oh man... George Benson has got a GREAT groove going on in this one... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QjTK0pL1go&feature=related

We're up to chord solos now, but this was hampered severely because I didn't put enough work into memorising those inversions, and for a while, my left hand felt clumsier than a left foot with the tricky chords. So it wasn't a very productive lesson.

One problem with guitars is that its relatively easy to fake it to a certain degree without any real theory knowledge. But this is counter-productive because you get very lazy, and this gets you stuck in a rut. I think its much easier to take lessons with no prior knowledge at all, so that I don't have to unlearn years and years of bad habits.

When it comes to music, I suppose some are born geniuses, some just have a knack for it, and then there is the catch-all category which I belong to: the mere mortals who have to work their asses off to unnaturally achieve just a fragment of what the genius can do naturally in his sleep.

So goes the jazz lessons. Its really all uphill, since I've never had formal theory knowledge other than what I read off the internet. So far, a lot of it is grunt work... sheer memorisation, what notes in what dom7 or dim7b5 chords in all the keys etc. But the nice thing is that the theory that I need to know is pretty simple. So I kinda just accept why chord melodies are the way they are (to me, it just sounds correct), and I guess thats all i need to know. So right now its just a discipline thing to remember all that stuff, and to have it at my fingertips. Tough, but doable.

So today we were doing walking basslines, which is nice jazzy technique where instead of straight chords in straight time, you play these syncopated staccato chords with approach notes. The general effect is to sound like you're playing both the guitar and the double bass (i.e. you think like a bassist AND a guitarist). So i tried it for the first time today and my fingers have never looked clumsier...!! I must have looked like a total noob, which was quite embarrassing. Unfortunately, this stuff don't come easy to me!

Anyway, I found this video with some God-level walking bass lines about 30 secs in. This is something to aspire to..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYi16G2_I78&feature=related

Alright! The hols are properly under way, for now.

The first theory / jazz lesson was pretty cool, I learnt some principles of chord formation, which is really useful when coupled with inversions. The idea behind it is pretty simple, the aim was to be able to construct staple jazz chords like dominant 7ths, min7b5s and the diminisheds etc, understand why they are the way they are, and in four different inversions too, which is just too cool for words.

Oh yeah I've also got a new guitar! Its a new 2009 model strat with a rosewood board (for that darker, bassier sound with the glassy highs), and an extremely thin 100% nitro-cellulose lacquer finish. Lacquer finish is crucial cos I simply cannot stand the typical thick poly plastic finish, which encases the guitar in this shiny, indestructible plastic coffin that never ages or cures to let the wood dry out or season.

Best thing of all, is this strat has been pre-seasoned for me, like an old pair of jeans. There is a huge wear spot in the finish where my arm contacts the body, the back of the neck is smooth and almost bare wood (love it), the edges of the neck have been rolled, the back shows typical belt-bucker wear etc etc.

This is what it looks like, but this is a prettied-up picture cos in real life, there are a lot more battle scars and you can actually see how fragile the finish is. I just love it.. and yes admittedly i have been lusting for a rosewood strat for a long time because of John Mayer and his incredible-sounding custom shop black strat. So for now, this urge is satisfied..

Haha exams are over.. its been a long time coming, and i've been dreaming of this day all year long. In review, it was probably the toughest semester yet, but somehow things took a surprisingly good turn towards the end -- it was one of those miraculous all-stars-aligned moments when the exams reflected almost exactly what i'd prepared for (or more importantly, left out all that i'd not prepared for -- which was quite a bit). So! I think my new slog has to resume tomorrow. I need to get fighting fit in time for the half-marathon in August. And the jazz lessons are confirmed. This is something i've been wanting to do for years!

Ok i've been invisible for a while, cos I've been very busy preparing for exams and I'll be done in a couple days time.

