The Briefing

As Sparks and 4 other bands qualified for the semis, an official briefing by the organizers was held tonight. Change in arrangements followed and we got a lil demoralized by some things, but I'm confident we'll work things out on Monday and regain that creamy chemistry we've been jamming to lately. Feels like we're playing for someone else rather than ourselves somehow, but I guess we'll tune in. Gonna let this sink in and make the best of what we can and try to get in the finals, and of course, try to win it =)

*by the way, this daily microscope work I'm doing (~2-3 hours) is taking its toll on my eyes, they're kinda fatigued and I'm squinting too much for comfort, bleah

"Down but not never out"
Adapted from Rachel Lee =D

Carry me, Emma..

Ya know, guitars = love and great clean fun unless you're perverted beyond rescue

But, as much as I love my guitar(s), it's every (busy) guitarists' bane to carry their guitars around, especially when ya got a LONG day before you actually play.

My situation: Class starts at 9am tomorrow and we're (Sparks) playing at about 8pm.

Ah well, gotta make those sacrifices for ya passions no? Sometimes I wish my gig bag had wheels at the bottom so I could just drag em along.

Like that!

But I guess if it's a soft case, it's unlikely there'd be any wheels (looks kinda dumb too). Mine's an ESP that looks something like this

boo~

Anyway, EmergeKL finals fall on the same day as Monash Ball, so the whole band's contemplating planned absence from the not so prestigious event with an odd theme. I wanna go though, it feels like a lil personal conclusion for my Biotech Bachelor's degree which I shamelessly assume I will finish in this semester. Hmmmm, dilemmas here and there; then there's the silly issue of apparel -_-

This, is a suit. I don't have one (Been using my brother's and dad's oversized suits which results in me bringing a mini-mafia vibe every prom)

Second problem: IT'S IN FREAKING SUNWAY RESORT AfreakingGAIN!
Let's see.. Form 5 prom was in.. Ahh! Sunway Resort! SAM prom was in.. Oohh, ooh! I know I know! Yeah, you guessed it, if I go for this one, it's the freaking third ball (in a freaking row) I'll be attending at that cursed hotel.

On another hand, I found this picture kinda cute when I was googling for a picture of a suit *points up*

Walk along along along.

Boo Hoo, Ball vs Emerge Finals (cheh, not like we're in yet also -_-) hahaha

Sparks Emerge?

I gotta say, deciding to join Sparks for Laughter, my first and only band thus far, has been the best move I've done to enhance my musical side. It's the best step I've taken in music =D I've grown from a "I've-got-a-problem-hitting-the-footswitch-for-solos" guitarist to playing lead for Sweet Child O' Mine with a couple of blatant mistakes here and there with the band. I love this band.

I guess being in a band kinda makes you push yourself to finish what you did not play perfectly and that makes you grow into a better player/performer. Playing alone at home always allows you the choice to 'stop and start over' every time you hit a wrong note, which in a way, allows lil room for learning from errors. Trust me, I had a handful of errors with the band even on stage.

I'm writing fresh from a preliminary round in Jin and Tony's church, City Harvest, where we're only allowed 2 minutes to perform (though they kinda gave us a lil less somehow, ah well). We didn't get to do our best because they cut us off at the final bits, but at least I think we're quite convincing with lil or no noticeable errors. Plus, from watching the other bands, I personally boastfully and shamelessly feel we have a good chance for the finals =D *Fingers crossed* And anyway, we've done what we could, so, like the song we played, I believe we should just "let it be"

Though it's just us 4 boys this time, it still was (very) fun :p Jin played quite a blistering solo; kicker of ass he is with that sexy white les paul studio model of his.

*Oh yes, sorry for the slow set-up, boys, my bad.

Shen's pick colour of choice, it brought me luck alright, no mistakes on those scary harmonics in the quiet verses >_<>piles of rubble times of trouble,
Mother Shenny Mary comes to me,
speaking words of wisdom,
let it be"

*pictures to come from Michelle's camera soon*

UPDATE: We're in the semi finals! Semis were added as it seems there were quite a few good bands; it was meant to be from preliminaries -> finals, but, ah well =D SPARKS! ! ! YEAH!

The hardworker and the lucky fart

I always wondered how it'd feel to break a string onstage; a situation where luck foils the best of performers. It happened to Joe Satriani in a concert that was made into a DVD (though they did a retake for that song on the spot, asking for the crowd's cooperation), and he's about as good as they get when it comes to 6-stringed instruments.

EmergeKL preliminaries coming up this weekend; an untimely reminder by Shen >_<

May this NEVER happen on stage >_<>

My pretty pretty Emma, will you fail me I fail you at the most important of times?

