ADELE IS AMAZING!

I was just surfing around youtube when I came across THIS.



Adele is amazing. I love her voice! It sounds goooooooooood... =D Credits to Tanya, my genius rockstar neighbour for telling me about Josh Kelley's version of the song which led me to this. Josh's version is really really good too. =)



Anyone reading this interested in doing a cover with me? =D I need a pianist. I'll do guitar and vocals. =P Adele's version, a bit slower. =) Or maybe both... That's it! I'm getting that new mic tomorrow!! xD

Windy and Warm

Ba dum bap de dum, bwiao dap de dao dup ah dum bap de da uhh bam~

Windy and Warm.

This tune has been stuck in my head ever since last night when I actually gave it a good listen. I mean, listen closely to ALL those sounds man. And the bent notes are just SWEET! =D It adds to the feel of it. There's no complete video on youtube but here it is played by my favourite guitarist and performer in the world. =) Tommy Emmanuel. My inspiration and my idol, in a way. =D

Oh and it's only Windy and Warm in the first 4 minutes or less, after that he goes on playing Classical Gas and other stuff. =D



I don't know what it is about this song. It's not exactly upbeat or makes you wanna dance or anything, but it sure makes you wanna MOVE. Working on this song on my own now. In the midst of SPM Mock and all but yeah. No bloody exam is gonna stop me from playing. >=D Only thing is, I have NO IDEA where I can perform this. =_=" Party? Nah. Wedding? Nah. Jamming session? Nah. But hey, it's a fun song to play. =D

Time for bed. More studying tomorrow. Sejarah is kinda crappy when put together with Moral. Can I hear a Heck Yeah! for that? =_=" Night ya'll.

9th of October and 40 days to go till SPM

I had my Chinese SPM Mock papers today. They were tough, to say the least. =D

.....

Okay I totally sucked. Soi Kiau Kiau would be a good way to describe it.

I know I've been saying this over and over again but I am SOOO looking forward to the holidays after SPM. There's just so much to look forward to. A "Cornetto trip 2" which is a reunion trip, our S2 Science Farewell Party, looking forward to that 'cause I might get to play for my friends with some friends. Ahh.. Friends.. I can already feel that farewell party atmosphere. Lalitha and Elaine, if you're reading this, thanks for organizing the event for us all. =) You rock!

Oh and I can't wait to get my driving license, continue my guitar lessons, gonna do LOADS of covers and videos! Steffi got me motivated to do covers. =) And I might even try to sing. =P Which means I need to buy a new microphone.

And I'm planning to get a new guitar, (hopefully I won't have to pay for it.. =P Yeah mom?) I am SICK of having to use a mic for my guitar, it restricts movement on the stage, I can't jump or dance around while playing, it sucks. My current guitar doesn't have a pickup and preamp and stuff so....

Here's an example of a situation when there is no mic stand for the mic I have to use, SICK OF IT, and no music stand for the music sheet (that's 'cause this particular performance was super last minute and I only had an hour to practice this with Alex Chong.)

This has to be the most terrible stage setup I have ever been part of! xD At least Brandon and Jon Lee were there with me. =P

I'm currently looking at Maton and Ibanez. =) Here are some of the Ibanez guitars I'm looking at right now.

Ibanez guitars aren't too bad really. Plus they're affordable. =D I like the transparent black finish. I'd prefer a low gloss finish though.

This one's pretty simple. But I love this body shape for a guitar. This one's very nice in my opinion. Nice blend of simplicity and beauty. =)

I really like the violin finish on this one. =D Ibanez is looking good to me for now. I'll decide after hearing some feedbacks from current Ibanez guitar users. =)

Okay gotta get back to studying now. Next week is going to be a heck of a week. Crazy lineup man! Have a nice day people. =)

JONATHAN All Waves Series xD

Alex has done it again. He made my shoes some kinda product, man. As though anyone would wanna buy my shoes. xD It's not like I'm Obama or something. But hey! You gotta give this guy credit, man. Nice editing. xD

For the record, my shoes were dirty, but they weren't THAT dirty. Alex was exaggerating a bit there. =_="

Just applied for IS today with Heng. Honestly, I'm kinda worried. My results aren't that good, plus the food for thought that Mr. Lim wrote on my report card? That doesn't help at all, man! He wrote something like, it's the bla bla attitude that takes us bla bla and doing the right thing is as important to doing things at the right time.

Now Mr. Lim himself told me that it's not directed at me. It's just some food for thought. I guess he was feeling pretty smart or something that day. Bah. But the thing is, will the IS people think that those words are directed at me, and that I've got some attitude problem in school? If Mr. Lim's little food for thought thingy spoils my application.... Oh I'm gonna...... I'd go all Kanye West on him. =_="

These few days have been stressful, man. Lots of homework to finish, revisions, tests.. SPM Mock exams start next Wednesday. I need help with Chem. =( Lots to revise! Sejarah! Chem! Bio! AND MAN, I DON'T KNOW WHAT I'M GONNA DO FOR CHINESE!! SERIOUSLY!

Here's some good news, there's PE tomorrow so I can play some football and relax a little. And I'm stopping guitar lessons temporarily. Thursday's my last lesson. =( Then I'd have to wait till after SPM. Just when I thought I'm learning so much!

And seriously, I need to get back to performing. I just feel that I can do so much better than I have done previously and that I've got so much more to bring onto the stage. =) I wanna improve myself, become a good performer, and ENJOY MY MUSIC AND SHARE IT, ABOVE ALL.

