearing a sort of conversation. The melodic theme was the topic, and the harmony is the context or perspective, and the instruments were different persons discussing the topic.

I know that this is not a new revelation. In fact most people who learn music are taught about the concept of conversations in music. For me, this is an insight in retrospect. Instead of learning it and watching out for it, I picked it up and realised that it was connected. More so a reverse engineering situation rather than a search and find situation.

The song Pandalogue (Stupanda) was written with the approach of finding one particular melody, and expanding on it. What eventually happened was that I came up with a very long melody for the oboe, and it was boring. So I repeated the theme with a clarinet at a point where I could and trashed the rest of the oboe melody, letting the clarinet run free, and then only fitting the oboe to it. It was my first time writing in that genre. And although the results were satisfactory (for me it was miraculous), the fact was I wouldn’t be able to replicate it again, simply because I didn’t know how to do it in the first place.

Now with a quarter-bucket full of theory knowledge in my head, I’ve realised that I’ve become inhibited in compositions due to my overwhelming concerns about fitting in the harmonies. With this new insight to the squishy world of composing, perhaps I’ll fare better in my next attempt.

So for the next time I try to compose orchestra music, I’ll let the the instruments talk and flow where they want before attaching the harmonies. Who knows what could result? Just a thought

I think sound is a really great gift of God. Music on the hand, is a beautiful gift from God.

As a concept, music is a mix of sound and silence in perfect harmony (pun intended). It opens up another dimension and with the right sound at the right moment allows a person to experience multiple angles of his thoughts, all in a very short moment. Perhaps even, all at once.

We draw the length with words, we draw the width with pictures, but we draw depth with sound. Some people may have heard me say this before,

“Perhaps the only thing missing in life, is a good sound track.”
~ Cheng Yee

Of my experiences, I have heard one sound track that I really love. It is the piece called The Peace Of God. If you are ever fortunate enough to meet actual man or woman who are at peace with themselves. Who are alright with life, happy to be alive, sad that things aren’t as good as they should be, but at peace knowing that life is life, and they have the privilege to live it. Spend time with them, and listen. Even if they are not saying anything, the sound of their presence can be heard.

I want to hear that song again, that music. To be surrounded by and reverberating with it. Sound.

I am about this much |<– –>| from throwing my guitar at my laptop.

I’ve recording parts for a song this few days I’m in KL since internship hasn’t started and I’m still alone in Serdang. I’ve put in a solid 3 days worth of work now and I’m still not able to put the song together. ARRRGGGHHH.

Every time I record, I find the recordings to be getting faster and faster. This was when I had a drum track running to keep me in time!! In my most desperate attempt, I even took out my metronome and recorded in an old school method. Click by click. And after about 3 hours of laying down tracks, as I was adjusting the tracks to time, I realised that some how I’m playing faster and faster and faster!!

How can this be!! I am very tempted to curse right now. Arrrghhh!!! So I decided to go for a break, so I had a hot bath and went out for a meal at 4.30pm… all the while thinking to myself, “Gosh, I’m such a terrible guitarist… can’t even play in time…” But as I thought about it, it became clear that even if I went out of time, I couldn’t be going out by a beat every 3-4 bars! that’s impossible!

Checking the length of the guitar tracks to the virtually created drum track… I realised that my guitar tracks were shorter. Strange, then I played the guitar track and drum track individually while comparing to a metronome… I realised that they were both in time. Just that the guitar track had lot’s of sudden timing mistakes in it. But I don’t remember speeding up!! Naturally, I thought it was my fault again.

But just as I started recording again, I realised something… as I was playing according to the metronome, one of the wave shapes being displayed on the screen was slightly shorter! A quick google into all known Audacity problems… and EUREKA!! Audacity tends to skip cause it can’t write fast enough to the disk.. or memory.. and in Audacity’s Wiki, they ADMIT that problem! I quote:

“If this still doesn’t work, you may want to look into using a different program. Audacity is a decent all-around audio editor, but it is not the most efficient at recording. There are other audio editors out there that are much more efficient and might do better at recording without skipping. See the Links page for some ideas for other audio recording programs, and also see the Other Programs page.”
~ http://wiki.audacityteam.org/index.php?title=Troubleshooting_Recordings

ARRRRRRGGGGhHHHHH!!! two solid days just to find this out!!!??? WHERE’S MY GUITAR!??? SOMEBODY GONNA GET THE HURT!!!

