I'm happy now, because I've got lots of gigs.
And I love it when i get to perform. Ok, given... the wedding today was a bit of a screwup. But nobody noticed! (Or at least, it being a wedding, they were obliged to be nice.) I guess you can count on Nobody At All to understand what a jazz band is doing. In fact, we survived a dangerously teetering rendition of that most hated song, Fly me to the Moon, and made a sort of careening way through My Funny Valentine, and came out the other end looking slightly bruised, but not really worse for the wear. It has been worse before.
For example, taking a gig with mark who shows up 15 minutes before and asks what songs we're doing. The thing is, he can do it. I can't - therefore, echoing Descartes, I suffer.
To anyone who reads this blog, if such a hypothetical person does in fact exist, COME DOWN TO WOODLANDS CC TOMORROW (Sunday). There's an open jam session at 1.30 .
Saturday, November 25
Thursday, November 16
Voodoo Child (Slight Return)
Well, I stand up next to a mountain
And I chop it down with the edge of my hand
Well, I stand up next to a mountain
And I chop it down with the edge of my hand
Well, I pick up all the pieces and make an island
Might even raise a little sand
'cause I'm a voodoo child
Lord knows I'm a voodoo child baby
I want to say one more last thing
I didnt mean to take up all your sweet time
I'll give it right back to ya one of these days
I said I didnt mean to take up all your sweet time
I'll give it right back one of these days
If I dont meet you no more in this world then
I'll meet ya on the next one
And don't be late
Don't be late
'cause I'm a voodoo child voodoo child
Lord knows I'm a voodoo child
Jimi Hendrix
And I chop it down with the edge of my hand
Well, I stand up next to a mountain
And I chop it down with the edge of my hand
Well, I pick up all the pieces and make an island
Might even raise a little sand
'cause I'm a voodoo child
Lord knows I'm a voodoo child baby
I want to say one more last thing
I didnt mean to take up all your sweet time
I'll give it right back to ya one of these days
I said I didnt mean to take up all your sweet time
I'll give it right back one of these days
If I dont meet you no more in this world then
I'll meet ya on the next one
And don't be late
Don't be late
'cause I'm a voodoo child voodoo child
Lord knows I'm a voodoo child
Jimi Hendrix
Thursday, November 9
MEEEEEEME.
I guess this is revenge for the 'hanxin smashes head, then smashes Ryan' comment.
Once tagged by this entry, the assignment is to write a blog entry of some kind with six random facts about yourself. Then, pick six of your friends and tag them; no tag backs. This explanation should be included.
1. First thing that came to mind - i love it when it rains. Especially when it rains outside and i'm indoors... somehow i find that very comforting. Must be linked to some childhood thing i can't remember. I have a big transparent door that leads from my room to outside so i can see the rain and the plants and the garden slowly flooding up. I find it fascinating. Although, now there are plants and the garden doesn't really flood up anymore. It's still good.
2. I have incontrollable bouts of nervousness before public performances. Despite all my experience with that sort of thing it never goes away.
Notably, the worst was before my first debate in the Julia Gabriels national debating competition. I remember sitting in the canteen outside the debate room and being paralysed. As in, I actually felt breathing difficulties and dizziness. I went on to win best speaker, but that was the last and only time and eventually my team dropped out at the quarter finals.
The other time was before band concert this year in which hyqel and I were guest performing. We were both novice jazz guitarists at the time, barely able to decipher a 'D7+5' chord (doesn't that make it a D12?), let alone navigate the intricacies of fingerboard harmony. Worse still, we were accompaniment. Hyqel told me he got it too. Strangely that somewhat alleviated my panic... and I realised that the best antidote to nervousness is empathy. And winning.
3. Perhaps my favourite musician of all time is the electric bassist Jaco Pastorius, even though I don't really play bass much. I wouldn't say that his music is terribly profound compared to the likes of john coltrane, but it just radiates an energy that is incomparable. I don't think I will wax lyrical about his music right now. Rather I think i'll note that up to the 70s and 80s electric bassists were progressing hugely by co-opting electric guitar technique. So much so that I think (at least as far as jazz is concerned) they overtook us. Now I think it really is time for guitarists to start learning back from the bassists.
