Recording the 12-string guitar is never easy. And I think that getting a bit drunk kind of take the pain out of the concious mind. Today, I have recorded 7 songs in one go. If I didn’t make a irrevisible mistake on the 8th song, I would have ended up with 8 songs. Well, I guess it is a long process. I have till Valentine day 2005 to get it done.
Back in October during one of the warm-up session prior to the jamming session, I had an idea to write a song based on the chords from the Christmas song Oh Holy Night and I did. It is like this … the songs started with lyrics and melody that I have created and then transit smoothly to the well known song Oh Holy Night. The title of my song is The Right To Live (Oh Holy Night).
Now, here is the deal. If more than 3 persons post a comment here and say that they want to listen to this The Right To Live (Oh Holy Night), I will get the recording done before Christmas and have it posted on the website.
Back to the history … perhaps the song was not well practiced (after all, I just wrote it in the morning), Jason kind of liked it but had the concern that it may sound too much like one of the songs from Michael Jackson.
I kind of put the idea aside until recently I have made a recording with Cynthia singing the vocal part of the Oh Holy Night while me singing the The Right To Live at the beginning.
Tonight I played the song again and kind of love it. Perhaps (or more definitely) I need to re-record my vocal and put in the bass.
Again, if more than 3 persons post a comment here and say that they want to listen to the song, I will get the recording done before Christmas and have it posted on the website.
If more than 5 persons post a comment here, I will throw in another original Christmas-like song I have written called Don’t Give Up.
However, if there is no or less than 3 people post a comment here, I may still release these songs just for Christmas.
What are you waiting for? Post some comments!!!
It is a weekend of music creation so far. My band-mate Jason dropped by my home today to complete the recording of the guitar solo of one of our songs and I have spent the entire morning to perform vocal warmup prior to his arrival.
After sending Jason off and had my quick dinner, I had this sudden urge to write songs. I wanted to write as many as possible but so far, I can only write two songs. Seems to me that this is my barrier. In fact, it is quite rare that I can write two songs on the same night. So far, perhaps twice. I tried to go beyond two but it is just not possible.
I am sensing that there is a change in my music direction. Looks like my music creation is entering another era. It’s about time …
An extract of the lyrics from the 1st song’s chorus, Uncomfortable Silence:
Bit by bit I am melting inside
Bit by bit I wish to disappear
Bit by bit I am wrapped by this …
Uncomfortable silence, uncomfortable silence
And, an extract of the lyrics from the 2nd song’s chorus, It’s Not For You:
Judging the world, sitting up above, seeing all of those you want to see
Lying to yourself, covering the world, seeing all of those you want to see
A while ago I have posted my strange bug attack experience. This morning, when I opened the cupboard that is above my kitchen table-top, I was shocked by the sight of a bug infested flour packet. No wonder I kept on finding dead bug on my table-top!
Yuck!
But how did the first bug find this packet of flour? Why were there so many dead bugs just right underneath the packet? What exactly was killing the bugs? Old age? Thirst? I have no idea and I don’t want to know.
Back in UK while I was staying at the accomodation provided by the University, it was quite common to hear the “bed squeaking sound” from upstairs. Occasionally you would hear the sound of moaning. Those were the days.
It is Singapore. Even when I was living in a government housing block, I did not get to hear the “music” from upstairs. Last night however, in the condo of mine, the “bed squeaking sound” just appeared from no where. Do I have new neighbour moving in after months of vacancy?
When I went to bed last night, because the weather was quite cool, I didn’t turn on the air-con. And it was this quietness did I realise my newly occupied neighbours from upstairs were having fun of their own.
My mind was actually drifted back to my Oxford days. I remembered the block where I was staying. The coldness. The darkness. The foreigness. All the oh so sweet memories. What can I say? Golden age of mine.
The pattern from upstairs was interesting. Seemed to me that there were plenty of resting between the actions. Actually I was not paying attention to what was happening upstairs. My mind was flooded with memory.
Before I know it, I heard the footsteps towards the bathroom and water was flowing down the bath tub pipe.