In between, there's been some ridiculously hot weather, interrupted by some "jakarta squall" that sounded like a typhoon from where i was that night, i'm glad i didn't fall sick or anything thanks to the weather. And then I was following the news on that extremely distasteful affair involving a bunch of religious extremists and their shadowy Emperor Palpatine figure, directing the puppets from behind the scenes, spreading her hate and propaganda.. just thinking about it makes me mad. I hope that people come to their senses, and its a real pity that Art 13 of our constitution prohibits the banishment of citizens from our beloved country.

I'll have a fun holiday though. I've got stuff lined up.. an NYU summer course (that shaves off one module from my requirements), training for the half-marathon, fiddling about with the guitar (maybe i'll finally take theory lessons).

Just a few days more!

I'll be glad when this semester is over.. I don't enjoy any single course I'm doing this time around. The first is helmed by a nice old man who is unfortunately the most obscure teacher I've ever come across (on par with Harrison White), the second is run by a completely shambolic and disorganised ditz of a woman and made worse by an incompetent deadweight of a teammate, and the third is run by a bunch of religious fundamentalists whose political views irk me greatly. So I've been having these ridiculous dreams too. Last night, I crashed a Segway, and found myself in Pakistan as an assistant to a gun smuggler, arriving at the rendezvous point in a stretch limo, stepping out of the car to meet Tony Leung and Stephen Chow, who were brought there for a ping-pong friendly match with us (presumably as payment for the guns). The match was on a table with no net, and I had to improvise a net with an overturned cup. Stephen Chow lost the first match when someone smashed a ball in response to his weak return. Then I woke up.

Slow and steady wins the race..

I clocked 6km of mileage over the weekend and aim to do 12km total by the end of this week. Maybe i'm being too ambitious, cos I always get tired out by school and seem to need 8hrs sleep nowadays (very difficult to get!!).

But I was playing around with the brilliant gmap-pedometer (just google "how far did i run"), and I found the sexiest 10km route ever.. I start from Harbourfront, work my way up Fort Canning, run the entire length of the ridges trail (take in some great scenery and seabreeze along the way), crossing the wavy Henderson bridge, the steely Alexandra suspended walkways and the final bridge before heading into Hortpark (still unknown territory for me), passing the ice cream man, and finally hitting Vigilante Hill with the final stretch being the suicidal 99 Curve S Buona Vista Rd before i hit home.

I used to do these 10km, 12km and 15km runs all the time in the army, so no sweat.. at least thats the plan lah.. I refuse to believe that I've got no more 21km half marathons left in me..

The route: www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=2698491

As I was heading home today, just for a split second, the world around me turned bright white. I'm not exaggerating, I know lightning is never that dramatic but it looked like a huge flash went off all around me, whiting everything out, just before the thunder came. This was the first time I'd experienced anything like it. I guess there's a massive storm brewing and I was pretty close to wherever the lightning was headed.

Lightning can be pretty scary. This one time in army, we were doing live fire-and-movement exercises somewhere in the boondocks of LCK. We'd climbed a hill and were about to set up a firebase on the bare soil, when suddenly we saw a huge fork of lightning strike the top of the facing hill, barely 60 or 70 metres away from us. We quickly called off the exercise. Lightning was a real risk back then. Barely some years ago from that day, a young Guards officer was walking around on top of a hill during inclement weather, making sure that all his men were off the hill and on lower ground, when he got fatally struck by lightning.

Postscript: its been threatening to rain for almost 3 hours now, but its not started. I hope i don't get awakened by thunder tonight.

One of the flats in the next block was on fire just now! People from the next blocks were shouting and blowing on whistles to get their neighbours to notice.. smoke and chao tah smell was everywhere.. Quite a big crowd gathered around to watch the SCDF/police/paramedics at work. We couldn't see flames from the ground but the ceiling of the corridor was black with soot and we could see thick smoke on the whole floor.

The most champion thing is that right downstairs at the same block, was a tentage with tables and chairs all around, and a huge banner announcing tomorrow's community event: the opening of my GRC's "Emergency Preparedness Week" with Lim Hng Kiang as guest of honor, where he will presumably talk about fire prevention, amongst other things.