4. I used to be a swimmer. As in, I used to swim competitively. This is in spite of the fact that i'm horribly unfit and I have never taken my gold survival certificate. It also was around 8 years ago, so whatever swimmer is left in me has probably drowned. I still regularly owned my non-swimmer classmates in secondary school though.
5. I always use (almost) full english when I SMS or email or use msn. I don't shorten things which don't need to be shortened like 'You' or 'like'. I can understand using shorthand for long words or phrases like brb for be right back, but I can't stand people hu tok lyk dis. Seriously. You've saved, like 4 letters at the expense of looking completely retarded.
I also don't use a qwerty keyboard. I've switched to Dvorak which is faster and easier on the hands.
6. I really only speak one language : english. My chinese is good enough to express myself in a very limited fashion. I usually just resort to english and gestures. I also know a little French, but not enough to speak fluently. I can understand rudiments of Bahasa Indonesia, but not enough to speak as well.
I am tagging RYAN, ABBY, ELI, NATALIE, GERARD and SHARON.
Sorry Ryan, if this takes too much time away from nanowrimo then please tell me.
adam
EDIT: sorry, had to post this. This is brilliant.
I think it's important that churches are up to this right now. I think it's a step in the right direction.
Once tagged by this entry, the assignment is to write a blog entry of some kind with six random facts about yourself. Then, pick six of your friends and tag them; no tag backs. This explanation should be included.
1. First thing that came to mind - i love it when it rains. Especially when it rains outside and i'm indoors... somehow i find that very comforting. Must be linked to some childhood thing i can't remember. I have a big transparent door that leads from my room to outside so i can see the rain and the plants and the garden slowly flooding up. I find it fascinating. Although, now there are plants and the garden doesn't really flood up anymore. It's still good.
2. I have incontrollable bouts of nervousness before public performances. Despite all my experience with that sort of thing it never goes away.
Notably, the worst was before my first debate in the Julia Gabriels national debating competition. I remember sitting in the canteen outside the debate room and being paralysed. As in, I actually felt breathing difficulties and dizziness. I went on to win best speaker, but that was the last and only time and eventually my team dropped out at the quarter finals.
The other time was before band concert this year in which hyqel and I were guest performing. We were both novice jazz guitarists at the time, barely able to decipher a 'D7+5' chord (doesn't that make it a D12?), let alone navigate the intricacies of fingerboard harmony. Worse still, we were accompaniment. Hyqel told me he got it too. Strangely that somewhat alleviated my panic... and I realised that the best antidote to nervousness is empathy. And winning.
3. Perhaps my favourite musician of all time is the electric bassist Jaco Pastorius, even though I don't really play bass much. I wouldn't say that his music is terribly profound compared to the likes of john coltrane, but it just radiates an energy that is incomparable. I don't think I will wax lyrical about his music right now. Rather I think i'll note that up to the 70s and 80s electric bassists were progressing hugely by co-opting electric guitar technique. So much so that I think (at least as far as jazz is concerned) they overtook us. Now I think it really is time for guitarists to start learning back from the bassists.
4. I used to be a swimmer. As in, I used to swim competitively. This is in spite of the fact that i'm horribly unfit and I have never taken my gold survival certificate. It also was around 8 years ago, so whatever swimmer is left in me has probably drowned. I still regularly owned my non-swimmer classmates in secondary school though.
5. I always use (almost) full english when I SMS or email or use msn. I don't shorten things which don't need to be shortened like 'You' or 'like'. I can understand using shorthand for long words or phrases like brb for be right back, but I can't stand people hu tok lyk dis. Seriously. You've saved, like 4 letters at the expense of looking completely retarded.
I also don't use a qwerty keyboard. I've switched to Dvorak which is faster and easier on the hands.