I think not =)

hoo ha

A casual weekend of laziness and buffet birthday dinner for my mom, which resulted in my hemispheric belly being filled to the brim; not good boy, not good.

On another note, I'm done with my first 2 parts of lab-work for my research, now to enter the third stage; Aquatic-like invertebrate identification, going into it armed with my Black-book-with-Crab-on-front-cover, previous ID-ing experience which amounts to about nothing and a microscope (I hope this is available). Looks like about at least 2-4 weeks of microscopy and dizziness, sheesh. pfft~

A lil hooked to an old Limp Bizkit song that goes..

"I did it all for the Nookie (come on!),
the nookie (come on!),
so you can take that cookie,
and stick it up your (yeah!),
stick it up your (yeah!) x 3
stick it up your~"

I pictures Sparks doing the song and laughed out loud when I pictured myself + Jin Seon screaming the bracketed parts. damn, hahaha

They don't suck

Nuffnang officially does not suck in my opinion from now on, ever since they fixed my log in problems etc (which I accept fault in part since my password 'leaked' and someone deleted my blog, making me have to reimburse the widget; still, I should be able to log in, but I wasn't able to at first)

Anyway, I thank the ever-helpful staff who helped me out =D Day off from uni because my lecturer took an emergency leave and tutorials haven't started, ahhhhhh =D (too bad my pedal adaptor busted last night and isn't under warranty, bugger)

Sparks =)

Sparks are participating for Emerge KL 2008 (preliminaries first, at least) and tonight's 2hour practice, though only revolving about 1 song (or a fusion of 2 songs in 1 track) proved rather worthwhile, I like the arrangement (though I played ugly mistakes; fretting more than one string with the ring-finger is something I'm not yet used to, and can hurt a bit, ouch). The feeling & spirit of 'playing with sparks' is still there albeit the absence of both girls; Jin Seon being too busy to attend and Michelle on a temporary hiatus from the band (which we of course hope will end once she's ready =D)

I don't feel our band is technically superior, but I do like the arrangement, I wonder if it's because it's us playing it >_<

I can't find a suitable 'horny faced' picture, I guess this'll do for now.

Oh yeah, on a random note (I'll pick G, wth), Dyanna (from Foong Yen + Tajang threesome in Ma'Daerah) who's a research lab mate actually likes the same kinda guitar-inclined music as I do, albeit her knowing more older bands that "you kids missed out on". har har -_- On inviting me to watch some underground guitar gig at a pub (anyone interested), she also said "So we'll have a drink or two, but wait, can you go out? and drink?" Menggeramkan betul, nyehehe

*jelousy poke*
Nar if you ever read this, she kinda reminds me of you when she smiles etc, she's probably browner than you, but there's a similarity, with her cheeks being less chubby as yours :p

I also managed to clear up the experiment mess I did yesterday, thankfully =D Now I'm done and awaiting new orders to proceed further.

When Carelessness Meets Misfortune

Mis..
Lab scenario
- pipettes 36 (test) tubes of solutions, each requiring 2-3 different volumes of different chemicals.
- ran out of one solution; some donkey used all without refilling (not me)
- left lab to prepare new batch of missing chemical
- entire analysis invalid after incubation of >30 minutes because one of the chemicals were photosensitive (light sensitive) in the tubes, guess it degraded even when wrapped with aluminium foil.

Maka, most of day's lab work gone to waste -_- I even skipped class to "finish" that
(I even got confused on the exits to the different sides of the buildings from the lab, ensuing a Shen of Shock)

fortune..

By the way, regarding the last post, Shen proposed that perhaps in the past when the notes were named, the minor scale (sound) was more popular than the major scale that's more mainstream today, hence the rearrangement of the C note in the beginning of the keyboard (to accommodate Cmajor, the natural major scale) rather than A (which is the natural minor scale) today. This would also give us a hint on why it's always CDEFG(and then back to)AB nowadays, rather than ABCDEFG, which is more alphabetically correct. So maybe in the past it WAS ABCDEFG, but I guess it changed because of the more popular sound, without the note names changing that is. Clever girl, Shen, 10 points for u =D

*Just a (plausible) hypothesis*

By the way, thanks for all that Music theory-discussion that wasted your time =D


Meets Carelessness

And then, some brilliant donkey somehow brilliantly left his laptop in the lab, though it's pretty safe since it's locked before people leave it. UNLESS some internal arsehole decides to make profit.

Bittersweet moment of receiving my Mr. 375SGD delay (guitar) pedal from Jin today, parted with most of my case and still owe him about half of what it costs. That blardy pedal is hard to use alright, took me some hours with testing and reading the manual just to coax out some.. acceptable sounds =) but it's not bad, though the sound is obviously more digitalized after coming through that pedal :s too bad, not rich enough to get an analog delay ($$$$$ - does not degrade sound).