Before that I just want to say, thanks guys for the encouragement. Today’s guitar test went well! Was not nervous, which was a rare occurrence, although I lacked the stamina to finish the piece well. Thanks y’all, and thank You, God! haha…

Right.. I just had the most surreal moments of musical saturation. Let’s back track a bit. Due to lack of exercise and schedule issues, I’m now sleeping late, waking early and sleeping a lot in the afternoon. So what I’m going to describe to you, happened just as I was waking up at 10.30pm.

I woke up with a symphony in my head. Literally. It sounded scottish, had an acciacatura in the beginning of phrases. I could hear the swell of the strings section, the interuption of the flute. Fluttering their way in a rapid descending followed by ascending scale before a syncopated section by the strings in the lower registers.

Suddenly the sound of a gong at mf. to which after I heard the the sound of strings in rapid tremolo in piano, playing in unison. So transparent and delicate. The first violins start in pianissimo playing the main theme, followed by the clarinets and bassoons (in their extreme registers) in unison, followed by the cellos who announced their entry with a unison swell on one single note. All this in a canon like manner, the cellos’ section ends only to have the whole orchestra crescendo through chords to a fortessimo. Just as they reach the last chord, a fp occurs, and the orchestra suddenly drops to a piano.

I thought it was ending, but then I heard two trombones playing a long tone a minor second apart sounding in the back. They start to build in dynamics. The strings follow suit…

By then, I was just breaking into consciousness, so the music faded away. I could remember the tune. For a while. I’ve forgotten now. It didn’t flow as smoothly as I described it (I wrote it as such so that it’s easier for you to read it). It was in fragments. But I could feel the link.

This is what happens when all the music you know mixes subconsciously and leaks into your mind in that twilight moment between slumber and being awake. Interestingly, the Bible contains a verse that says,

“…, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord;”
~ Eph 5:19, KJV

I didn’t hear a single lyric, nor did I hear a single line of melody. I heard a symphony in my heart. And I know exactly who put this song in my heart.

So the next time you hear something, whether it be a symphony or a baby’s cry. No matter what it is, just remember that it’s deeper and more grand than you can ever imagine.

“There’s meaning in every sound. Because nothing happens without a reason; even silence.”
~ Cheng Yee

p.s. By the way, here’s a link to listen to what your DNA may sound like.

Guess what I found OUT out OUt ouT today?

I’ve got a blister… in my callous on my left hand’s index finger. Cool right? my hands are full of callous.. I guess my “interaction” with the double bass yesterday blister my my index finger (again)… this time, it happened in the callous (NEW!)… so it doesn’t hurt.. haha.. so cool… a blister in a callous…

Since this post carries an enSOUNDenment tag, I’ll have to give some useful insights into the music world… so… today I will give an advice on maintaining finger strength when you have no time to practice. The tip: fiddle with your pen… applicable during really boring classes…

I’ve got a technical exam tomorrow, and the past few days have been packed with rehearsals and tests.. so as I was in a certain class… (I found out yesterday that my coursemates read my blog… so cannot be too specific)… I was thinking: “How do I maintain the finger strength and dexterity that I worked so hard at developing the past few days?” You can lose a lot in just three days of no practice… then I remembered the days in Form 5 when I was really into playing with pens and just moving it up and down between my fingers.. what I remembered most is the roughness and tiredness of my fingers after those “play” times during supremely boring classes…

So tips to everyone wanting to develop or maintain finger strength and dexterity when not having your instrument with you… fiddle with your pen…

you can go bonkus at this pen tricks website: http://www.pentrix.com/

the basic exercise that I recommend is this: http://www.pentrix.com/tricks/pafiledb.php?action=file&id=23

but try between all fingers except between index and thumb…

I hope I’m getting paid for this…

I’ve had to do an assignment on Brahms Symphony. So I did my research and found out that Brahms developed a rather interesting technique of composition. He would call the melody to play in triple meter while the harmony will play in duple. That’s like your left hand playing triplets and your right hand playing crochets.

The moment I read that, I remembered a few days ago when I spotted a book in the resource room: 1001 Blues Licks. I noticed that quite a number of the licks were in 4/4 meter but had mostly triplets for the licks.

This bewildered me. As an electric guitarist, I would think that the more notes per beat the cooler the sound. So I’d think a improvisation using semiquavers is really cool. So I decided to give it a try. Last week in church, when we reached the instrumental part, I tried playing triplets instead of quavers. The result was amazing. My improvisation sounded more melodious and legato because there were less notes and each note could be played out. Also, because there is less notes to be played per beat, there’s more time for me to think what to play next. That’s not all, the nature of triplets is such that it has a delay feel to it and that gave so much depth to the melody I was trying to express.

So, never underesitmate the brilliance of triplets in duple time. Do give it a try!