In the last post, I talked about how the fundamentals of my playing was changed after attending lessons so let’s talk about the new things I learnt from my lessons.

Before I started taking lessons, I did not have a good grasp of the basics of “touch” and “feeling” in a guitar playing context. Often, I mistook the two for just “playing slow”. Izzat introduced the idea of letting the notes “sing” in a solo, which is to say, apart from just playing the note as it is, let the note be expressed further with bends, slides, hammer-ons, pull-offs and vibrato. A note played as it is relative to all the other notes played before and after it can eventually become boring or expressionless. The dynamics of the note that is played became the focus of the lesson. Simple four note solos were played with varying degrees of volume and expression and we later moved on to five, six note solos which really challenged me to tell as much of a “story” as I can with these few notes.

“Touch”, from what I gathered, had to do with dynamics of play.

“Feeling” had to do with the expressions (bends, slides etc) used to play the note(s).

Another idea I gathered from that lesson was to be able to “sing” what I wanted to play in my head before I actually played it. Often, I would find myself sounding similar from solo-to-solo in terms of what licks I was playing. The reason for that was because I was not coming up with anything new during the solos, but was just playing something that I have practised before. This made my playing very similar to other guitarists out there and my solos similar to each other. Singing the notes in my head, or at least remember what the notes sound like in a particular scale, helped make soloing easier (though I still need more work on that).

The last thing I want to talk about my guitar lessons is learning how to shred.

First off, playing fast has never been my forte, but the speed lick exercises I have learnt thus far have really improved my picking and fretting speed (nowhere near Paul Gilbert’s standard though). I have also learnt the terrifying art of sweep picking (dun! dun! dun! dunnnn!!! only one minor triad though, still working on the other two as well as major triads).

I find sweep picking to be really fun and interesting to incorporate into some ideas which I have already. Like instead of sliding to a note, why not do a minor triad sweep up to the note? It makes for a more interesting way to introduce the note! However, although sweep picking is fun, it IS really hard to get the notes out clean and disjointed from the rest, as well as to stay in tempo. It’s quite a challenge to do it correct because of the sheer speed that my fingers are supposed to move at. Ahh… I need to practise more and smarter!

Quite recently (in June), I went off to The Music Lab to sign up for one of their Electric Guitar courses under an instructor named Izzat. Every friday evening since then, I have been going over to the school in Bugis to attend my 45-min lessons. A wide range of guitar knowledge is covered during lesson time which includes technique and theory. Originally, my idea for taking lessons was to improve my Blues solo-ing technique but Izzat introduced me to a lot of other styles of playing (other than Blues I mean).

For the first few lessons, the emphasis was not so much of what is played, but HOW it is played. I used to anchor my picking hand on the bridge of the guitar for better support when playing fast passages – It turned out to be a less popular technique when it comes to playing cleanly. So now, I have been playing with my palm resting on the strings instead and my playing has become significantly neater and cleaner. The trick to achieving a clean run during playing is to move the picking hand down (or up) the strings so that the palm mutes the string after it has been played (and when the next note goes to another string). This prevents the previous string from making excessive ringing sounds and will greatly clear up your playing. I am still trying to see how this can be applied to passages where the notes are played from the lowest strings up to the higher strings because muting it with the palm seems rather unnatural (I think Izzat mentioned to me that it is not as necessary to mute when going up because the fretting hand will do most of the muting for you, I am still trying to work that out).

Another technique which I have come to change after attending lessons had to do with the way my fretting hand is positioned with the thumb behind the back (almost always). Although I do wrap the thumb around the neck if I wanted to do bends and stuff like that, I had always imagined myself to be able to play faster with the thumb behind the neck, which was not true. Izzat showed me a few exercises which used the thumb around the neck method to build up strength in my fretting hand. Speed, as always, came with practice.

The reason why I used to think that having the thumb around the neck was slower was simply because I had never tried using it extensively. Now I have, and although I am still getting up to speed, I find myself being able to better control the neck of the guitar because my hand now grips in a better position around it. My note control has improved since I adopted the thumb around the neck technique and I encourage anyone who is reading to give it a try. It may seem unnatural to play some fast passages with this technique, but the idea is to keep building finger strength so that your fretting hand becomes stronger even with the thumb around the neck.

I found that the first four lessons really changed the basics of how I played and I am working hard on it along with all the other ideas and knowledge that came in subsequent lessons. I am glad that I went to my guitar lessons with an open mind because the techniques I learnt really helped improve my playing.

