I'm lucky just to linger in your light

For some reason, Band 11 makes me think of Uncle Kracker's Smile.

You make me smile like the sun, fall out of bed

Sing like a bird, dizzy in my head

Spin like a record, crazy on a Sunday night

Truth be told, this was the first ever semester during which I actually bubbled with excitement over band practices. Other than songs like *coughs* Beyond the Sea *coughs* Ponteio *coughs*, playing with you guys had been, as Derene put it, de-stress sessions. And yes, I WAS cruh-ay-zee on some Sunday nights, especially those preceding practices for Circle of Life and Man in the Mirror. You made me sing like a bird. Not a nightingale though, a crow, maybe.

You make me dance like a fool, forget how to breathe

Shine like gold, buzz like a bee

Just the thought of you can drive me wild

Oh, you make me smile

You made me want to shine like gold (: Not that I didn’t want to, for the past semesters, but there was something being with the four of you spurred me to try that extra harder, to go that extra mile. Then again, maybe it was the songs we chose. Hey, playing a song that you love, or eventually come to love, makes a HELL LOT of a difference, okay? Plus, our surprises for our audience during our 3 assessments (performing the first symphonic metal song of the semester - Discord, throwing out Gatsby hair products for I Can’t Give You Anything But My Love, marching for the introduction of All You Need Is Love) made EVERYONE buzzed like a bee.  

Why we might be labeled MAD or KOOKY:

1.       Band practices at 8am in the morning, almost daily for these 2 weeks. Yes, Clarence, we hear you. We owe you, and all of our awesome guests, a meal though how huge would depend on our pocket size

2.       Half of our songs were presented in a big band, no pun intended. We imported more than 6 guests at a time. E.g. 10 guests for Circle of Life and 9 for All You Need Is Love. Imagine all the schedules we had to sift through to arrange practices.

3.       Our odd song choices. We crooned a a capella piece, did a Disney-themed song, chanted our World Music-genre hymn in choir style, attempted a Pop song by playing our respective minor instruments and revived an ancient commercial jingle but in full version. No wonder Emma ran away when I wanted to ask him to play for our band.

But screw all that. I love you guys (:

I know my piano skills are FAR from perfect and my mistakes during the finals would not be the first time I let you people down but you made me improve a lot. And you guys showed me what makes a band, a band. You guys showed me we don’t have to play mind-boggling pieces with erratic rhythm and groove to capture the audience, but take things a step at a time as we move along the semester and enjoy ourselves on stage after we worked our asses off during practices. You guys showed me that I don’t have to frown throughout band practices and performances but smile.

And I thank you for that (:

And this is all of us trying to squeeze into a teeny weeny room in 6 Strings for our practice for the song All You Need Is Love. Should have taken a photo from the door to show the size and the sheer number of people suffocating inside. But it was good fun, especially our last practice before assessment the next day. 

When It All Falls Apart

Everyone’s not in the best of moods today. Or specifically, now, after the turmoil of MBE finals. But then again, without mistakes, will we ever know what perfection is? Without bitter failures, will we ever know what sweet success is?

Slow Me Down

See this THING I’m carrying on my back like a tortoise shell? It’s Wai Kit’s keyboard. Which I had borrowed for band practices at 6 Strings. Which, though was not too shit heavy, had straps that cut into your shoulders. Which I had to lug to and fro consecutive practices, 2 located on the crown and the other 2 at the foot of the goddamned hill.

It all begun at 12.45pm, when I had to haul the keyboard from its refuge shelter of my hostel room, onto my frail back and lumber towards the studio. Why didn’t I sit on it like a sledge and sleighed down the slope instead, I had no idea.

1pm. Quarter inches, adapters and cables were scattered all over the place, ready for set-up. 1.15pm. Still no guests. Tons of frantic phone calls and last minute scheduling later, we re-booked for another time slot, apologized, packed up and proceeded to stone in Old Town, where we self-syok with plans for feastings, trips and a party to treat the guests.

2.45pm. Started the climb back up to Block C. 3pm. Practice for Circle of Life and Discord in Jam Room 1. We were half-cooked by the time we left for 6 Strings again at 4pm. I swear, I was sweating profusely and my face had that lobster-red hue. I must have stunk like hell.

4pm. Said hello to the studio manager once more. Spent 30 minutes on Discord and the other half for Ponteio, though ended up being left with 10 minutes for the latter song due to a certain senior guest’s punctuality, a fact that would no doubt haunt us during our finals.

5.10pm. Our guests for the 5pm practice were starting to breath down our necks. Thank God for David Lu driving past us that exact moment we were about to collapse, what with the dumb keyboard and all, and giving us a lift. But I guess the hiking helped in building my much needed stamina for Man in the Mirror.

6pm. The accursed choir rehearsal. Vincent wasn’t having PMS like on Tuesday, God forbid that he should have had. 7-7.30pm. Retreated to the hostel to have a bath to revive myself to cope a little while longer. 8-8.45pm. Cover your ears, everyone!

9pm. End of hell. Hallelujah. 

P.S. Arghhhh! MBE finals tomorrow! *Panic attack*

Everyday I have the Blues

This is NOT the insanity I crave for.

I wanna free fall out into nothing

I'm gonna leave this, this world for a while

Love, Light, Laughter

From me

To you

With love XOXO

Tentatively naming it as Love, Light, Laughter for the moment. I know you lovelies have a better name for it. I open to suggestions.

P.S. Yes, it's the song I composed for the mind-boggling Song Writing final project. I still find the bridge of the song a little depressing and creepy. Tried but failed to change it to a finer sounding tune. Sigh.

a Concoction of Notes

Yet again, I'm astounded beyond words.

I'm amazed at the luminosity of the end product of my ingenuity.

You have to excuse my vanity. But judging on the fact that I'd just spent 8 freaking hours of my LIFE scraping the rust off my brains in a deadline-motivated effort to compose a 3-minute song to pass as my final project for Song Writing and bearing in mind that I slaved till 4am this morning, don't you supposed I have the right to boast just for this one time?

What stunned me most was my assortment of instruments, including flute playing the main melody, strings as pads, piano to sound the riff, and bass guitar and cabasa in the rhythm section. And the piece is 3 minutes and 42 seconds. Oh. Did I mention that I created some polyrhythmic mumbo-jumbo jargon for the outtro? And I didn't even notice it till I exported the shit as an audio file and listened to it. It was as if I was sleep-walking while I wrote the song or something. I applaud myself.

WAALAABEEELOOOWHEEEEMUAAABAGAAAA (and some more tongue noises that could not be expressed in letters).

*Trusts hands into the air and cackles uncontrollably like a hyena*

My sanity and mental health is touching the belly of the red zone. So what. I'm done with Song Writing 1!

TEEHEE.

The world keeps spinning round and round, I keep going down and down

Tell me I'm not stupid.

Tell me it's just life being mean.