夜里的奇想

The latest collaboration between Ming Yao and I brings to you 夜里的奇想

Photos

I realized I've seldom ever posted photos in my blog so here goes.




Thats me acting cool and pretending to me a Mat Rocker with shades and all. But I really can play the guitar. Anyway as you can see, my guitar is in a poor poor condition so top of my Christmas wish list or Birthday wish list is a electric guitar. Second hand also nevermind. A Fender Stratocaster or a Gibson Les Paul Standard. I'll leave it to you. (Gee, I hope somebody rich does read this post. Like IAN or PYKA.


And thats like part of my class. The small girl behind with the funny look is Audrey, Jieru is beside her. See Ann is the guy right at the back, Shannon is beside me with his hands around me, and the one is yellow is me! Darn, anybody know how to photoshop my zits away?

Lyrics requested by N!ck

教室里的桌椅 模糊

唯有在我视野里 清楚

点燃我所有的 希望

除了她就没其他 欲望

忘记了 是什么理由

我开始 选择了放弃

在她世界里 我已找不到真理

开始到现在 我只是一直等待

相信她 渐渐离开我 会心伤

木鱼它 默默对我说 别受伤

挥别了 总有她陪伴 的心房

还是没办法 失眠了几个晚上

教室里的桌椅 模糊

唯有在我视野里 清楚

点燃我所有的 希望

除了她就没其他 欲望

忘记了 是什么理由

我开始 选择了放弃

在她世界里 我已找不到真理

开始到现在 我只是一直等待

相信她 渐渐离开我 会心伤

木鱼它 默默对我说 别受伤

挥别了 总有她陪伴 的心房

还是没办法 失眠了几个晚上

一个人走 思念在路的最后

不会停留 期待美丽的邂逅

教室里的桌椅 模糊

唯有在我视野里 清楚

点燃我所有的 希望

除了她就没其他 欲望

如今我还在等待阳光

Copyright 2007 Lau Hong Hu & Andrew Chua

New Songs

Home is a really good place for me to work. I came up with 2 songs in 24 hours.

The first is called 还
Lyrics written by the amazing Lau Hong Hu in 30 minutes.
I immediately set a melody to the song after he sent the lyrics to me but when came home I had another idea of using this motif that I had came up with some time ago. Its basically do, mi, ti so 4 notes. Yeah so here it is. Enjoy it.

还 by Lau Hong Hu and Andrew Chua

The second song is called 杰伦的风格
Lyrics was co-written by Jingxuan and her unnamed friend.
They actually wrote it based on Hei Se Mao Yi's melody but I didn't know about it previously.
I originally tot of a rap but I realised that my budget set up cannot get the proper rap effects like the hip hop beats and turntable scratch.
So i came up with this. I added in quite some lyrics on my own. Those lyrics talking about the different Jay Chou songs were written and crapped out by me.
The lyrics in all is quite crappy. Only a Jay Chou fanatic can write this. Its not suitable for a guy to sing it too. Sounds damn gay. So here it is. Enjoy :)

杰伦的风格 by Yang Jingxuan, Unknown and Andrew Chua

Dream dream dream

Okay before I go off to sleep, I must report that most unusually I've been having dreams for the past 2 nights. I don't normally have them.
Anyway first night, I dreamt I was having dinner or something around a round table like those at a chinese restaurant with music people. I remember Audrey was there. I also remember MT was there. I dunno where were Chang, Teo and Ong. Anyway, we were chatting happily. Audrey wasn't always in the picture. MT was always in the picture. I was chatting happily to MT. I dunno what were we chatting about. She was smiling, I was happy and POOH I woke up.
The second night I dreamt I was listening to this conductor talk on the podium and I was sitting beside him. In front of us was an student orchestra. We were in some kind of practise room in some school. Anyway he finished his lecture and told me to come up and conduct. I remember saying I've never conducted before. Anyway we got started and apparently one of the flautist couldn't understand my hand gestures and came up and ask me what was I pointing with my baton hand. Apparently I was doing up and down motion only. I counted 1,2,3,4 for him and he could understand. After that I started doing the standard down, cross, up motion instead and the conductor started saying very good. I was doing well. I remember closing my eyes and raising my hands up high when this very warm and soulful strings section came in and they were playing very well. The conductor then stopped me. Apparently the end of the movement had an attacca with a sustained oboe note bringing in the next movement. This reminds me of Mendelssohn Violin Concerto but there wasn't any soloist so this couldn't have been Mendy's Violin Concerto. The conductor praised me. WAHAHA.
Ming Yao said TS is leaving. Maybe i'm the next conductor. WAHAHA.
Okay of to sleep now. Guitar practise tomorrow.
DS is quite mad. Online 24/7. Edwin doesn't even do that.

