guitar musings
2009-07-14, 5:01 a.m..

Ignore this entry if you're bored of guitar talk...haha!

I was practising barre chords on my bed while I suddenly got this piercing pain on the left side of my back O.O haha! Ok I really hope it'll be gone by tomorrow when I wake up, if not...that's it! Hahaha. Must be the ridiculously heavy bass that I've been carrying around lah. Grrr.

Speaking of which, I just spent the past 3-4 hours reading up on guitar equipment (again!) and being excited over the dreams of affording more stuff, of putting in more practise, and of going for guitar lessons again. Unfortunately these things are REALLY REALLY costly and I can't bear to part with the money even though I do have enough savings. If only I can bring myself to dedicate $1000 into investing in all my equipment (which does not even include a better guitar!) and stop the GAS-ING...at least for the next few years! Hahaha. Maybe 1k will seriously drop from the sky tomorrow wrapped in an envelope with the words "To you, for your guitar, from SIALAH!". WHO KNOWS? Hahahaa.

And on top of that, the more I play the bass in church, the more I feel so tempted to simply go into a store and buy a church bass so I wouldn't have to carry the freakingly heavy thing around!! It's like lugging two bags of rice or something...madness lah. Haha. Yes I know I can just use lync money to buy (since we somehow seem to have endless amounts of money HAHA), but it's so...selfish since only me and ivan'll be using it! Hahahaa. Seriously 1/3 of our msn convos with ivan's spent hoping for a 'new lync bass' and planning on which bass to get. Haha.

Okay, hopefully a retiring pastor with a passion for music will seriously pop by at the CNS on fine Sunday afternoon to give us his fender jazz because his fingers are too weak to continue his bass playing dream. Haha! What are the odds? Though if I could I would really just go ahead, get a second hand bang-for-buck MIJ fender for $700, and leave it in church for the good of every aspiring bassist. Haha.

Anyway, reading guitar forums are really super inspiring. I love g4c man, it's my favourite read after rom. HAHA. And I think one of the first few things I'm gonna ask my teacher if I start musiclab lessons would be EQUALISING, EQUALISING, EQUALISING. Read this post by this guitar/sound pro!

Music is not only about harmony and melody and rhythm. A large part is the way you present these elements to your audience. Hence as you progress as a musician, it is inevitable that you start paying attention to all aspects of your music making, and not just getting the chords right or being able to play something technically efficiently.

It's like writing a best selling novel with a faulty ball point pen and illegible hand writing. To see the really good story underneath, you have to get past the spotty ink and lousy handwriting first, which makes the pen and penmanship crucial in telling your story.

Of course going for tonal knowledge even before knowing basic guitar's useless as well since you would still suck no matter how great the eq might be. Which is why- practise, practise, practise!

(Y) Hahaa. Okay I just realised (Y) looks like a freaking squashed-up cleavage but I DON'T MEAN IT THAT WAY kay....It's simply the 'thumbs up' shortcut if you type it on msn. Haha. But anyway, point is, I need to learn how to equalise my sound and get the best out of whatever I have man. Anyway, if you're immensely bored, and a guitar freak, you might want to read this! to double(or triple) your knowledge of eqing an acoustic sound and stuff. Especially the posts by chickenbackside. Darn awesome lah I really learnt a lot...even though I still have no clue what half of the technical terms there means. Haha!

Anyway, because this is a guitar-talk entry. Thought I should throw in this link as well. Here! Scroll down to the lengthy post by 'Hann' and check out the youtube videos link below it. It's AWESOME advice for learning the proper finger/thumb positions to play a barre chord. Was struggling with the STUPID 'G' string because I somehow couldn't get any sound out from it no matter how hard I pressed...before realising from the post that my finger position was wrong! Turns out that a lot of times when you barre with your index finger the incorrect way, your middle finger joint will somehow end up be in contact with the string...which'll mute the string instead. Just a simple solution to move your index finger abit up (so that it'll stick out more from the neck) or down to find the correct position would do the trick! To think I took 4 years to realise this -_-. There's also the thumb position thingy which I've been applying pressure at the wrong part all these while lah. So go read it if you're bored and want to barre. HAHA.

I think I can just simply rant on and on about this, but it's getting quite late already lah. I'm going to come up with a GUITAR SAVINGS PLAN for myself: to save $10 out of my $50 weekly allowance every week, along with half my birthday angpaos, so that I'll be able to afford an awesome christmas present for myself without having to NETS the cash out from my bank. By then there'll be no hesistation spending the money since it's nothing out from what I would usually save anyway. GOOD AUNTY PLAN! Hope I'll stick to it. HAHA.

Anyway, on a sidenote..while rummaging through my boxes to find an empty box to store my money, I found my 'FRIENDS' tatty bear keychain! HAHAHAHHAA! This lame BFFAE keychain we had in pri school or something...those you keep one half, I keep the other half so together we'll be ONE kind of keychains. HAHAA. Darn funny! DAPH I BET YOU LOST URS!!!

Today was a pretty fun day! And I really thank God for WEDS HAHAHA. WEDS!!!! Maybe it's a sign that we should totally meet up every wednesdays, or a sign that we'll stick by and see through each other till our WEDS to holy dudes (whether in the holy SAC nave or not, SNORTSSSS! HAHAHA). Speaking of which, we had loads of HILARIOUSLY sialah convos today. Sheeesshhh..hahaha.

Didn't manage to get my bag, but on hindsight it's GOOD since I can just spend the $4 on the cheapo army messenger bag (which can probably fit better in my guit bag anyway) and put my first $10 into my GUITAR SAVING PLAN BOX. Hahahaa. I must come up with a cool name for it...maybe later or something. Hahaa.

Okay, time to sleep. Goodnight!

yesterday | tomorrow

missed something?

The Church's One Foundation - 2009-12-03
- - 2009-11-26
MOTD - 2009-10-06
VOTD - 2009-10-02
POTD - 2009-09-30