Decided to make one more guitar video before flying off. This one's Fade to Black by Metallica, a song about, in the band's words, "letting go of your gear and moving on". Metallica's guitarist Kirk Hammett on the song: "We had been in Denmark for five or six months, and I was getting really homesick. We were also having problems with our management. Since it was a somber song, and we were all bummed out anyway, I thought of very depressing things while I did the solo - and it really helped." I hope I'll be able to use my homesickness to similar effect.
Met up with Jerick from Musicianwar yesterday for a lil jam session at Tiet Studio. And since we're currently the only two active Singaporean members of MW, it's technically a Musicianwar Singapore meetup. Damn fun. You know you've had a good jam session by how quickly time goes by. Sometimes the hour just drags on.
Here are some snippets from the session. Jerick's on the right and I'm on the left.
Just when I thought I'd go on hiatus musically and focus on art, this comes along and revives my interest in guitar..we plan to do more collab pieces, hopefully enough for an EP. -------------------------------------------------------- It's been a week since ORD, and it's been a pretty busy week, going for chalet and jobhunting at the same time. So far no luck for the most part, but at least I managed to find this tuition at Geylang. Going for the first session this evening.
On to the bigger picture - I'm still torn between local and overseas, believe it or not. Things changed when Imperial said they accepted me - I wasn't counting on that to happen. It's very tempting to go, but my current stand is that it's just not worth it without sponsorship. And I really was looking forward to life in NUS.
I know, I'm on this inexplicable Romeo & Juliet drawing kick right now. This was an experiment in different textures using different brushes - for this one all the brushes used were preset..I should go and download a bunch of new brushes soon. They make all the difference sometimes.
1 more day to ORD, after which it's time to get on with my life again. Pick up where I left off two years ago. I can still remember the night before enlistment day-I was getting butterflies in my tummy at the prospect of two years of uncertainty. I'd spent a good deal of my time mentally psyching myself up for it all. I needn't have bothered, because 1) there was nothing I could have done to prepare myself for BMT 2) if I said my NS stint was gruelling, I'd be lying.
Okay, so BMT did come with its challenges. But once you get used to the regimentation and the "wait to rush, rush to wait" nature of it all, the rest is a walk in the park. Getting to fire guns and lob a grenade were particularly gratifying. I especially loved how it made us appreciate the little things like those precious moments in the bunk where we stole a few moments reclining on the bed, or helping each other massage our tired shoulders during route march, or the sanctity of good sleep, and especially the sheer thrill of counting down the days till bookout. And who could forget field camp! When we were put under the mercy of nature - and even the supernatural as we were taught to respect these forces. I also marveled at surreal moments such as watching a tracer round go off, illuminating the night in brilliant red; firefly gazing outfield, and listening to the Cranberries sing about guns and bombs on the radio as I waited for my grenade throw. I live for surreal moments like these!
We would soon be released from Tekong, with a caveat that unit life would be even tougher. Turned out to be quite the contrary. It was an office job with generally nice (but oddball) regulars, and the best bunch of NSFs you'll ever meet. When they said you'd meet your best friends in army, this is what they were talking about.
And so two years on from that night I spent agonising over the unknown, well, I really can't say nothing's changed, cos so much has changed - both in myself and the circumstances around me. I'm just happy to say I've gotten a good break from studies and now I'm ready to go again. Some people say NS is a waste of time..for me I'd say it was time well wasted.
I just posted another guitar video on Youtube. This one is quite pointless, I promise you, but if there is one good reason why you should watch it it's because..well okay so there isn't any. But I do like the lighting on my left arm.
this may just seem like me sitting on a chair playing a guitarbut it's actually a musical diatribe against the shackles of mandatory conscription and forced labour and the hegemony that exists within the walls of society and an impassioned plea to the suffering to let themselves be heard one voice one resonant collective voice will bring change and everything will be better. haha just kidding.
in the army we have three ways to approach a problem: 1) solve it 2) lan lan suck thumb 3) call SAF hotline
Re-recorded another one today. This one's called Rosseau. The story: I happened to be studying Jean-Jacques Rosseau the French philosopher for GP A-levels when I got tired and picked up the guitar. And so this tune was born. http://wongkangwen.googlepages.com/rosseau.mp3
The tune actually reminds me more of wine than philosophers. Incidentally, Rosseau is also the name of a French wine made from Chardonnay grapes, so it's all's good!
Spent all morning on this but now it's finally finished! It's a remake of a tune I made last year, inspired by BMT and Pulau Tekong. The concept then was to make two tunes showcasing contrasting facets of Tekong. Because, in my nine weeks on that island I'd really grown to appreciate its beauty. Yet most of our memories there involved drills, morning 5BX, runs, field camps, range, route marches and such. This one was meant to reflect all of that.
..although all my past recordings/compositions are gone. Lucky I'd managed to salvage most of them (albeit low quality). I spent the night reacquainting it with all the essential hardware and software required for recording stuff i.e. Fruity Loops and Audacity and my trusty lil microphone.
and thus from this day on I will return to the days of composing/recording again. Hope my inspiration hasn't run dry after such a long barren period. Anyways, I tinkered around with FL a bit for good measure after installing and this is what came out of it: http://wongkangwen.googlepages.com/wen150.mp3
Had breakfast at Bedok BK after night duty..I swear there are few things more satisfying than a Croissanwich meal after duty. To think I've been torturing myself with the cookhouse rations for a year. On the way home I passed by the day care centre and peered in; the caregiver was cooing "is this beautiful? beautiful? Yes you're right, this is beautiful!" as she held up a yellow skirt. Then she held up a different piece of clothing, asking "which is more beautiful? the other one?" I wonder if this was how we were all taught to recognise beauty. I suppose we are all born knowing certain basic elements of beauty in its most obvious sense - colour, form, symmetry. But a lot of what we take to be beautiful is learnt.
Plenty of stuff coming up! NUS talk/jamming at Tovya's place tomorrow, Soon/Clong's birthday/ORD celebrations the day after, meeting up with Jacq on Monday, Soon's ORD treat on Tues, -maybe- a trip to the art museum on Thursday! And NO TUITION next week! hoho life is good! oh and I felt rather relieved yesterday when Soon told me how he too dreaded teaching those kids, how he never dreads teaching other students. I was beginning to think I didn't have the stomach for teaching. Guess it's not just me after all! --- After watching Fight Club yesterday, I felt inspired to embark on a lengthy discourse on how it attacks consumerism and how people try to make meaning of their otherwise pointless existence through consumerism.
However, the first rule of Fight Club is..
..and so I didn't.
---
EDIT:
Everyone and his uncle and his pet hamster seem to have a video of themselves playing guitar on YouTube so I decided to record one of my own this afternoon
to put things in context, I have been neglecting guitar for the longest time so I'm as rusty as my strings. I overlaid the original recording (back when I could play) over the video because it would be too much of a chore to listen to otherwise