6. I really only speak one language : english. My chinese is good enough to express myself in a very limited fashion. I usually just resort to english and gestures. I also know a little French, but not enough to speak fluently. I can understand rudiments of Bahasa Indonesia, but not enough to speak as well.
I am tagging RYAN, ABBY, ELI, NATALIE, GERARD and SHARON.
Sorry Ryan, if this takes too much time away from nanowrimo then please tell me.
adam
EDIT: sorry, had to post this. This is brilliant.
I think it's important that churches are up to this right now. I think it's a step in the right direction.
Wednesday, November 8
Tuesday, October 31
Mr. Pastorius
I saw Jaco Pastorius and his band play 'Liberty City' on Youtube.
It is heartbreaking to see a man so happy.
Toots Thielemans, the harmonica player, came over to him during a rest and said something I couldn't hear and he laughed. He threw his head back and laughed like a little kid.
It is heartbreaking because in that instant I knew my life's goal is to be that happy some day, in the same inimitable, exuberant way.
Hey, I don't even know the man. I don't claim to. Never before have I seen a person, let alone a grown man, so joyous.
So I'm sitting here and I'm listening to 'Liberty City'. It is infectious. I wonder what it must be like on the other side, if just listening is such a moving experience. What's it like behing the score, behind the instrument, putting out such wonderful noise?
You couldn't listen to his music and not be moved. You couldn't play his music without being changed forever.
I found a vid of Jeff Carswell and Richard Bona covering the piece with the Jaco Pastorius Big Band. They're grinning like idiots. I wonder if they've seen that same performance and that same huge grin that I saw.
I wonder if they felt the same bittersweet regret that the world might never see such a smile again - at the same time knowing that a piece of him lives on regardless. Maybe they somehow felt inadequate.
Few know that 14 years before the 2001 terrorist attacks made the day infamous, on the same day ocurred a smaller but no less profound tragedy. Jaco Pastorius was beaten fatally in a club on september 11th, 1987. He died 10 days later. Until I saw that laugh I didn't think anything of it...
It is heartbreaking, it is heartbreaking.
It is heartbreaking to see a man so happy.
Toots Thielemans, the harmonica player, came over to him during a rest and said something I couldn't hear and he laughed. He threw his head back and laughed like a little kid.
It is heartbreaking because in that instant I knew my life's goal is to be that happy some day, in the same inimitable, exuberant way.
Hey, I don't even know the man. I don't claim to. Never before have I seen a person, let alone a grown man, so joyous.
So I'm sitting here and I'm listening to 'Liberty City'. It is infectious. I wonder what it must be like on the other side, if just listening is such a moving experience. What's it like behing the score, behind the instrument, putting out such wonderful noise?
You couldn't listen to his music and not be moved. You couldn't play his music without being changed forever.
I found a vid of Jeff Carswell and Richard Bona covering the piece with the Jaco Pastorius Big Band. They're grinning like idiots. I wonder if they've seen that same performance and that same huge grin that I saw.
I wonder if they felt the same bittersweet regret that the world might never see such a smile again - at the same time knowing that a piece of him lives on regardless. Maybe they somehow felt inadequate.
Few know that 14 years before the 2001 terrorist attacks made the day infamous, on the same day ocurred a smaller but no less profound tragedy. Jaco Pastorius was beaten fatally in a club on september 11th, 1987. He died 10 days later. Until I saw that laugh I didn't think anything of it...
It is heartbreaking, it is heartbreaking.
Tuesday, October 17
Nu-metal. What a stupid name.
Disturbed has renewed my faith in modern rock.
Let's just say, if, for the last year or so you were to place a little camera in my room, unbeknownst to me, you would be hard-pressed indeed to find me headbanging to anything.
I mean, Velvet revolver, yes. Red Hot Chilli Peppers. Nirvana. All great, but not really headbanging-like.
I can truthfully say i've never had the urge until about 10 minutes ago. Nu-metal is my one weakness when it comes to modern rock-derived music. I've never given a second thought about anything from punk-rock to death metal - but from the start i was sort of attracted to linkin park. I recall intensely liking a Korn song from awhile back. I shamefully admit having listened to limp bizkit for a short, short period.
