I’ve shared this with a few people outside of Singapore. They all had a good laugh. None were offended. In fact, they all couldn’t agree more. From George Yeo, or rather, from his brother:
My elder brother Jim once told me that, to succeed in life, one needs the 3 B’s. What are the 3 B’s? They are Brains, Balls and Breaks.
Brains - well, it always helps if one is smart, alert and able to spot trends. One also needs a sense of social situations. We need both IQ and EQ.
Then you need Balls. Guts, the courage to take calculated risks and persistence. Balls without brains is dangerous. Brains without balls doesn’t get you very far. The person who is passionate is more likely to succeed.
I was looking through my old notes and documents for a piece of music I wrote years ago. I didn’t find what I was looking for, but discovered this instead — something I wrote on a piece of scrap paper more than 15 years ago. It was Piers Anthony’s preface/ introduction in his 1982 novel, “On A Pale Horse”. I must have been around 16 or so when I read it. It made such an immediate impression that I had to write it down, for prosperity if you will:
“… To try to hang on to one particular section of life is foolish, it can’t be done, and if it could be done, it would not be worthwhile. Change is much of the essence of life. Death is the final change. We cannot hold on even to a day; how, then, can we capture life itself?
Perhaps our whole awareness of individuality, of self, is an illusion. If so, it is better not to grasp unduly at that illusion, but rather to live our lives in such a manner that when we must at last lay down, we will not be ashamed.
Life has meaning only if we live for meaning.”
Piers Anthony Dillingham Jacob
May 17, 1982.
From the author’s preface to the novel, “On a pale horse” (’Incarnations of Immortality’ series)
More about the book/ series, from: Amazon.com, and bloggers here and this one (via Technorati Tags).
The inspiration for this song came from a rock guitar tune overheard on the radio. No idea what was the name of the song or the artiste but the riff stayed in my mind. Turned out it was a progression of the ‘G’ Major scale (see tablature below). I tried to give this song a heavier sound, so I tended to employ quite a bit of Overdrive effects. The layering and Flanger/ stereo effects also helped to give the guitar tracks more ‘body’.
Screenshot of the GarageBand tracks:
[Click on image to view larger size]
NOTES:
The song was set at 120 BPS, but the percussion track (Classic Rock Beat) played closer to 80 BPS, which was perfect. I added the Shaker and Tambourine loops for accompaniment.
For most of the guitar tracks (recorded from a “live” instrument) I used a customised “American Lead” Amp effect with Chorus, which had the Amp Bass boosted to get an even heavier sound. Subsequently I also had to turn on the “Reduce S” Equaliser effect to counteract the ‘hissing’ sounds.
For the part with the muted chords, I used a customised Distortion Chorus effect, with a ‘Spread Stereo’ effect. I found the stereo choral effect added a good variation to the song.
The Clean Acoustic layer was just a copy of the earlier distortion rhythm track. You can’t really hear the acoustic part. It’s used more for subtle tonal variation in the song.
Instead of recording a Bass portion (I would have recorded using the guitar and then used GarageBand to step it down a few tones), I recorded a Software Track using the Orchestral Strings setting. I chose the Orchestral Bass part, and I think overall it added an even heavier sound, which was what I’d wanted.
The last layer was the Lead Amp guitar track, which was on a American Lead Amp setting with a Medium Wah.
CHORDS FOR “Carry Me Over”:
G/ D/ Am/ C
Am/ C/ Em/ G (D)
D/ C/ Em/ C
TABLATURE FOR THE ‘G’ SCALE OPENING RIFF:
E———————————————-5—
B——————————-5—-8–7–8——
G——————5–4–7–5—–7————–
D—–5–4–7–5———————————-
A–5———————————————–
E—————————————————
In case you’re not aware of what are ‘Tablatures’, here’s a good reference, as well as this one.
This is a perfect example of how the right piece of music, with skillful editing, can make a video even more impactful. You might be aware of this Free Hugs Campaign that’s been circulating on the Internet. Imagine if the video used some other song, like “Sound of Music”… not quite there, right?
Most of the “How it was done” has been described in the earlier post. For this version, I removed the earlier lead guitar portion and recorded these “live” guitar tracks:
[Click on image for larger size]
I believe this was on the Johnny Carson show (at least I have this impression that the host of the show was Johnny Carson). This kid must be older than seven now. Well as the host said at the end of his drum performance, “You’re nothing short of remarkable”.
This is the second kid-drummer video I’ve found (first one here). Anyone knows his name? Where he is now etc?
I’m into this GarageBand Rock music composition groove recently. Here’s my 4th rock-instrumental. It’s actually Work-In-Progress but this version sounds quite OK as a background track to an iMovie I have in mind, so I’m posted it up.
Why “Ray of Light”? I wanted a title that signified hope. For this track, I drew inspiration from a track titled “A Love Eternal” from Joe Satriani’s “Super Colossal“. I wanted to try composing something with that kind of emotive feel (keyword is TRY!). I noticed the underlying percussion beat was a Shaker.
To find out what was the Beat Per Second to the Joe Satriani song, I opened up GarageBand and played a simple drum loop. Then played the song in iTunes, so now I have both the drum loop and the Joe Satriani song playing. Went back to GarageBand and adjusted the BPS till the drum loop matched the Satriani song. That’s how I figured out it was at 80 BPS.
This time I also decided to keep a more comprehensive record of how this song was produced. I didn’t really take notes every step of the way. Merely scribblings of what stage I was at and how long it took me. In writing the steps, I referred to the GarageBand screens and recalled what was it I did. I started everything on Saturday night around 11.50pm, and completed it on Sunday evening. Completed in two sessions (each session was continuous — what can I say? I enjoyed the process so much I wasn’t tired at all). Total time for this project turned out to be approximately 12 hours.