1000th visitor. ARE YOU??

Hey take a look at the counter up there? Are u visitor number 1000? As I'm typing this post now its 999. I won't be counted if I visit my own blog because i configured the cookie already.
If you are visitor number 1000, drop a comment or put in the tag board who are you. I'm really curious. Haha
Finally after so long, my dead blog has finally reach 1000 visitors. Nothing to be proud of but quite an achievement for my blog considering its less than 10 visitors a day statistics.

I'm packing to go home now. Darn heavy boxes and loads of rubbish.

Anyway, I heard of this amazing story from Jingxuan today and then I realised I've been missing a lot of things that have been happening in class. Nobody seems to tell me. Anyway, I got the first person account of it so nvm. The story is quite sad. After hearing it, I realised its a miracle my PW Project was completed. It really is a miracle with so many things happening behind my back. I would like to thank them for putting their differences aside and working together for this project. Thank you guys so much.
I do hope that the grief can be translated into lyrics. Haha. Exploiting people again.

Anyway, I found another great lyricist again tonight. Its Mr. WOO SEE ANN. DARN he is AMAZING with his language. His first ever lyrics was not about the cliche love. It was about he issues with life. Damn nice. Damn pro. Anyway Jingxuan sent me her 2 set of lyrics. About JAY CHOU. HAHA. Refreshing ideas. Its good really. I'm going to make a rap song out of it.
The 3 sets of lyrics I received today are going to challenge my songwriting skills. It really is a big step up. It longer puts me in the comfort zone of piano and vocal love songs. These are going to need the electric guitars, the basses, maybe even special vocal effects, rap, turn tables. WOW.
I'm going to get started ASAP.

CIAO

Jeng jeng jeng

Had guitar practice again this morning and the Mambo No.5 piece is going along nicely. Gaspar surprised us all by asking us to play Polka and Comme. The Polka was okay but the Comme was already a nightmare from last time with all the lines but thankfully I must say that my guitar note recognizing skills have improved and I was able to read the lines and match it with the frets correctly. I do hope my section gets it alright so that I won't always be playing solo and can pon guitar prac once in awhile without the conductor calling and asking me to come to school.
In anyways, Ian and I went to Ebenex. It was my second visit there but my first with a good look around and they really sell all kinds of guitar pedals. Gosh. These are the times when I just wished I was super rich, okay not necessary super rich but sufficiently rich to buy some pedals back. There was a Epiphone Electric Guitar hanging there with sunburst finish that looked quite nice. As to whether its tonally attractive I don't know.
Later on, under Ian's suggestion I went to town to watch a movie. Two movies in fact. I caught Bee Movie and after that spontaneously decided to watch Stardust. Bee Movie is quite a nice movie and so is Stardust. So I was quite satisfied with the money spent on movies today.
Today's dinner in the hostel was quite good actually. I suddenly decided to smile at the canteen lady and said 'xie xie' to her and she amazingly returned my smile. Normally she's quite sour faced and when I was reaching out to get a bowl of soup she stopped me and when and scooped another hot bowl of soup for me. The soup laid out there were already cold. I guess a friendly smile and a word of thank does do wonders.
Came back to my room and started checking out some cliffs of dover videos. Saw the one by fengheng and also eric johnson himself. These guys are just amazing man. Someday, in the near future I'm going to be there. I place my trust in Raphael. But I was thinking I need a better guitar haha. So went to see the PSR site and the Gibson sites. WAH, the guitars damn shiok but no money lah. How to spurge few k on a guitar when I'm so new to it. Even the guitars on soft also in the high hundreds!! ARGH. Some rich guy please read this blog and buy one for my birthday.
I practised the guitar for like almost 2 hours. Doing the drills. I'm staring to like doing bending a lot. Such a interesting technique. I'm so looking forward to guitar lessons. Meanwhile, no news yet from Hai Won. Haix.
I started my lyrics collection project again. Approached Jingxuan for help this time. Apparently she has 2 completed lyrics in her possession that she wrote together with her friend based on a tune Jay Chou song but of ALL things her computer cannot type CHINESE!!! FREAK. OF ALL PROBLEMS.
Meanwhile I approached Hong Hu too and amazingly like 30 mins later he came back to me with a fresh piece of lyrics. That guys is so efficient and doesn't have like emo periods to write lyrics. He's like this lyrics churning machine. WAH, hidden talent. I'm going to exploit it now. I'm going to take a look at his lyrics now. Its his first time writing one so... 'clap hands'
So long.