Those were dark days.
Eventually linkin park's teenage-angst lyrics and hip-hop leanings began to annoy me. I never heard another Korn song in my life. Limp bizkit thankfully faded from any of my playlists.
Never once though have I had the urge to headbang. I guess it's one of those things I figured was for uncouth teenagers with pimples and bad breath - at best, woefully unrestrained, and at worst just utterly silly. Which intelligent rock band would want their fans all to develop whiplash? Seems kind of counter-productive.
Anyway, GETTING TO THE POINT. Disturbed is fantastic. They've got the nu-metal thing going on. They've got a groove, and some fantastic song-writing. They have a half-decent guitarist (far better than the quarter- and eigth- decent guitarists present in other rock bands.)
So i guess i sort of broke down and headbanged.
A little.
I'm watching my pimples.
adam
Let's just say, if, for the last year or so you were to place a little camera in my room, unbeknownst to me, you would be hard-pressed indeed to find me headbanging to anything.
I mean, Velvet revolver, yes. Red Hot Chilli Peppers. Nirvana. All great, but not really headbanging-like.
I can truthfully say i've never had the urge until about 10 minutes ago. Nu-metal is my one weakness when it comes to modern rock-derived music. I've never given a second thought about anything from punk-rock to death metal - but from the start i was sort of attracted to linkin park. I recall intensely liking a Korn song from awhile back. I shamefully admit having listened to limp bizkit for a short, short period.
Those were dark days.
Eventually linkin park's teenage-angst lyrics and hip-hop leanings began to annoy me. I never heard another Korn song in my life. Limp bizkit thankfully faded from any of my playlists.
Never once though have I had the urge to headbang. I guess it's one of those things I figured was for uncouth teenagers with pimples and bad breath - at best, woefully unrestrained, and at worst just utterly silly. Which intelligent rock band would want their fans all to develop whiplash? Seems kind of counter-productive.
Anyway, GETTING TO THE POINT. Disturbed is fantastic. They've got the nu-metal thing going on. They've got a groove, and some fantastic song-writing. They have a half-decent guitarist (far better than the quarter- and eigth- decent guitarists present in other rock bands.)
So i guess i sort of broke down and headbanged.
A little.
I'm watching my pimples.
adam
Saturday, October 14
I can't shake the feeling that sitting alone at the Coffee Bean, reading a book and nursing a vanilla Ice Blended somehow automatically brands you as a social outcast without any friends.
I tackled that hypothesis gallantly this afternoon with a copy of Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. Haven't finished it yet, but it is proving to be a fantastic book with thoughtful (as opposed to mindless) humour. And it is Very Funny.
For me this is a good reprieve from the apocalyptic we are all machines doom-n-gloom drugs-and-sex-and-violence imagery of Neuromancer (which i'm doing for h3 lit... go me).
On the other hand, incest isn't much better.
Haha.
adam
I tackled that hypothesis gallantly this afternoon with a copy of Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. Haven't finished it yet, but it is proving to be a fantastic book with thoughtful (as opposed to mindless) humour. And it is Very Funny.
For me this is a good reprieve from the apocalyptic we are all machines doom-n-gloom drugs-and-sex-and-violence imagery of Neuromancer (which i'm doing for h3 lit... go me).
On the other hand, incest isn't much better.
Haha.
adam
Tuesday, October 10
We can NEVER win against the world. It's like a casino on a mind-boggling scale, the odds constantly and consistently weighted against us. We claim our victories in the mute flashes of our lifetimes. The sudden jingle of slot machines. The sound uplifts our sordid, lonely souls for enough the time it takes for us to fade into the mists of eternity, forgotten.
I think it's the greatest irony that those of us (and I speak categorically) who reject what we perceive as a 'system' and rebel eventually become systems ourselves. Only now we are systems of rejection, the scientific method. But we claim our bright moments of victory before we are trampled and forgotten.
