*ahem*

Last time I was telling you stuff about the mighty-hot bass by IKUO.. I mentioned there that they didn't produce the red one. But then just now when I checked out Ikuo's twitpic, I saw THIS.. Well, apparently they do have red ones, and the difference is only in the pick guard. The pick guard is white instead of shiny stainless steel.. but wait!! How come the pick up is different? Hmm.. Is this the same bass, or?

EXTRA! EXTRA!

Hi! :)

Finally the huge gig was over! It was a christmas musical production :) Well, a bit off Christmas since it was held on January 3rd because there was no venue available for booking in our campus..

The gig was AH-MAY-ZING. I had LOTS of fun!! The whole process is complicated. Since this is a musical, the band don't play only normal songs, but we gotta do background music as well. In my previous post I mentioned about film scoring and stuff--the idea is almost the same, only we played it live. 

This is a dream come true for me. I dreamed to be a music director when I was in high school, and one day I told God that I want to be one. And, that's it. He made my dream come true :)

It was one heck of an experience! I was the assistant + bassist for last year's production, and it kinda taught me lessons that were useful when directing this year's. I had LOTS of lessons during the practice period. We practiced for about 12 weeks!! Actually we didn't practice every single day. For the musicians, we practice during the weekends, due to classes and stuff, but during the weekends we practice for like, 13 hours a day, and the practice hours were added as the performance was approaching. I developed no blisters. Thank God.

Here's a couple of lessons throughout the process:

Dynamics -- This is what I've called the ups-and-downs of a song. You may google it for proper definition. Gosh. This one is freaking irritating sometimes. Because there were times where the song that we played just feels so plain, and it all just sounds like noises even though we all played the right chords. I don't really know how  to explain this in words, but during the practice, we gotta figure out when to play loud and when to play  soft or when not to play at all in a song. Each instrument has different parts in the music or even no parts at    all. So we have to know when's our cue. Try play one song with all instruments playing at the same time at    the same level and the same chords until the end--you'll hear disaster. It doesn't work that way. Dynamics   apply to every frickin song. Even death metal has dynamics.

Listen -- Hmm.. If you'll be covering other people's song and intend to play the exact copy, then you gotta listen.  And by listening, I mean listen to your part in the song. When to come in, how the riffs go (if any), when to go loud, when not to play, what kind of effect should you use to get to the same feeling, etc. When that  part is figured out, now here comes the playing. When you play together as a band, you need to listen to  each other, and try your best to get to the appropriate level. For example, if you are supposed to be strumming in the background, then adjust your volume accordingly so you won't overpower the others. As music directors, you gotta be able to listen to what everybody's playing. I found this tough because sometimes there's multiple flaw being played at the same time and you gotta stop the whole thing and explain one by one on how it supposed to sound like and then repeat it all over again.

Encoding/translating/whatever -- The directors have imagined and set how should a song sound like for a scene, which sounds different than the original song most of the time. You may get comments like "it's not emo enough", "it's not supposed to be that funny", "it's supposed to be high", or even just plain "I can't feel it". You gotta be able to translate those into the music you play. Also, when you read the script, you gotta figure out what kind of music is suitable for a scene. For example, how to play for a fighting scene, or the most difficult one *for me* is what kind of music you play when people are in a mall and they were gossiping?

LEARN HOW TO READ THE FRICKIN SCORES! -- I finally realized that it would be so much easier when everybody can read scores. Our guitarist and keyboardist are educated, so they can read stuff. I myself can't read, so when I want to communicate what's in my mind, I gotta sing it =.= and many times my timing and their timing is not sync so it takes extra time to make it happen. Thank God everybody understand music language.. You know, the dukduktak jrengjeng, dumdum and tingtings xD

Obedience -- This one is VERY important. Many times you won't agree with the directors. But, you can always communicate to them about how you think the music should be. But then they still might not agree with you.. I'd say, obey. Because they have imagined it and it's perfect in their mind, and your job is to make that scene comes to life with music. So, if you can't find middle ground, obey.  I was pretty rebellious during this production >.< My apologies directors... For the musicians, thou shall obey thy music director as well, because they are the one who is communicating with the scene directors about what they want and you clearly have no idea. But then as I said before, you can always communicate your idea to the music director. Your idea might be the one they're looking for.