Sparks practices tomorrow night at 8 (how ungodly), minus our temporarily-on-hiatus member, Michy the Fishy. I shall proceed to practice what I haven't been practicing but really should have been practicing now (was too engrossed figuring how to use the pedal) bah~ Molecular biology lab tomorrow morning too... no lab menu manuals provided T_T boo hoo~
I must sound random today.

Sound Theories

No, I'm not referring to Steve Vai's album title, though I do wish I had all that musical knowledge/super ears/technical perfection on the guitar.

This post is music-theory inclined, even if the author knows nuts about music theory.

I had trouble sleeping last night because I kept thinking about music theory and scales after playing a while on my guitar, with a playing a style involving mainly, major scales. Because I'm self-taught and never had much background on theory, I know the sounds of a major scale, but I don't really know what note that is I'm playing on the guitar when I play the scale, unless I count it out, though I always know the root/tonic. So I thought last night, maybe I can write them all out and see for myself where all the sharps are for each of the major scales, this is what I derived/got, which I know most trained piano players/musicians would already recognize.

Yup, when I get such epiphanies I can be quite persistent. Notice the subscripted tiny numbers before the notes. They represent the note's position in the particular scale (left side before ':'), like how C is denoted with a 1 in a C major scale. Then, I noticed how the diagonal pattern of numbers occurs on the rows of sharps/naturals, which in the "white keys on a piano" box above show. Then there's the horizontal sequence of numbers that goes 7, 3, 6, 2, 5 which also runs upwards from the B, E, A, D, G on the left side. Like some sorta musical code going on here. Anyway, these are just things I found the hard way after hearing/learning snippets here and there before, putting them together myself felt good. Then I did it for the black keys, which gave similar results.

This led to more frustration questions.

This, my friends, is a diagram of a guitar fretboard and the notes each fret represents. Unlike the keyboard, there are no black/white keys and instead, each adjacent fret is one semitone apart, like E-F, B-C, C-C# etc. It takes 12 frets to make up an octave, which translates to 7 white keys + 5 black keys on a piano. Okay, this all makes sense for an octave, but what got me thinking was, why did they denote 5 particular notes from these 12 tones to have #/b (sharps of flats). For simplicity's sake, I shall stick to sharps and make no mention of flats.

If each of the 12 tones is a semitone apart, why did they choose those 5 (F#, C#, G#, D#, A#) tones to have sharps and not the others? and why the particular funny order which allowed E-F and B-C to have no sharps in between? Why not have 12 equal white keys on a piano each a semitone apart, naming the notes from A-L (A=1, B=2, C=3,...... L=12)? While it is more ergonomically efficient to have the black keys in a keyboard to make an octave within a normal person's reach, why choose those keys instead of others? Is there a particular significance in these 5 sharps? They make up a pentatonic scale, with C being the reference note all the time, why C when we have A first in the alphabets? Now, had we moved the keys theoretically, say..

From this, which is the standard keyboard...
..to a hypothetical keyboard, like this.

Hypothetical = made up, so don't come telling me "Hey the notes are wrong la"

What I'm getting at is, why have the notes CDFGA been given #s instead of ABDEF? or in fact, why not any other 5 notes? since all the 12 semitones are equally separated in terms of sound. I know on the current known keyboard, the white keys make up the C major scale and hence, C would make an appropriate reference note, but was the keyboard built first or the notes named first? I'd guess the latter, since a chat with Jaclyn allowed us to deduce that other instrument classes such as woodwind/strings were probably created first, meaning notes gotta have existed before the keyboard.

Anyway, to summarize my jumbled-up thoughts and questions, here we go:

1. Why were C, D, F, G, A given sharps instead of other 5 keys?

2. Why are there 5 sharps, leaving B-C and E-F as semitones on a keyboard/notation?

3. Why is C always the reference note when they have A first in the alphabets?

4. Why C, C#, D, Eb, E, F, F#, G, G#, A, Bb, B, and not a simple A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L for an octave with 12 equally spaced semitones? (I know it sounds stupid when you've learnt everything in the present day system, but how was this system established? Wipe it all away and it may make some sense why I ask)

If you can answer any of these for me, I thank you first =D

I've been reading up on stuff online ever since, with some of the things being incredibly physics related (some music thesis by some dude), and I realize that notes are tuned in increasing frequencies following an exponential pattern. Learnt and understood more things too, bout the Pythagorean Tuning, Modes (Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Myxolydian, Aeolian and Locrian) etc etc. Now the biggest hindrance left is probably notation, all that staves and taugehs. Another time maybe.