Destruction is beautiful. It's a sordid, animal impulse. Tell me you've never experienced a moment of catharsis seeing a fallen tree, mangled by fire. It's as if the world for a moment became a voicing of the hatred that burns inside all humans. Or if the dust of our bodies for a brief moment felt the kinship of the oblivion that is our inevitable destiny.
I think it's the greatest irony that those of us (and I speak categorically) who reject what we perceive as a 'system' and rebel eventually become systems ourselves. Only now we are systems of rejection, the scientific method. But we claim our bright moments of victory before we are trampled and forgotten.
Destruction is beautiful. It's a sordid, animal impulse. Tell me you've never experienced a moment of catharsis seeing a fallen tree, mangled by fire. It's as if the world for a moment became a voicing of the hatred that burns inside all humans. Or if the dust of our bodies for a brief moment felt the kinship of the oblivion that is our inevitable destiny.
Monday, October 9
Haha you have got to try this.
I was playing Pat Metheny's 'all the things you are' on itunes in the background while surfing the net - then I (somehow) navigated to someone's (super emo) blog which was playing that 'how do i breeeeeaaaaaathe without you' song. The resulting mix was quite shocking. I almost laughed.
For nonteknischen, that version of all the things you are is a fairly liberally interpreted (even by modern standards) version, and mixing it with sappy love ballads is HILARIOUS.
My next project is to find 'my heart will go on' and mix it with Song X. Maybe i'll call it 'performance art'.
Giggle.
adam
I was playing Pat Metheny's 'all the things you are' on itunes in the background while surfing the net - then I (somehow) navigated to someone's (super emo) blog which was playing that 'how do i breeeeeaaaaaathe without you' song. The resulting mix was quite shocking. I almost laughed.
For nonteknischen, that version of all the things you are is a fairly liberally interpreted (even by modern standards) version, and mixing it with sappy love ballads is HILARIOUS.
My next project is to find 'my heart will go on' and mix it with Song X. Maybe i'll call it 'performance art'.
Giggle.
adam
Friday, October 6
I feel horrible... open house rehearsal was such a screw up. We didn't know what we were doing... mostly underpracticed and underconfident. Everything was off... timing, tuning and stuff. We can't keep playing like this...
I promise we'll do better. I promise.
And to Julie Andrews, i'm sorry for mangling the song that you sang. We'll do better next week.
adam
I promise we'll do better. I promise.
And to Julie Andrews, i'm sorry for mangling the song that you sang. We'll do better next week.
adam
Tuesday, October 3
sonya* it only hurts when i breathe / freedom! (= all the things i wanna do with my life, here i come says:
A BAT IS IN MY ROOM!
HELP
sonya* it only hurts when i breathe / freedom! (= all the things i wanna do with my life, here i come says:
HELP
HELP
MAKE IT GO AWAY
If i wasn't wondering what on earth I should do, I would've fallen off my chair laughing :P
adam
A BAT IS IN MY ROOM!
HELP
sonya* it only hurts when i breathe / freedom! (= all the things i wanna do with my life, here i come says:
HELP
HELP
MAKE IT GO AWAY
If i wasn't wondering what on earth I should do, I would've fallen off my chair laughing :P
adam
Friday, September 22
http://www.todayonline.com/articles/144186.asp
Shit. They managed to execute the people. The 3 Christians accused of inciting violence against Muslims.
Shit. They managed to execute the people. The 3 Christians accused of inciting violence against Muslims.
Thursday, September 21
Wednesday, September 13
| Global Personality Test Results |
| Stability (40%) moderately low which suggests you are worrying, insecure, emotional, and anxious. Orderliness (30%) low which suggests you are overly flexible, improvised, and fun seeking at the expense too often of reliability, work ethic, and long term accomplishment. Extraversion (50%) medium which suggests you average somewhere in between being assertive and social and being withdrawn and solitary. |
personality tests by similarminds.com
Saturday, September 9
Glancing at my blogger dashboard, I realise that I have six blogs: This one, WB, triploidy, portfolio, logblog, and the never-even-started band blog. (The band went on hiatus before we managed to do anything. Haha.) I blog entirely too much.