I love the way she pouts

atheism

The following comic strips are not suitable for people who have a strong affinity for their God. Please leave immediately if you are not able to accept various religious critics. BE ADVISED. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. Open it in a new window so its bigger.




I don't really understand the submarine one so maybe somebody could explain it to me :)
I STRICTLY DO NOT WANT any comments criticizing my actions for putting up the above material. Thanks.

Cope them for DS's blog :)

手

我想就这样牵着你的手不放开

Poop

I must say that I haven't updated in a long time, not since promos ended with a few random post, two to be exact in between then and now. But I'm not saying this is an update. I come to realised that I don't have much to say anyway. I prefer to keep my feelings pent up and don't see the need to tell people and well hardly anybody reads this nowadays.
I haven't been doing much since the end of promos. PW was going according to schedule and I must say that I'm actually neutral about PW despite some of the 4am sessions I had with Bernard and public holidays sessions and some hair pulling moments. Its really good for what I call relationship bonding. Because of all that we've been through, I feel closer to Bernard now. In the past I only knew him as a quiet, emo, cool dude in the corner. Besides that I think I feel closer to the girls now. I can talk more smoothly with jingxuan and cheryl, no problem. Talking more frequently with jingxuan now. I must say that I was quite wrong to make false assumptions about her unwillingness to participate in PW. Admist all her protests and complains, she still got her job done. Just like any other kid that needs a bit of toughness and pushing. Thank God I stalled on reporting her to Miss Ng on her slackness halfway through.
The end of promos also meant more class outings for us. Although its still not at a optimum and frequent level, at least it is a beginning. I've stayed at bernard's house twice, gomez once and jingxuan once. We watched movies, we cycled, we played Winning Eleven, we watched soccer matches, we drank vodka cocktail, we ate prata, vomit fish and fries and airport food, sent fanny off at the airport and had FIFA lan gaming sessions. It was all quite good. A huge change from the beginning and mid year.
The cycle of PW ended with our OP because Miss Ng already got us to hand up and complete our I&R and GPF before OP on the last day which was very very very good indeed. OP was quite fun. All the different jokes and expression we went through. I was thinking of new jokes every practise session just to keep people engaged but unfortunately not all of them worked.
I decided on impulse to start electric lead guitar lessons and I managed to get this very cheap and good and young teacher called Raphael who looks a lot like Wang Lee Hom. His guitar playing is very good, teaching more so. I'm learning a lot and being exposed to a lot. He gave me a list of songs to experiment with so I guess that's very good for my music education too. Learning new techniques and terms like palm mute and hammer-ons and pull-offs, humbucker pick-ups, single-coil pickups, tube amps, whammy-bar. So thats pretty great.
I'm hoping I can put all this skills to good use. I'm back to writing music again and thats great. Currently I'm not working on anything solid. Just experimenting around with different chord progressions and melodic development stuff. Working on lyrics writing too. Rhymes, chinese, english all that stuff. I look out of my window every night and feel that there is so many things I can write by just looking out of the windows but the ideas just don't materialize. I'm going to lug all my recording equipment back to Muar, well actually its not much, just my laptop, my headphones and a computer mic. Thanks how unprofessional I am.
Planning to write a song for S44 because they have been all smiles and great. Hui Ting is going to help me out with lyrics. Planning to write a song for a friend too. Dunno if it will work out because my lyrics ultimately become very cheesy.