Links and people I've referred to
Modes
The Creation of Musical Scales: from a mathematic and acoustic point of view, part I, by Thomas Váczy Hightower (Still reading, it's deep)
Pythagorean Tuning
Sister (verbal)
Jaclyn Chua - MSN
Rachel Chee - MSN

Redang, leftovers =)

Hello, Red-dung Redang leftovers, brought to you by kura penyu berbulu lebat.

Rocky shores, hello =)

No beach holiday is complete without a coconut tree, or more.

Red boxes for outrageous spelling and blue box for Michelle making a candid appearance.

hee hee, I am evil. Just one more alphabet away from "Bladder" juice.

Just curious, anyone knows the meaning of 'Candat' on the banner hung on the left? So far, all hypotheses point toward candat being catch.
Pre-departure breakfast, Shim's not-so-ready smile and picture-perfect smile.
Amin's version =D hahah
Ah, finally. A group Family photo with the huge adopted son standing in the middle.
Reminiscent of Po the panda (in Kungfu Panda) having a duck as a dad.
Dulith Memorial Shrine (Ma'Daerah inside joke)

L: Shen (in Ma'Daerah) in her yoghurt-model pose, with the sun and beach being on a serong angle. May tell tales of her usual line of thought. *runs*
R: Tony, looking equally delicious *smacks self for lying* effervescing with dewa-esqueness thanks to the surrounding clouds and islands behind. Oh, and also the Sun being directly behind him, allowing him to 'emanate' an aura of godliness.

I made Tony do this, with "Why should us Redang-goers lose out out this one?". I thank Tony for his cooperation. Take your pick, say who's sexier, they won't find out mind, don't you worry =D
Michy, Michy?
Woah, *sizzle sizzle* hahaha, the male model
A closer look and you get a Michelle and Amin in his eyes, which of the two was he eyeing?
Tony, I am too lazy to learn how to make a GIF out of this. This'll do for now (Mich has my version of this in her camera) haha

Rare Big Jo moment.

Damn, dwarfed the moment the other four steps in. Can you tell who's who?

Shim, Mich, Me Min, Tony (still in his Shen-ish position -_-)

The boat ride on the way back to the airport, bleah. Bulu berterbangan Michelle.

I was aiming at the background actually, but this guy is hard to omit from the picture because he sits right in front of me. Anyway, turned out to be another male-model photo, and no my sexual orientation shall not be questioned no matter what you're thinking.The island with a single coconut tree (left) which you don't wanna get stranded in. Coconuts from one tree won't feed ya for long. Coming from the right of the picture, the lone coconut tree actually resembled some sorta horn on this island, though the angle at which this photo's taken does not project the tree so much as the horn I saw it to be =/

Yee Hou may scold me for lens screw-age, but I can't resist XD "You're ma Matahari, I wanna be your birdy"
Boat time flying bulu pictures.

Yeap
hehe, look at the "tak puas" looking Tony expression. Caught looking off your best? awww
After the ride, just look at me and you'll know which side of my head was facing the wind =D
He must've taken the wind face on, equal fluffiness on both sides.
He probably had the same direction as me.
She's just too happy to be in a picture.
And he sulks (not too happy being photographed in a non-male-model mode). hehe.

Then comes the blardy van ride to the airport again, whee =_=

Interesting =)

Airport time =( We were there for 11+ hours

So close to "TOAST BERAK", damn
Airport boring time

Shim with a "don't disturb me with your camera or I'll roar!" look in the second picture. First one's more of a "I'm awake, I'm awake" kinda picture.
Laid, laid back and lazy =D
Amin, with his cool, distant-minded look (he's probably checking out one of the chicks passing by)
Peculiar switches with a starkingly contrasted red button. "Don't touch it, don't!" "You know you wanna =D"
Book with an attractive title.
Gin Rummy time =D This time around, our "Man on the Rock" Tony was winning quite a bit. Timing matters, eh eh eh?

Amin and I to Tony: Tony, we win when it matters, especially when it's to do with protecting our dick-nity.

Bunch of pelepak lapangan terbang.
I slept there too =D
Guess who's?
Who's sandy big toe could this be? Boo dandy gig Jo would risk flee. wtf I'm bored.
Skinny fingers with little hair, oughtta be mine. What??

Everyone not very happy our paradise holiday's over. This was after the flight, back at Subang airport, waiting for our slaughterer cab.

Michelle's posts on the trip, with nicer, underwater pictures
Redang 1
Redang 2
Redang 3

Well, it was fun while it lasted =D Beach holiday at the end of the year anyone?