Unrelatedly, I keep thinking that poetry is an easy way out for writers without the patience or ability to come up with plots/compelling characterisations. Probably isn't true one bit, but at least at the amateur level it does seem that way.
I mean, on one hand it is meant to be extremely dense, meaning-wise, but coupled with the fact that it takes some skill to extract this meaning, it isn't hugely difficult to come up with some nonsense claptrap which sounds philosophical.
On the other hand, I guess poetry does fulfil functions unsuited for prose, or story-writing. I mostly find stories more compelling than poetry, however, and it infuriates me how I can't seem to write any stories. I just don't have the knack. Will keep trying.
adam
Unrelatedly, I keep thinking that poetry is an easy way out for writers without the patience or ability to come up with plots/compelling characterisations. Probably isn't true one bit, but at least at the amateur level it does seem that way.
I mean, on one hand it is meant to be extremely dense, meaning-wise, but coupled with the fact that it takes some skill to extract this meaning, it isn't hugely difficult to come up with some nonsense claptrap which sounds philosophical.
On the other hand, I guess poetry does fulfil functions unsuited for prose, or story-writing. I mostly find stories more compelling than poetry, however, and it infuriates me how I can't seem to write any stories. I just don't have the knack. Will keep trying.
adam
Monday, September 4
Steve Irwin's dead. I don't even know why I care so much. He was always on the verge of getting on my nerves.
Yet something deep inside of me - the primal snake-grappling, crocodile-wrestling savage that exists inside all of us (die, Josef Conrad!) is profoundly sad. The world has lost a great man.
I'm stilling grappling with it. People like Steve Irwin don't die.
This is a cruel world, but we will remember you in it, Mr. Irwin.
adam
*Edit* It was a fatal sting from a stingray, I just found out. Oddly poetic, but I would never wish it on anyone. Truly, the man was an icon; a loud, blustering, manly, enthusiastic icon. He is undoubtedly taking this new development very well; but the world will not so soon recover from its heartbreak. Rest in peace, Steve Irwin.
Yet something deep inside of me - the primal snake-grappling, crocodile-wrestling savage that exists inside all of us (die, Josef Conrad!) is profoundly sad. The world has lost a great man.
I'm stilling grappling with it. People like Steve Irwin don't die.
This is a cruel world, but we will remember you in it, Mr. Irwin.
adam
*Edit* It was a fatal sting from a stingray, I just found out. Oddly poetic, but I would never wish it on anyone. Truly, the man was an icon; a loud, blustering, manly, enthusiastic icon. He is undoubtedly taking this new development very well; but the world will not so soon recover from its heartbreak. Rest in peace, Steve Irwin.
Monday, August 21
The air this morning wasn't raw or sandy. When i woke up it was an awful taste of purple and depression. Not the artsy kind either. Wake up and grope for the stimulants depression. No amount of teenage angst will make that pretty.
I've never felt so confused. Angst is our way of making depression beautiful. But when you're just depressed, it sucks - not low enough to indulge in self-pity, just low enough to feel awful, awful. Everything I do reveals some new silliness, some ugly scar (I thought was healed over). Not enough honesty to finish this hundred -
100 words
13 May Saturday
adam
edit: Thanks to everyone for the concern, really. It's better to angst here than to be off in some dark corner slitting my wrists or doing LSD. Actually... doing LSD... mmmm.
Haha. I hope that left you all suitably non-comforted. But thank you anyway.