Talking about friend, Sharon suddenly told me the other day that I better don't be mean to her or she will spill my secret. I was like WTH?? What secret do I have? And she didn't want to further explain. Haix, girls nowadays...
Jay Chou's new album, On The Run is actually quite a good production upon a few hearings. I must say a huge improvement on Still Fantasy. Comparable to November's Chopin and Jasmine Orange. Some of the material inside are actually very fresh. A few were tunes from the movie Secret which wasn't too bad. Just takes some getting used to as string ensemble pieces are now being sung. The Wild Wild West theme was quite refreshing too but I wondered if there were other ways the melody could have been written without changing the harmony instead of just being copied wholesale from western tunes.
I completed Need For Speed Carbon for the second time. It wasn't too difficult.
I must announce that my violin skills, having been neglected since promos are now at a all time low. Not that it was any higher before that anyway. Simple tone and semi-tones intervals are no longer in tune. I think my fingers are getting used to guitar frets now. I must admit I love the guitar a tad more. Still getting used to Eric Johnson, Malmsteen and Santana instead of Gil Shaham and Itzhak Perlman but I'll get there. Maybe I'll be famous for my enormous versatility in handling diverse music. MUAHAHA
I think I'm over practising my music instruments. My right thumb and index fingers have blisters on them due to over enthusiastic guitar ensemble practise sessions in school these 2 days.
I injured my left little finger. I think I accidentally cracked them on something or I over practise my siren drill on the guitar so they are hurting a lot and can hardly bent now and couple that with my double jointed problem I have a big problem.
Phew that was a long post wasn't it. Well just to announce my travel schedule for the next couple of weeks.
I'll be leaving Singapore for Muar for my long term holidays on the 15th of November so Muarians please lay out the red carpet. Hahaha
I'll be leaving Muar for Singapore on the 24th of November. The day my parents are flying. So Singaporeans please lay out the red carpet for me. Thanks.
I'll be leaving Singapore for London on the 26th of November. Close to midnight. S44 u guys coming to see me off? I do really hope to see you guys there one last time for the year.
Once in London I'll be doing a whole host of traveling and visiting different places thanks to RyanAir's cheap airfares.
I'll be back in Singapore on the 31st of December. Yes New Year's Eve. Jajabinks we should meet up as is customary to us.
So now u guys know when I'll be where so please call me out as I'm so BORED at home doing nothing.
I guess I'll be studying R papers if things continue this way.
So long for now.
Everybody have a nice holiday. :)
Ohh, I've got a new music teacher. Darren Sim from YJC band. I would rate him okay so far.



They say its obvious. But in what way?

Musical Tears

I was testing out Jay Chou's new album. Seeing what new ideas he had came up with. There is this song 蒲公英的约定 if i'm not mistaken. I know the chorus is taken from the movie 不能说的秘密 but he added lyrics to it. Something about the chorus, the 7 notes, invoke some kind of memory in me. I don't know what izzit but its definitely not the lyrics. I can't understand the words he is singing but something about this melody overwhelms me. I think I'm getting more emotional but tears actually fell. I squeezed them back of course but this is something special. The melody is actually derived from Rachmaninov's Symphony No.3 I think its the 3rd movement or 2nd movement. I was actually writing a song that had a similar motif but seeing he has already done it, I'm going to change plans. But these 7 notes are just amazing. What happened? I don't know. I can't figure out what is the memory exactly.

Maybe its the rain brushing across my face
The sound of water pattering outside
The cars zooming pass on the highway
Street lights illuminating the rain drops
Leave rustling
Piano in my ears
What am I trying to tell me???