Post common test ravings

Apparently quite some people have been viewing my blog cos the counter is now like beyond 30oo visitors. A year ago I didn't even have 1000.

Anyway as usual of my post tests/exams rituals. I will select and post up a song that I feel guided me through all those horrible days of studying and exams. This time, surprisingly, the song didn't belong to Mayday.
This song is a rather old song. Quite some years ago but extremely melodious and meaningful. So here's Jay Chou with 蜗牛 (Snail)




Hope you enjoyed it.

Anyway, EURO 2008 is finally over. Still remember almost a month ago when I watched the opening ceremony. I think this is one of the most exciting soccer tournament that I've watched so far with plenty of thrills and spills. And a big HURRAH to SPAIN who won the cup. Finally I can really see a team that I support win something. But ultimately my heart lies with my dear old England. Try harder next time lads.

I must say that I'm pretty depressed with the results of CT2. Failing left right and centre. As of this time I'm under the threat of failing all 4 subjects.
So yeah... GOTTA WORK HARDER.

Blessings

Wow, been a long time...
Exams are coming up next week...
Studies are going up and down. I can read and remember well one day, and the next day I can't concentrate at all. I think I need a psychologist...
I couldn't study today for one reason. This song was totally stuck in my head the whole day. I kept playing it on the guitar over and over again. I even transposed it thru all 12 keys. So I'm proud (or should I be?) to say that I can play Jacky Cheung's 祝福 in all 12 keys.
Its a very beautiful song. The lyrics are just amazing. People don't write songs like that nowadays. I wish I could though. Its deceivingly simply having only use the 5 pentatonic notes in a major scale.
I was singing this song quite a bit because I thought it was a suitable song for the guitar farewell but after some thought I decided that I won't choose a song for guitar farewell. Firstly this song is like as old as us and I doubt many people would know about it especially the non-cheena people and non-cheena people wouldn't understand the lyrics anyway which render the song pretty useless. I can sing this song. The highest note in the original key is a G which is just about the limit for my voice but I guess with nervousness and all that stuff on that day I won't be able to hit the note properly. So anyway, I think I will ask Jacky Cheung to sing on my behalf. I would love to dedicate this song to the guitar people with special mention to random clique, Csus4 and most definitely the CHEENA group, Yinhong, Huiyi, Patrick. Thanks for making Perfect Fifth 2008 the most perfect concert that I've ever performed it. No amount of superlatives can beat the feeling of completing a perfect and succesful concert. Thanks for accepting all the last minute changes to our performance and erm... dealing with my crazy temper. So yeah, here goes, the best version of 祝福 that I could find. The orchestra version. Oh.. and not forgetting PRIME 1!!

Random Guitar Outing

Photobucket Album

Phantasia

I didn't know that there was actually this collaboration between Sarah Chang and Julian Llyod Webber the brother of Andrew Llyod Webber to produce the Phantasia Suite. Phantasia is actually a violin and cello double concerto based on music from The Phantom of the Opera. I randomly heard this piece on the HMW CD machine and I must say like the voice version it is absolutely gorgeous.

Sarah Chang handles the violin with such great tone and vibrato and virtuoso techniques. Webber on the cello is brilliant too. The tone is just amazing. Truly bringing out the human voice-like qualities of a cello. And as many people know by now I'm quite the tone freak, obsessed with tone though I might not possess the appropriate technical skills and control to produce the tone I want on my instruments but nevertheless I am a tone freak.

I think I should play Phantasia for my Opus 2 concert with Stacy or something. Not sure where to find the score though.

Here are the videos, enjoy

Think of Me


All I Ask Of You

All I Ask Of You is absolutely simply amazingly GRRRR no words can describe it. Brought tears to my eyes. I'm serious.

I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

Sex and the City

Today was another crap studying day. Went to try violin. I think I quite like the $3800 one at Gramercy. For that price, I guess that's as much as I can get.
Well after that, had super nice chicken rice at Katong beside Gramercy. New finding.
Then decided that I should go for movie marathon with Ming Yao. Started at 3.05 with Sex and the City. Its a GREAT movie. Highly recommended to all those above 18. I initially thought it would be a normal chic flick that would last slightly over 90 mins but the movie was two and a half hours LONG!! Amazing anyway, the plot and the humour and everything. Really good. As a result of the long running time, we were running late for the next movie scheduled at 5.20 Iron Man.
Reached Cineleisure at 5.50. Well, this was my second time watching Iron Man and it was subsidised so I didn't really care.

Anyway, I want to dedicate this video to my friend. Its a really beautiful song and the lyrics sort of reminded me of busking in the sun when I was typing about busking yesterday, so yeah. Enjoy it.


Really beautiful lyrics

You're in my arms
And all the world is gone
The music playing on for only two
So close together
And when I'm with you
So close to feeling alive

A life goes by
Romantic dreams will stop
So I bid mine goodbye and never knew
So close was waiting, waiting here with you
And now forever I know

All that I wanted to hold you
So close

So close to reaching that famous happy ending
Almost believing this was not pretend
And now you're beside me and look how far we've come
So far we are so close

How could I face the faceless days
If I should lose you now?