Sunday, August 20
Mother
NO! You and your silly strings
you putter 'round and fixing things
you stay on your spot and turn about
you head is made up of undoubt
You makes the kitchen very clean
you makes the party you isn't seen
you do the work you do the time
you makes the words in poems rhyme
you tie things up you tie things down
you sings your happy songs but frown
you de-mar-kate, you draws the line
you injured but you still is fine
You eighty-five you living done
you got daughter you got son
you dying but not wonder how
you tired but you happy now
by adam
NO! You and your silly strings
you putter 'round and fixing things
you stay on your spot and turn about
you head is made up of undoubt
You makes the kitchen very clean
you makes the party you isn't seen
you do the work you do the time
you makes the words in poems rhyme
you tie things up you tie things down
you sings your happy songs but frown
you de-mar-kate, you draws the line
you injured but you still is fine
You eighty-five you living done
you got daughter you got son
you dying but not wonder how
you tired but you happy now
by adam
Saturday, August 19
"Meaningless! Meaningless!"
says the Teacher.
"Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless."
- Ecclesiastes 1:2
So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me.
- Ecclesiastes 2:17
i guess i've had time to re-examine my value systems.
I'm not a good person by far... I really have no spiritual qualms about lying, cheating, vandalism and various forms of petty larceny... The reason i'm not a criminal is because I can't deal with the consequences. Does that make a person virtuous? That on it's own isn't half as disturbing as the fact that i'm not disturbed by this at all.
I don't believe in anything. I guess I'm a bona fide cynic that way. Nothing moves me. I don't believe in happiness. I don't believe in love.
I don't even like people.
I believe in God, but I believe even more that the people who also believe in God are sometimes the most screwed up.
Sometimes I think I only wake up to thank God for the fact that I can lie to people about how much I dislike them and how unhappy I am. I hope that isn't true. I hate myself for the fact that I have no justification to be miserable. Life hasn't been bad for me.
I guess you could say something for the purity of my dislike for everyone... like Iago's evil, it is motive-less and enigmatic. It isn't hate, not at all. I wouldn't, for example, suicide bomb a building to alleviate my discomfort. It's just a certain feeling I get in the mornings that the world is out to get me. It is not a noble lust for vengeance, or a tragically misguided hatred for all living things. It is a limp, futile dislike, an annoyance and an irritation.
I am twisted and perverted in that way. Honesty is what I value most in other people. I feel sometimes that the worst way to insult someone is to be conciliatory. People should have their feelings out at one another. The highest good is to be honest with yourself about what you are... lie to others, not yourself. Sometimes it means you face something terrible and ugly, a brooding monstrous gloom. The people who tell me we are fighting a 'spiritual war' against wordly temptations are idiots. I am my first demon.
adam
says the Teacher.
"Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless."
- Ecclesiastes 1:2
So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me.
- Ecclesiastes 2:17
i guess i've had time to re-examine my value systems.
I'm not a good person by far... I really have no spiritual qualms about lying, cheating, vandalism and various forms of petty larceny... The reason i'm not a criminal is because I can't deal with the consequences. Does that make a person virtuous? That on it's own isn't half as disturbing as the fact that i'm not disturbed by this at all.
I don't believe in anything. I guess I'm a bona fide cynic that way. Nothing moves me. I don't believe in happiness. I don't believe in love.
I don't even like people.
I believe in God, but I believe even more that the people who also believe in God are sometimes the most screwed up.
Sometimes I think I only wake up to thank God for the fact that I can lie to people about how much I dislike them and how unhappy I am. I hope that isn't true. I hate myself for the fact that I have no justification to be miserable. Life hasn't been bad for me.
I guess you could say something for the purity of my dislike for everyone... like Iago's evil, it is motive-less and enigmatic. It isn't hate, not at all. I wouldn't, for example, suicide bomb a building to alleviate my discomfort. It's just a certain feeling I get in the mornings that the world is out to get me. It is not a noble lust for vengeance, or a tragically misguided hatred for all living things. It is a limp, futile dislike, an annoyance and an irritation.
I am twisted and perverted in that way. Honesty is what I value most in other people. I feel sometimes that the worst way to insult someone is to be conciliatory. People should have their feelings out at one another. The highest good is to be honest with yourself about what you are... lie to others, not yourself. Sometimes it means you face something terrible and ugly, a brooding monstrous gloom. The people who tell me we are fighting a 'spiritual war' against wordly temptations are idiots. I am my first demon.
adam
Saturday, August 5
Treatise on improvisation
"Since I can't read music and everything, I find out that I do the best when I just... listen for where, where i'm trying to go with it, where it can go, and not try to rush it, not try to make up things as i'm going, just let them come out, then I'm a lot better off, if I start trying to pay attention to where I am on the neck, or this is the proper way to do this or that, then I end up thinking that thing through, instead of playing from the heart I'm playing from the mind, and that's where I find that I get in trouble."
