I only write this because the pain on my fingertips has rendered me incapable of practicing.

I was doing my daily practice, having finished the scales and the finger exercises and the playing of the 'crazy little thing called love' solo over and over and over again. I turned up something by Clapton, I think it was 'Crossroads' or something. It is, if you don't know, a pretty trepidating song as in the past I've found myself pretty much unable to get my fingers round the fast bits, so I was feeling a bit trepidated. I figured, what the heck, screw Clapton's solo, I'll improvise something. That wasn't out of the ordinary. The track started.

It was a full half a minute into the song before it occured to me that I was already playing. The notes just flowed out. I wasn't looking at the fretboard, I wasn't squinting at a tab, or trying to figure what to play next. I escalated, moving up the fretboard to higher notes.

Of course, at this point, the surprise pretty much ruined the rest of the song, but it was really... odd. The most surprising thing was that it sounded good. I wasn't shredding or playing faster than my normal or anything, but every phrase suddenly seemed new and inventive, I was making intervals and licks that I'd never really done before.

I guess as a guitarist the hardest bit is to forget that you're playing a guitar in the first place, and get the music out. Everybody's got music in their head, but when it comes out that's a really great thing. Anyway, I didn't get the feeling back for the next hour or so, so obviously trying doesn't help.

My fingers didn't start hurting until after I took a bath. Now they feel like they've been sanded flat.

adam

I can't help wondering if I've already given up on writing. It used to be something I did so often, for so many reasons, but somehow I don't enjoy it anymore, and, well, recreationally anyway, I can't bring myself to do anything I don't enjoy anymore.
I'd like to believe that writing requires a certain breed of anal-retentiveness which I somehow no longer possess, but that's bunk, even if it's quite amusing to think about.
In any case, i read some of my old blog posts and (gasp) some of my old poetry a few days back. It isn't as bad as I thought it would be, so I guess I really was kind of good for something in the last few years.

Gay music!

I've realised something -

Many of my favourite composers, writers and musicians are/were all gay. Gay as in homosexual. Let's list them out...
Tchaikovsky
Francis Poulenc
Oscar Wilde
Freddie Mercury (who was also Indian, and in fact one of the first famous rock stars with Asian descent)

In fact, many of their works strike me as hauntingly familiar, but until I've completed my degree in Sociology i shall remain unable to qualify this strange similarity.

It's like they share some strange, iconoclastic, outsider perspective which is lighthearted and somehow angst-free. Perhaps it has to do with the ostracism and prejudice experienced by gays historically. Then again, many traditionally ostracised and prejudiced-against groups have also contributed notably to the arts, and a shocking lot of them write incomprehensible angsty rubbish. What makes this set of homosexuals different?

Ideas pls.
and I am NOT GAY.

adam

Just had meetings for my 3 different CCAs on thursday and friday.

Writers Inc meeting on thursday. We played some ice-breaker games. There was this interesting game called 'name mix-up' which is sort of like Whacko (you have to call out someone else's name when your name is called) but you have to respond to the name on a piece of paper which you find on your chair. It's more confusing than it sounds. We were all so lifeless! Maybe we were just tired or something.

On Friday, Raffles rock auditions at 3.45. I of course didn't prepare anything, and scrapped my last-minutep plans to play 'smoke on the water' when I discovered somebody else (Edmund) was auditioning with Van Halen's 'Eruption' and some piece by Joe Satriani. Clearly, my technique loses here. So I grabbed some other guy named Boyle (sp?) and we jammed 2 minutes of improvised electric blues. ><. I think I panicked halfway through and my soloing kind of lost its feel. Oh well, they seemed impressed.
Overall i've seen a few Raffles Rock performances: not entirely impressive to be honest, but I'm in it for the CIP. We were told that we'd go once a week or once a fortnight to teach people about music, and I'm all for that.

Jazz workshop at 5.00 on the same day. I went early and we jammed for a bit - it turns out there's 2 different versions of 'the girl from ipanema' with completely different chord progressions, so there was quite a bit of confusion. The workshop opened with the J2s performing a brilliant rendition of 'the way you look tonight' in various styles (I think I still like the Bossa Nova best), following which we split up according to our instruments for more detailed lessons.
I just want to register how impressed I am with this club. They're a bunch that really knows what they're doing and what they don't, they're committed to learning. It's almost scary to conceive that the J2s will be gone in a year, and that's the amount of time we juniors have to replace them.
Anyway, auditions are next week. Will be practicing like a madman, and Wang had better follow suit.

-adam

I have a group on my msn messenger labeled "Raffles". Today that list has a female contact on it, in fact, several. I'm not trying to be misogynistic or anything, but for so long 'raffles' was just a guy affair, and now having both genders included feels a little weird.
Then again, I've been in a guy's school for so long... maybe I'm the weird one, not the circumstances.

Food for thought, haha.

by the way, orientation was great.



adam