We're so close
To reaching that famous happy ending
And almost believing this was not pretend
Let's go on dreaming for we know we are
So close
So close
And still so far

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

Went to library for a short mugging session and I still don't understand binomial distribution after two days of studying it. Gave up and studied quantum physics instead. Easier to understand.

Anyway after that went out with guitar peeps. Huiyi, Waihong, Ian, Rong Rong, Jenny and Ian. Basically Prime and Bass section with the extra alto 2 Jenny. Ya so had lunch at Carl's Junior. I've been eating a lot of Carl's but I still enjoy it.

Went to watch Narnia:Prince Caspian after that. Not a bad movie. The length is worth the money. More humour added this time round. The music scoring wasn't too bad though a tad predictable. The last contempory song was a bit out of place I felt maybe something more operatic, like a aria should have been used. The plot as usual is quite predictable but the scene where the soldiers were trapped was quite sad. But the sadness on that part wasn't further developed. It was left just as that. Still I think its quite a good movie. CGI was quite impressive.

Of course there were some biblical quotations like the river fighting scene was somewhat similar to Moses and his people crossing the Red Sea or something. (Correct my biblical quotation if I'm wrong)

Anyway after that walked from PS to Esplanade to have dinner. As with all guitar dinners it always becomes scandal gossip. Quite a far bit of personal stuff were exchanged. Ya so learn a bit more about each other and naturally bond closer to each other. As usual people were trying to squeeze information out of my very private mind. Guessing various girls but all wrong. And they said what I throw various smoke screen. The fact was that I've never told anybody about this sort of things... Anyway, photo at Ichiban Boshi.

Waihong gave the most predictable guess which was wrong. Dunno why ppl say I like her. I think I just treat her like my sister.

Then Jenny came up with this list of girls. Started scrolling thru her phone contact list. At this point of time I must thank my Mei for keeping my secret so tight. Walao, got some like WTH girls, even WH's girl was in the list. Like WTH. I'm not that bastard. Anyway, she guessed the correct girl and I felt I could trust her to tell her the truth. But its nothing anyway.

After that went home. All in a days life...

But on the way back still got somemore more private stuff which I shall not further elaborate. I can only say that I finally got this big burden lifted off my head and I feel much more comfortable and relaxed now. So yeah, goodnite.

Another photo from Plaza Sing. They were having Creepy Crawlies exhibition so we took with the giant shoe.

Shoutout

Oh and a big shoutout goes to my mei. My random chit chat buddy. HELLO

Back with vengence

Ok folks. I'm back after a super long hiatus and being MIA for such a long time. The thing was I was going thru plenty of high and emo periods and its hard to put down in words the feeling of being high and emo. I can't type ESTACSY and TEARS into my blog.Speaking of which, here is More Than Words by Extreme

Anyway as I was saying. So much things have happened since my last post. The first of which of course was guitar concert or rather the completion of guitar concert. Well, that marked the end of my best ever performance in public. Very on form that day. Apart from the ensemble pieces, Annen Polka, Variations on Shabondama, A Comme Amour, Cordoba and Mambo No. 5, I played Cai Hong, Zhi Zu and Bu Neng Shuo De Mi Mi arranged by me for my cheena pok small group. I also played as part of Csus4 and we played our signature song Jenny of course and totally rocked the house down. My only regret was not giving an encore. In case u missed Jenny, here it is

And of course after concert there was the sad farewells to all those people who were not going to Japan. And the official photos can be viewed at

VJC Prespectif

Meanwhile, Csus4 had another mission to complete. Busking in the sun.

Well, our songs line-up for that day were Jenny, Smooth, Wish You Well, Stars, Song For You and Accidentally In Love. I was happy about our performance that day really. First time we were performing in public. We went up there, really enjoyed ourselves and had fun. There was no nerves or stuff like that. We even managed to pull off harder songs like Stars by Switchfoot so I was pretty satisfied and happy but sadly fate and to play a part and Justyne missed the song that was inspired and written for her. I was sad seeing Wai Hong so sad. In fact I blamed myself quite a bit for it because I was the one that was psyching him up a lot for it and I irritated the organizers when I refused to cut songs and worst off all, I should have pushed the song to the last song. What the hell was I thinking on that day. Its sad, it really is. 

Well, after Busking In The Sun was VJ Guitar Ensemble's trip to Osaka, Japan. This trip has really opened my eyes, allowed me to know that I was only exposed to what sunny little Singapore had to offer. Japanese guitarist are simply amazing and showy. The range of techniques on show was just way beyond anything I would have imagined. The professor was simply amazing. Tambourine sounds, snare drum sounds on the guitar, you had it all. And he performed magic on my fingers. When pressing on a string, a person's entire body cannot lift my tiny finger away from the fret board. How cool is that. Of course there was the sight seeing and stuff which was really good too. I would list Osaka, Japan is my choice of retirement home after Italy. Photos from Wai Hong are below

http://s288.photobucket.com/albums/ll173/twh1990/

And of course after Japan is back to the mundane CT2.