Relationship --  Now this one is also very important. Try your best to build good relationship with one another, and try to understand your team better. I found the breakfast/lunch/dinner before practices was really helpful. During those times we didn't really talk about the musical. We discuss satanic bands most of the time, listen to blues while eating, and listen to Power Rangers theme and some alternative stuff on our way home xD That was really fun. We talk music only during practice, but sometimes we strayed as well >.< I lose focus    easily. sigh. 

Compromise and Encourage -- When one of your team member is not feeling confident to play some stuff, encourage them. If they're not able to do some riffs because it was too difficult, then try to do simpler version where everyone is comfortable. It's better to simplify it than forcing it. Too much pressure is not good.

Don't panic -- During THE day, there were several mistakes.. After that song, we just look into each other and say "it's okay." Well, there's nothing you can do other than just kick ass in the next songs, right?!

Well, those are the lessons I've learned, and those are only my opinion. If you think that there's something wrong or I should add, feel free to point it out :)

Some of the practice days were the best days of my life. Like, totally.

2011

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

2010 has been a great giggin' year for me!

Many gigs, stories, lessons and experiences along the way and I never regret any second of it :)

One thing for sure, I wanna thank Jesus for being with me all the way, and being the one who make my dreams come true. One night, I asked him, "God, I really wanna rock with the bass.. and I wanna have a memorable final year!!" *fyi, this is my final year in uni :).. Well, He didn't say anything, He gave me Rubberband. And for the memorable part, hmmm. I don't even know where to start. After Rubberband was formed, it was like raining gigs. I go places and play music even with people I don't expect to meet and play with before. He knows one of the things that will make me happy.. Music. 

Not only that, ever since I was in high school, I want to be a music director one day. He answered it as well. For that, I'll explain in the other post :P. I can't thank Him enough. Not only for the gigs and music stuff, but for being with me ALL THE TIME :)

Btw, I can't really post a review these days because of the projects and stuff, also there's this HUGE gig happening on the 3rd and I was super busy rehearsing *about 13 hours of playing for each session fyi* that I don't even have time to listen to stuff  >.< by the time I touchdown on my bed, I'll be asleep in less than 3 seconds.

Alright then, have great years ahead!!

Good night :)

all I want for Xmas is a finger exerciser!

THAT has nothing to do with this post. 

Been extremely busy that I almost have no time to sit and listen to stuff that I like or those I've never heard before. sigh.

But then it's good in a way that now I have a BUNCH of stuff piling up for me to listen to once I'm free. I have listened to 1 - 3 of their songs, but in order to make a thorough and un-biased reviews, I'm gonna have to listen to the whole discography :) Here's the list:

- B.B. King --I got poisoned by a friend :P

- BACK ON --I only listened to a few songs and got lazy downloading =.=

- Shugo Tekomaru -- Don't like his singing style but LOVE the music. Somehow 

  makes me really happy on the first play.

- PE'Z -- "The Samurai Jazz Band."Never heard of that in my entire life. So 

  HECK YEAH I gotta check 'em out!

- Abingdon Boys School -- I'm outdated. Wanna check out their new stuff.

- L'arc En Ciel -- Too.many.songs. Lazy to download. But now I'm on my 

  search of someone who's gracious enough to lend me their L'arc-filled-HDD

- Hinder -- still considering, tho. Waking up the devil is awesome but it freaks 

  me out at the same time idk why.

- Ikimonogakari -- My collection is only up to the one with Blue Bird. I wanna 

  update!

- Dave Matthews Band -- Call me lame. I don't give a flying fart. I HAVE to 

  broaden my horizon.

- High School Musical -- You saw that right. bleh.frickin hate it but I need it 

  for my film scoring knowledge and HSM was recommended by the fella that I 

  wrote about last time. He said the compositions and arrangements are good. 

  *composition? film scoring? I'll explain in other post*

- John Mayer -- Indeed skillful with the guitar but why the hype? Wanna find 

  out.

- Punk Goes Pop -- Just had several songs. Wanna listen to all 3 volumes!

I think I should stop there.

Btw, there's a HUGE gig coming up :) Another one worth writing, I hope.

In the meantime, whoever reading this blog, please pray for me so that I'll be able to finish this semester well, and then get to the internship beesknees with laughter. >.< Thanks!

keepingthisblogalive

I am missing those days where all I need to do for the day is just wake up, go bathe, pick up my bass then go jamming. Haiyah. Now I got a LOT of stuff to do but don't have the mood to do it. The strange thing is, when my friends ask me to jam for a gig, or maybe there is worship team practice, then I come back to life. Now that I'm done with the ramble, check THIS out. 

That is by far the most epic stuff I've ever seen. Can't say more.