That’s all for this brief update (phew! haven’t blogged in a while), I’ll continue with part 2 later on.

Anyway, happy 2010! I’m sure you guys had fun fun fun! Keep the music journey going and don’t forget to keep improving and learning! (I just learnt a little chord theory today! haha!)

Adios!

So sorry for the lack of updates, I’ve been really busy with my university work as well as juggling ideas for some of the music projects that I’ve taken up.

Should be more free to write some more nonsense in December! =)

Hopefully they’ll come by again next year, I can’t wait to see them again!

“Jim bought some chocolates and gave half of it to Ken. Ken bought some sweets and gave half of it to Jim. Jim ate 12 sweets and Ken ate 18 chocolates. The ratio of Jim’s sweets to chocolates became 1:7 and the ratio of Ken’s sweets to chocolates became 1:4. How many sweets did Ken buy?”

Now, what in the world was THAT about?

I vaguely remember doing relatively simple stuff for my PSLE Math (that was 9 years ago) and it sure as hell did not involve solving simultaneous equations and algebra. Back in the good ol’ days, it was -simple- model block drawing, counting to 100,000 (or whatever) and stuff that I’m sure kids these days would laugh at.

I swear, kids these days are learning stuff that are way more difficult than what we used to do back in primary school. Blame it on the big paper-chase that seems essential for surviving in this urban jungle we call Singapore, but really, by the time my kids come round to primary school, I don’t think I’ll be able to tutor them like my mother did to me. That, in some sense, might lead to less parent-child bonding time since the kid would probably have to spend more time with a tutor than with their moms or dads due to the increasing standards of primary education that parents would simply find too difficult to keep up with.

Although MOE did state in a Straits Times article that the level of difficulty, number of questions and syllabus of the exam is comparable to that of previous years, one can really wonder how ‘comparable’ it is and how long ago ‘previous years’ was. True, we can’t base an entire paper’s difficulty on one question, but it seems to me that the good ol’ days of ace-ing primary school math might soon be a thing of the past for parents and grandparents to talk about to their children or grandchildren.

And in case you were wondering what the answer was, it is 68.

Answer can be derived by clicking more.

let total amount of sweets = X and total amount of chocolates = Y

(For Jim)
Since Ken gave half of his sweets to Jim and Jim ate 12 of them, Jim now has (X/2 – 12) sweets left.
Since Jim gave Ken half of his chocolates, Jim has (Y/2) chocolates left. After a bit of nomnom, the ratio of sweets to chocolate for Jim is 1:7. Hence, with these, we can formulate the first equation.

(X/2 – 12) / (Y/2) = 1 / 7
(X – 24) / Y = 1 / 7
7 (X – 24) = Y —— eqn (1)

(For Ken)
Do the same for Ken and formulate the second equation. Do take note that Ken ate chocolates, not sweets, so you will take away 18 from the Y component of the equation, not X!

(X/2) / (Y/2 – 18) = 1 / 4
(X) / (Y – 36) = 1 / 4
4X = Y – 36 —— eqn (2)

(Note: In step 2 of both equations, you are NOT multiplying throughout by 2. You are actually canceling out the division of 2 – think of it as flipping over the Y term to do cross multiplication – you can see that the 2 from the X term and the 2 from the Y term will cancel each other out)

Sub eqn (1) into eqn (2),

4X = 7X – 168 – 36
3X = 204
X = 68 (Solved)

Alternatively,

Maths PSLE Question Model Method

-Credits to whoever did this (Found it on the PPF Forums)

Apparently, I have been informed that kids ARE learning algebra and what-not in primary school. Hmm… perhaps I should be keeping up with the times now. Getting old. =/

A NEW Miss Singapore World has been crowned.

Miss Pilar Carmelita Arlando, 20, who bagged the second runner-up prize at the Miss Singapore World 2009 pageant will represent Singapore at the Miss World finals in South Africa.

The original winner, Miss Ris Low, quit her title last month after news of her being under 24 months’ probation for credit card fraud, was reported.

Pageant organisers ERM Marketing said they picked Miss Arlando over first runner-up Claire Lee, ‘due to her claims of injury’ which result in her being unable to stand for long hours.

Said ERM Marketing in a statement: ‘The international pageant will be a physically and psychologically demanding experience. It would be best that she (Miss Lee) remains to recuperate in Singapore.’

Miss Arlando is currently pursuing a Diploma in Travel, Tourism and Hospitality Management at MDIS.

Besides picking up the second runner-up title at the Miss Singapore World competition, she also bagged the Miss Personality and Miss Abry awards.

