Description:
Dreams start off in a way you can’t remember,
and proceeds to where you would never want to go.
It is there you find your worst fears,
It is there you find your hope.

An instrumental piece composed by Cheng Yee
Running Length: 4:13

p.s. do forgive the bending harmonics part… really difficult to keep intonation intact when using a wammie bar. It peaks also… too much effort to mix and normalise everything on Audacity.. hehe.. hope you catch the surprise in the middle!

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!!!

I’ve been playing facebook games frequently this half of the year. Admittedly to the point of obsession. I suppose everyone needs something easily surmountable to feel validated after a day filled with seemingly impossible datelines and tasks.

One game in particular, which really brings out the Nomad in me, is Country Story. And this morning, as I was washing the dishes, a thought came into my mine.

“If Life were a Country Story game, what would you want to plant?”

I understand that such questions may take the whole ‘brainless fun’ feature out of the game and make your next game a philosophical one, but I would like to quote Demetri Martin’s improved version of Socrates’ words, “The unexamined life is not worth living, man.” So let’s take a closer look, man.

So what would I plant? Well, not sure what’s available, but I sure know what I’m harvesting already. I’ve a hand full Reclusive Radish, a few baskets of Procrastination Peas and probably a few Wasteful Watermelons lying around in barn. Gosh, I’m planting all the lousy low income plants and most of the good stuff like the Brinjal of Bravery is being stolen by some neighbour called s@+@n. So have to delete that fella of my friend list.

“If Life were a Country Story game, what do you think God will plant?”

Yikes! Wasn’t the previous question hard enough? I guess I saw it coming. After all, today’s devotional was about the fruit of the Holy Spirit. So my answer would be love, joy, peace, faithfulness, long suffering, gentleness, kindness, goodness and self-control. And all that in One fruit, the fruit of the Holy Spirit.

By golly, each harvest rakes in tonnes of Experience Points! Being transformed from glory to glory sure provides more posibilities! I can do more, and God seems to agree by providing more quests!

I’m plowing my life by examining it. I’m sowing seeds by reading the Bible and investing in life. I’m watering it by prayer and efforts to DO THE RIGHT THING. And when the harvest come, I do it all over again. Plus, everything has to be done on times as not let the crops run dry or allow others a chance to steal my produce. Then, I do it all over again. Because an idle plot is s@t@n’s playground.

It’s not a game anymore is it? It’s my life we’re talking about here. It’s Cheng Yee Story!

“You can do it yeah!”

Fod the frog who hid in fogs,
bought a hog, a pot and some stocks;
Rip it, rap it, rinse it, read it,
Fod’s only words were ‘ribbit, ribbit.’

So is the way of reclusive frogs.

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.

I’ve an exam tomorrow. But I can’t study to score for that exam. I have to play. Because tomorrow is the day my guitar skills are assessed. So I should be playing. Playing hard.

Before you start saying that music course is so cool, I don’t have to study and etc. I’ll have you know that I’ve finished all paper based exams. Well, then again, an assessment based on playing is cool isn’t it? Well, yeah. Sort of. Let me put it this way:

The song I’ll be practicing tonight is called Capricho Arabe. It’s a song by Francisco Tarrega that’s approximately five minutes long. My test requires me to know this piece by heart. I haven’t purposely memorised it, but I can remember it from start to end. That’ only because I started learning this piece since last year’s semester break. Suppose I play this through twice a day on average for a year. That will work out to be 365 x 2 = 730 times  (I definitely would have exceeded this number).

That is not including the number of times I had to break the song up and practice fragment by fragment. Which would be at least ten times for a single fragment. As I can see it, my piece has easily 10 major fragments that need to be worked out.

So as much as I’d like to play my guitar, that is, if I’m still interested in touching the guitar, I really want to play some other song. But exam is tomorrow, so I should be practicing now.

Chioazzz.