- Stevie Ray Vaughan
I was just listening to some records of yesterday's gig. My solo sounds truly awful... noodly non-phrases everywhere and no resolution whatsoever.
I realise the problem now, having just a minute ago done a few recordings which are surprisingly satisfactory.
The phrase given by some of the musicians i respect the most : Zhaohan, Shawn, Xiumin, Hyqel - 'Just whack" is far more profound than I initially thought.
On one level, you need to understand why a solo works. How the artist manipulates notes, phrasing, harmony in order to create an effect.
On the other hand, I realise that thinking about your solo ruins it. There is a place in the soul where both art and the appreciation of it comes from, which slowly assimilates every revelation in listening, in reading or in viewing and makes it part of you. Innately, just by appreciation of it, the musician understands intuitively the effect of what he hears, and this intuition goes here and becomes part of you, and this is the only part of you which understands it well enough to use it.
No amount of theory will correct for a deficiency here.
Solos come from here, not from analysis, and to force an effect on your solo is tantamount to editing your very being. It doesn't work; human beings are far too strong for that.
This is not to say that musicians (or, for that matter, writers and artists) should not transcribe, memorise and analyse other people's work. This is essential; it adds a body of physical technique that can be drawn upon when improvising. Without physical technique musical ideas cannot be realised. Thus when the musical sense demands the sound of, say, a tritone substitution of D7, one must actually be able to play it in order to have any effect.
That is the beauty of any art, be it music or writing or visual; it cannot come solely from the rational mind which is so easily duplicated with circuitry; it must come from the part of humans (call it the subconscious, call it the soul) that responds to the world with a wonder that may never be replicated.
adam
*edit* in a quick update, i'd just like to note that having spent 2 hours on my dismal soloing I have FAILED COMPLETELY to do my lit essay. GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAh.
- Stevie Ray Vaughan
I was just listening to some records of yesterday's gig. My solo sounds truly awful... noodly non-phrases everywhere and no resolution whatsoever.
I realise the problem now, having just a minute ago done a few recordings which are surprisingly satisfactory.
The phrase given by some of the musicians i respect the most : Zhaohan, Shawn, Xiumin, Hyqel - 'Just whack" is far more profound than I initially thought.
On one level, you need to understand why a solo works. How the artist manipulates notes, phrasing, harmony in order to create an effect.
On the other hand, I realise that thinking about your solo ruins it. There is a place in the soul where both art and the appreciation of it comes from, which slowly assimilates every revelation in listening, in reading or in viewing and makes it part of you. Innately, just by appreciation of it, the musician understands intuitively the effect of what he hears, and this intuition goes here and becomes part of you, and this is the only part of you which understands it well enough to use it.
No amount of theory will correct for a deficiency here.
Solos come from here, not from analysis, and to force an effect on your solo is tantamount to editing your very being. It doesn't work; human beings are far too strong for that.
This is not to say that musicians (or, for that matter, writers and artists) should not transcribe, memorise and analyse other people's work. This is essential; it adds a body of physical technique that can be drawn upon when improvising. Without physical technique musical ideas cannot be realised. Thus when the musical sense demands the sound of, say, a tritone substitution of D7, one must actually be able to play it in order to have any effect.
That is the beauty of any art, be it music or writing or visual; it cannot come solely from the rational mind which is so easily duplicated with circuitry; it must come from the part of humans (call it the subconscious, call it the soul) that responds to the world with a wonder that may never be replicated.
adam
*edit* in a quick update, i'd just like to note that having spent 2 hours on my dismal soloing I have FAILED COMPLETELY to do my lit essay. GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAh.
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