==================== Basic Chords:
Stanza:
D/ A/ G
A/ Bm/ A
Chorus:
Bm/ A/ D/ (A)/ G/ Bm/ A
Break:
G/ A/ Bm
G/ Bm/ A
G/ A/ Bm
G/ Bm/ E
====================
How it was done
Session 1: (Saturday evening 30 Sept 06, spillover to Sunday morning 1 Oct 06)
1) Percussion/ Drum tracks. Set at 80 BPS. Combination of Shaker, “70s Ballad Drums” (base layer throughout the song), “Classic Rock Beat” (for the Chorus), “Modern Rock Drums” (for the Break)
[Click for larger image]
2) Recorded the rhythm tracks (Dreamy Shimmer) for the stanza and chorus and the Break. Then edited and replicated for the whole song, and adjusted the percussion/ drum tracks. This set the length and “basic infrastructure” for the whole song.
[Part 1 & 2 took approx. 3 hours]
[Click for larger image]
3) Adjusted the volume settings for each track. This was a departure from my usual practice, where I left the track volume adjustment till last, but I’m glad I did it differently. This meant I could finalise the volume setting for the basic layers (percussion & rhythm) and it made the recording levels easier to set for subsequent layers.
[This took approx. 1 hour]
4) Added the Bass track. I recorded with my electric guitar (not a bass guitar) and once I was happy with it, I lowered the pitch so that it sounded like a bass. I chose the “Studio Direct Box Warm” bass guitar effect.
[This took approx. 1.5 hours]
[Click for larger image]
5) Added a distortion layer for the chorus track (”American Overdrive + Spread Stereo Chorus”).
[This was about 1 hour]
6) I felt the percussion layer needed more presence. Played around with the Echo, Reverb, and Equalizer settings for the snare/ bass/ sharpness settings.
[This was about 1 hour]
[Click for larger image]
7) On a whim, I decided to record the lead melody and solo. This was more to practice but I found it useful to record it down anyway. Often, I would hit some really good notes and these I would edit and retain for the final song.
[This was about 1.5 hours, and at this stage, I have played the song several times already.]
Session 2: (Sunday, 1 Oct 06) For some reason, I felt the drums and snare needed to be adjusted. Played around with the settings and effects. Then I also adjusted the Bass settings by giving it a boost using the equalizer (”Bass Boost” setting)
9) I added the Cymbals to song to give more “kick” to the Break and ending Chorus.
[Approx. 2 hours for part 9 & 10]
10) At this point, I played the song from start to finish and felt it sounded OK if it was to be used as some background music for a movie or something. So I did some final adjustments to the volume and converted the file to MP4 (named it the “Zero Version”). I played the MP4 file in iTunes and discovered the snare had too much echo, so returned to the file and removed the Echo setting.
11) On a whim (again), I edited the earlier recording of the lead (in part 7) and found that some parts weren’t too bad. So I spent some time editing and moving the spliced parts around, creating a double track, trying stereo & pan effects. Net result was a solo for the Break and for the final Chorus portions.
12) Because of the solo track, the ending of the song now seemed a bit odd. I adjusted the percussion to end together, put a “fade out” for the distortion rhythm, and added the cymbals to end the song. Now I had something more than the Zero Version but I named the file “Enhanced Zero Version”. I didn’t consider the song as completed. It was a step up from Zero Version, and still more suited for background music. When I start on the melody and solo recording, I would just turn off the layer in this song.
[Approx. 2 hours]
13) After converting the tracks to MP4, I listened to it in iTunes. Sounded OK although I would have wanted the distortion for the Break to have more “body”. Decided to adjust that layer up and compensate by adjusting down the rhythm layer. In doing so, I realised the rhythm layer for that part needed a variation. I tried adjusting the reverb and equalizer settings but in the end I created it as another track (Acoustic Guitar Echo). Just before posting, I raised the levels of the distortion tracks to the chorus parts, as it sounded more impactful that way.
14) And this is how the final Version Zero looks like (the “Version Zero” is without the lead guitar parts and the drums and shaker percussion extend just a little longer):
It’s good enough to be used for an iMovie project I have in mind. I’m certainly going to try composing a melody and re-recording the lead.
I’m blogging this just in case I need a reference in future. Having hunted for OSX Quicktime codecs, I can appreciate something like Perian (an almost all-in-one Quicktime component):
Perian is a Quicktime component that will allow you to play all kinds of files including the most popular ones. (Divx, XviD, FLV, AVI ). The list goes on. Also supported are MS-MPEG4 v1, MS-MPEG4 v2, MS-MPEG4 v3, DivX 3.11 alpha, 3ivX, Sorenson H.263, Flash Screen Video, Truemotion VP6.
I found my way to Guitar Blogger, from a technorati tag to this post. And then I found myself pouring over the many excellent links he’s posted, especially the videos on players like Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Paul Gilbert, Slash… (all the same guitar-greats from the 80s and 90s that I like). Just check out his “Guitar Heroes” category.
Guitar Blogger - www.guitarblogger.net
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Posted by Ivan Chew
. I must have been around 16 or so when I read it. It made such an immediate impression that I had to write it down, for prosperity if you will:
For some reason, I felt the drums and snare needed to be adjusted. Played around with the settings and effects. Then I also adjusted the Bass settings by giving it a boost using the equalizer (”Bass Boost” setting) 