ERM added: ‘Her parents have been interviewed and they reassured us that she has no criminal records or probation order to keep.’

-Source: www.straitstimes.com

Thank God this is over. We can move on with our lives now!

Man, it’s time to give this girl a break already!

It’s not like I am an ardent fan of Ris Low (quite the contrary really), but let’s stop beating on the dead horse and get a move on with the new (hopefully better) Miss Singapore World representative (which ERM hasn’t chosen yet). There’s so much trash on the internet about Ris Low that it’s starting to become tiresome just reading articles after articles and comments that’s been dissing her since the saga started.

Look, we know:

1) She doesn’t speak good English
2) She doesn’t look that superb
3) Less-than-stellar qualities in terms of character
4) Bi-polar disorder
5) Credit card fraud

and now:

6) Allegedly cheated in exam?!

Come on, the press CAN do better than that. How does this article better inform the public anymore than what previous articles have written about? We KNOW Ris Low is in shit, but she’s already out of the competition, give her face some room to breathe man. The people who we should have our eyes fixed on is ERM World Marketing! Up till date, they’ve yet to have chosen a new Miss World, which would seem absurd because the logical choice would be for the first runner-up to take the crown should the current Miss World fail in her duties (If not why chose a runner up in the first place?). But it seems that ERM is -still- undecided as to which path they’re to take.

Now that is something worth reporting about. At least it’s something I’d want to read instead of some article about Ris Low making some boo boo (again).

Chthonic (sometimes typeset ChthoniC) is a Taiwanese melodic black metal band, formed in 1995 in Taipei. The group incorporates influences from traditional Taiwanese music including instruments such as the erhu (which is called a hena in their native Taiwanese).

Since their formation, Chthonic has released five studio albums.

-Wikipedia.org

Doing usher work at GCA 2009 was very interesting. For most part, it would be reminding people to register at the registration desk before they enter but sometimes, some people seem to think that a “yes” would suffice. The fact is, even if your answer was “yes” or “no”, no sticker means no entry. Come on people, it’s free, it only takes you a few minutes to get the sticker, and if in any way some disease were to spread in the convention, we would have some way to contact you.

It’s also really funny to see the reactions of people when they get stopped at the gate for not having the sticker. For some it’s the amicable “Thanks for letting me know, I’ll go register straightaway because I want to yada yada yada” while for others (like a few people), it’s more of “Why do I need to register for a free convention? blah blah blah”. Look, in the time you took to talk smack to me, you could have already gotten your sticker, so why waste your time? I’m still not going to let you in, you’re still not going to see what the hell’s going in there, so the only way is to walk 10 steps to the counter, fill in a contact form and get your sticker! It’s SO EASY!

Then there was this girl who apparently either 1) forgot she registered or 2) didn’t register but took her friend’s sticker instead. The funny thing was, I didn’t realise she HAD a sticker pasted on her other arm (the one I couldn’t see), so when I stopped her and began my routine, she promptly gave the blur look then the “huh” and hurried back to her friends when she realised she got busted (meaning she obviously did option number 2). If she had just said “yes” and knew when to flash her sticker, I would have been fooled – damn that guy at the door with psychic powers. She probably just wanted to get free Coke Zero anyway (yes there is/was free Coke Zero, subject to availability).

And you know what was the most epic conversation I had with one of the people who wanted to get in?

Man: Excuse me, what is going on inside here?

Me: Games Convention Asia

Man: Sorry, what?

Me: Games, you know, like computer games, PS 3 games all those

Man: Oh, no wonder there’s so many weird people here

I totally cracked up there. Those ‘weird’ people he was referring to were the cosplayers who were outside the convention hall, all dressed in really snazzy costumes. I must clarify though, although there were a few weird cosplay choices (ET, Pokemon, some other unidentifiable creatures), there were really good ones like the (I assume, not too sure) Granado Espada, Bleach and some other kinky schoolgirl anime ones. Those were actually good, as in the actors were pretty close to the ones portrayed in the anime. Short people playing short characters, no fat girls playing slim characters (okay, there was maybe one or two) etc etc. One advice I think all cosplayers should be at least aware of is that if they don’t at least resemble the character in real life, putting on a costume and a wig isn’t going to make much of a difference. So please save yourself from potential ridicule and cosplay something that YOU LOOK LIKE.

And by the way, the Master Chief cosplay was AWESOME. Totally dug it. And that Wolverine uncle? Fucking awesome too.

As for the convention / exhibition itself, I guess that’s another post for another day.