After SPM then. =( Fellow SPM-ers, we all have our very long lists of "Things to do after SPM". And mine's just as long as anybody's. xD At this rate, we'd be even busier after SPM than we are now.

Peace out. Gotta go sleep. It's been a tiring day.

My Baby Just Cares For Me

Oh the Jazzzzzzzz! =D The walking bass line is soooo simple yet so sweet man!

Oh and the piano instrumental part! Gah! Loke Hsin, if you're reading this. Could you learn it and teach me, PLEASE?? =P I've always wished I could play improvisations on the piano, man! It's just so.... SWEET. =D

So here's Nina Simone with "My Baby Just Cares For Me"

On a contrasting note, All American Rejects are playing at 1 Utama on the 10th of October! =( In the middle of my SPM Mock exams. Sad.. They rock. =) Their acoustic covers rock too. Nina Simone? She jazzes. =P

The Radiance Detector! xD

I just added a live traffic thingy 'cause I just found out the other day that Radiance actually reads my blog but never leaves any comments. So to track you whenever you read my blog, Radiance, you sneaky little thing, I've added the Radiance Detector! xD

P.S. Radiance = PURITY!! =P

Recording day!!

Today, I have witnessed the coolness of being a recording engineer or producer or whatever you wanna call it. Haha. Man, the equipment, working with good musicians, it's all good. =D

I had my first recording today at RAM Damai. Roger Wang's studio. The place was totally awesome, with a main recording room so awesome... I felt honored just being able to record there. The microphones were so sensitive man! The sound came out so clear!

I kinda messed up my song though. =S I was kinda nervous. But not as nervous as I was in Federick's car. But thank God I made it home safe even with Fed's driving. xD

Anyway, to my surprise, Alex and Steffi showed up at RAM to buy picks when I was in the recording room. Fed was outside waiting for me, I was getting ready to record, Alex and Steffi came in, and then surprised looks started coming on. Haha. And Alex managed to take 2 pics of me in the studio.

Check out the cool equipment. There's this really antique-looking piano which was so cool! And the microphones were all good stuff man.

Shorts and slippers.. Hmm.. Gotta remember that if I get to have an album cover in the future. xD

Gah! It's been a long day. I'm out.. See ya'll.

Recording day!

This is it! Tomorrow's the day. I have a feeling I shouldn't have been so hyped up about it 'cause it's gonna be pretty casual. But hey! I've never done a recording like that before so the experience is still pretty awesome. =D

Oh and I think that I might only get to record 1 song. Since We Met would be that song. I've practiced that song too much to NOT record it! xD

Seriously, I've never put in so much time to practice a single song ever man. All thanks to the great Tommy Emmanuel's advice.. "When you're learning a new song, play that song and that song only every time you pick up your guitar! Play it till you can play it while watching tv!"

And I think that's really true. 'Cause he said that's when you can focus on putting emotion into the song instead of focusing on playing the right notes. =D I think I said this in a previous post ==

Anyway, I'm gonna try my very best tomorrow. Alex Lim said he wants to convert it to mp3 format and WHO KNOWS WHAT THAT GUY IS GONNA DO WITH MY SONG?! I sense a youtube video.. ==

Oh by the way, now I'm once again indecisive as to which guitar I wanna get next. =S Ask Brandon. I've been saying "I want a Maton, I want a Maton"? Now "I want a Fender Telecaster, I want a Telecaster!" Sigh... I'll just keep saving dulu lah =D

Oh and check out this awesome video editted by Alex Lim, starring Thomas a.k.a Ah Xian. xD

THE UKELELE PROJECT

I just realized that The Ukelele Project can also be called TUP... =D okay.......................

The Ukelele Project is basically me modifying that horribly....what's that word? Well it's just ugly. That ugly red colored ukelele. Red's fine, don't get me wrong, it's just that the paint on this thing is just messed up. =S

So anyway, I'm gonna do a few things to modify the ukelele. I'll go into detail in my next post with pictures. =D

1. Sand the fugly, yes fugly, color off and add a new special wooden coat/piece/thing on the body and then repaint it so that there'll be the natural wood swirly whirly pattern! =D

2. Change the tuning heads and the pegs and all of that. Yeah 'cause the tuning heads are totally screwed up. The strings can't stay in tune for even 15 seconds.

3. Add finishing touches. (Namely, carefully hand painting the frets, repainting or maybe add some designs to the fretboard, design the body art around the reverberation hole, paint on cream colored linings on the body.) You just gotta love those cream colored lines! xD

Phase 1 will be handed over to my mom and her office dudes to do the wood work stuff. =P And Phase 2 will be installed by yours truly. I wanna install them myself. I'm a do-it-yourself kinda freak sometimes. =P And Phase 3 will be done myself as well with some help from mom perhaps.

I'll be posting some photos throughout the process of the modifications so yeah. =D Don't think anyone will be reading it but, it's all good. =)

Practicing for my recording

Just less than 2 more weeks to go until my first ever recording. I finally found out the confirmed date for the recording. 18 & 19 September 2009. =D

And here I am going through the whole song a few times. Like what Tommy Emmanuel said, I gotta play this song again and again until I can play it without focusing on my fingers. Like playing while watching tv. That's when I can focus on putting emotion into the song instead. Wise words, Tommy..... =P

Here are my "Since We Met" tab sheets spread all over the table. =P Going through the entire song again and again now. Love the ending bit! =D

Okay, gotta get back to practicing now. =)