And that was when I fell asleep.
These days, I have discovered that are quite a number of black-coloured-hard-shell-round-shaped-slow-flying inserts found dead on my kitchen table-top.
At first I found it wierd to see a number of these inserts upside down, moving, as though they are struggling for air or something. A slow tortured death. Then I see the pattern of these inserts just fall down from the sky (or the ceiling to be more correct) and land right in front of me. More so nowadays, they fly right in front of me waiting for me to squash them dead. And I have not failed in squashing each and every one that appeared right in front of my eyes. They are just slow. Evolution should have wipped them off the planet. Nature’s loop hole it is. I never had luck in squashing flies. Sometimes mosquitoes. But these black fellows. Not a problem.
Questions in my mind are: (1) where do they come from? where is the nest? (2) why do they want to die on top of my kitchen table-top? is it because of the chemical I used to clean the top that is killing them? (3) what do they want from me? (4) how to make them disappear from my home?
If anyone know the answers to the above, please let me know. There are just too many of these dead inserts around me right now.
I have always been telling my friends that my life is full of coincidence. And of course my friends’ replies are always – just ordinary coincidence.
Yesterday, during my business lunch appointment, I saw one of my ex-colleague whom I have not seen for at least a good couple of months. Then, on the same day, I bumped onto her again while I was waiting for my dinner partners to arrive.
And yesterday I had dinner with this two friends of mine from work and today, at the same place I met them the day before, I met them again buying dinner at the same stall.
Life sometimes makes me wonder a little bit.
Back to the recording of my solo album, I can’t believe that I have spent 2 hours just to re-discover the exact tempo for all my 16 songs. I have to play through most of each song with the metronome to get the exact tempo prior to the actual recording. This is getting time consuming. And of course, during which, I re-scan the keys of the songs and make sure that they are not too high or too low.
Hopefully I can get the album out before Valentine next year.
Just before end of the day, just before I was heading off to have a drink with my colleagues, my old neighbour from my old department called me if I was interested to have chilli and pepper crab with her and her girlfriend. Absolutely! Besides, my old neighbour is going to leave Singapore for good and return to Canada and I was going to have dinner alone anyway. My neighbour and her girlfriend was known as someone who is absolutely spontaneous. Joining the club, at least for one night only, I was also absolutely spontaneous.
They took me to somewhere near the Singapore Stadium. Absolutely enchanting place. The night view of Singapore could not have looked any better. The restaurant called No Signboard is built right on top of the water. How cool is that?? Eating right above the sea! We had chilli crab, white pepper crab, drunken prawn, stuffed seafood, and veggie. Just for the 3 of us!
On the way back, my old neighbour commented that today’s temperature is between 24 to 28 degree. Wow, did not realise it. It must be winter in Singapore.
I have been a huge, huge No Doubt fan. Having been to their wild, wild concert at Paris, I will just buy anything that has Gwen Stefani’s voice in it. I am so totally into Gwen and her band. And so I did, bought the album without even listenning to any tracks.
And I don’t regret a single bit.
It is a dance album. From start to end. It is the uniqueness of this album that starts out from the rest of the dance album. First it is Gwen’s voice – very pleasant and beautiful and you can just listen to every words. That is great! Really. Then, it is the collabration with many talented people in the music industry such as Dr. Dre, The Neptunes, Andre 3000, and many others. Finally it is the wierd reference to Harajuku Girl and give a twist to the whole thing.
I love the album. Each and every song. You guys should check it out too.
Hey folks, I have just designed the cover for my new album. Please email me and let me know what you think. I think it looks pretty professional. For this new demo album that will be released in the Internet, it will be nothing like the ones I played for my one and only band NoEyeCandy. It is a dedication to my friends and families that have supported me throughout this more than 10 years of my songwriting experience. A big thank you to them. And I have included some songs that they love as well as songs that I love and yet my friends and families just stood by my insanity.
I will be playing all the instruments and all the tracks will be recorded in my humble home studio.
And the back …