BIG BLACK BOOTS

Whaddup peeps?! I just got back from one legendary gig. heheh. So, as I told y'all in the previous post, me and my peeps were playing at this prom thingy. Btw, the venue was AWESOME. It was actually a club on a rooftop of a famous shopping mall in the heart of Kuala Lumpur. The lighting, seats, and foods were awesome. The sound system was not that suck but not good enough. The amps were small, but all were mic-ed up and the bass was connected to the d.i so everything was combined through the PA system. 

The night went fine at first, it was actually pretty cool because we were playing at the dance floor and the crowd actually came down and dance while we play. We played 6 mainstream songs, and when we ended the last song, the crowd's face was like still waiting for something to come up and one of the organizer asked us if we can play some more songs. I suggested Jet-Are you gonna be my girl, and everybody agreed. This is where the epic part started *grin*.

We started the intro fine, and when it came to "4,5,6 "then it all went wrong. That part is where we all need to stop playing and then continue after the word "honey" but then instead of that we came in too early and everything goes ugly after that. It's kinda hard to explain in writing. It's waaay funnier than what's written here. I was thinking hard during that time because I really really really don't want us to stop playing. It will be much more embarrassing, so we just continue playing. The song never got better and the vocalist himself was confused, and later on in the car he himself revealed that he was thinking hard and actually wanna end the song already but then suddenly he sprayed "big black boots..." then somehow that line was everybody's savior because during that disaster everybody didn't seem to know where we were until he sang that line. 

The intros were a total mess. During the part where we need to stop, some of us stopped and some of us didn't and during the part that we didn't need to, we stopped. We were looking at each other hoping that we can telepathically communicate but we couldn't. I was trying to sync us up by giving some hints to our guitarist by facing toward him so that he could see my hands but then he just smiled awkwardly and I think that instead of "hey look, you're supposed to play these" message, maybe he interpreted it as "hey let's do that cool style where we both facing each other and cross our guitars while playing!!" message!!! The 2nd guitarist was at his own zone *syok sendiri*,  the vocalist was confused but tried so hard to be calm, and our drummer was also confused and was just giving us straight beat until she finally found out where we were going. It was even worse when they turned off the light! According to our vocalist, our guitarist was counting the fret in the dark but then didn't manage to find the right one and then ended up starting the solo in a wrong key! It was all over the place. But then we just ended where it suppose to end. We finished what we started.

There's another thing. Before this song we were playing a song by Girls Generation (SNSD) - Gee, the rock version. It went ridiculous!! Because it's in Korean, and it's hard to memorize!!! We learned that song not long ago!! That song went really funny as well, because the vocalist kept on mumbling random words, and during the pre-chorus, me and another friend backed him up but then all 3 of us were singing different words but we kept hantam and goreng 'till we finish with a big bang. The vocalist kept on saying 'neomu neomu' and 'nuninunibusyeo' and during the bridge which he wasn't to familiar with, he talked to the audience then only sang again when the chorus came.

This was my first time being in a disaster, and it was worth it!! We laughed it all off in the car for hundreds of kilometers. I was having headache from all the laughing. Indeed everybody was quite disappointed at first, but then our mishaps were actually really funny. This is by far my funniest gig (expecting more to come >.<), and it's one of those that I would remember for the rest of my life (one of them is the one where we got lost :P). I had a lot of fun tonight and I really thank God that all of us came back safe and sound though it was raining cats and dogs on the highway.

Oh yah!!! I totally forgot about the lesson!!!

Well I have one for y'all. When the song goes wrong, just keep playing. Listen to the vocalist and follow his/her lead instead of going into different direction even though the vocalist is the one who is wrong. If you are still at the beginning of the song, maybe during the first 10 seconds, then you may choose to stop playing then start all over again. But if you have finished the first verse and things go wrong, don't ever look back and stop because it'll be so much embarrassing. Who knows maybe things will get better as you play--or not in our case :P. Also, no matter who made the mistake that cause everything to fall apart, quit blaming each other, take it as a lesson and laugh it all off on your way home. It can strengthen your bond with each other somehow, plus, that was one moment that you'll never get back, so  why bother?! Just keep playing and rock the next gig!!

isuckatchosingtitlesbutthethingisiamsoexcitednow

I'm goin for another gig in a couple of hours :)
It's kind of a formal night by a university but the event itself will be at a rooftop of a shopping center in KL. Hopefully this will be another one worth writing, and we won't get lost again this time >.<