Here goes #1:

“Choose to see what I have,
rather than have-not.

Think of what I can do, with what I have,
rather than what I cannot.”

ivan chew
Sun, 8 Jan 2012.

Have not come across such inspirational stuff on the Internet of late. Thought I should keep a reference here.

The boys had been taking awhile, so their father eventually comes in. He see’s the game, and the controller, and starts in on the youngest about how he needs to pick something different. Something more manly. Something with guns and fighting, and certainly not a purple controller. He tries to convince him to get the new Zombie game “Dead Island.” and the little boy just stands their repeating “Dad, this is what I want, ok?” Eventually it turns into a full blown argument complete with Dad threatening to whoop his son if he doesn’t choose different items.

Check it out.

The inevitable “What’s the point” rhetoric.

But then, once in a while, something like this happens.

A reminder.

An answer.

Of Why.

p.s. Thanks to Jim at Red Maps.

That led me to discover the Post-rock band “God Is An Astronaut” (what a name!)

Oh my.

Was totally mesmerized by this track (from their 2008 album), “Loss”.

Just about every track by them was super. “Loss” was my favourite, I posted at Facebook. The melodic progression was just brilliant. There was a bitter-sweet sense of stoic heroism in their music.

Decided to buy their music.

That’s not the only thing.

Daniel Sassoon left a comment at my Facebook post. Which was a timely reminder for me to check out his band, “In Each Hand A Cutlass“. I had an inkling about his band but never made time to listen to the music.

I don’t deny that it took an out-of-Singapore Post-rock band to connect me with a Singapore-based one.

What’s more important is that I made another purchase that day. Their sampler sealed my conviction to buy their album.

Was in a Post-rock mood the whole day after that.

Felt compelled to post this comment:

Is it just me, or does listening to Post-rock makes the head dip and heart soar? I just went over to give my wife and the dog a hug. Just felt like it. Too happy to care that this update sounds weird!

A few friends wondered what was Post-rock. I had a vague definition. Daniel gave a better explanation:

What exactly post rock is is hard to describe – at its most basic level it’s (normally) instrumental music that’s more about cinematics, atmospherics, tension and release rather than instrumental prowess and flashy playing (there are exceptions of course). Check out bands like Explosions In The Sky, Mogwai, Russian Circles, This Will Destroy You, Red Sparowes, This Patch Of Sky, Caspian, Saxon Shore, Godspeed! You Black Emperor, Ef, Tangled Thoughts Of Leaving, If These Trees Could Talk, God Is An Astronaut, And So I Watch You From Afar, Hammock, Lowercase Noises and of course locally, I Am David Sparkle.

When I first started learning how to play the guitar, armed with only 4 to 5 basic chords, I kept playing repeated melodic patterns over and over. Now that I thought about it, it sounded a lot like Post-rock. Heh.

Anyway, am definitely checking out those bands.

And have also gained a new musical inspiration for 2012.

I might try composing a Post-rock album. Part of the learning and experimentation process.

I thought it made our home smell like a classy boutique hotel. I asked her what name she’s calling the fragrance.

“No Bed Bugs Essential Spray”, she says.

Recipe:

Reuse a 120ml spray bottle or perfume atomiser.

Fill it up slightly more than 3 quarters full with boiled water (in lieu of distilled water).

Add:

• Cedar wood essential oil x 10 drops
• Clove essential oil x 5 drops
• Lavender essential oil x 20 drops
• Rosemary essential oil x 5 drops

Shake like mad.

Red Potion
Originally uploaded by Artform Canada

BTW, you can freely copy the above. A mere listing of ingredients and procedures cannot be copyrighted. Unless the listings have “substantial literary expression-—a description, explanation, or illustration, for example-—that accompanies a recipe or formula or to a combination of recipes, as in a cookbook”. Source: U.S. Copyright office (Singapore follows U.S. Copyright law pretty closely).

Download/ stream at www.archive.org/details/2011SimplerTimes. Creative Commons license: Attribution 3.0

THE START
I got to know fellow ccMixter-ist, urmymuse, from following his uploads and finding that we share different but compatible tastes in electric guitar-based instrumentals. Early 2011, I asked if he’d like to collaborate on something. He was game enough to try.

Early on, we decided on the “Simpler Times” theme/ title. And that it would be released under a CC-BY license.

We had a general idea that it would be about carefree growing-up days, the overall process was really a lets-see-what-we-produce approach.

The album took shape as we emailed MP3 stems and refined the tracks. We abandoned one track that didn’t quite fit the theme. Eventually, we had seven.

THE FINISH
After the tracks were mixed and mastered, I invited people via Twitter and Facebook to preview the album. Two online pals (Deb and Kanako) were kind enough to volunteer.

Deb’s review was extremely encouraging (thanks, Deb!):

Hi Ivan, I like it! The tracks seem unified by a common theme / sound, which changes slightly to a more upbeat sound with the final track. I found it really relaxing to listen to and the sound quality (just listening in headphones) is superb. Thanks for letting me listen. Well done to you both. Best wishes, Deb

Actually, Kanako retweeted my preview invitation. I wasn’t sure if she would be listening to the preview. Still, I’ve learned that it never hurt to ask.

But instead of a preview per se, I asked if she could contribute a CC-BY licensed photo for the album cover. Backstory: urmymuse retrieved a few good CCY-BY-NC ones from Flickr, but I thought to get broader CC-BY licensed ones. I knew Kanako liked to take photos and I was always keen to have as many CC-collaborators on board a project.

THE LEARNING
Like all collaborative albums, I enjoyed the process of discovery and learning a lot. There’s always, always something new.

For one, it was very interesting to read the thoughts and ideas from urmymuse. As we discussed ideas for the track, he articulated fairly lengthy (but enjoyable to read) “thought-streams” of what the track meant or reminded him.

Receiving the MP3 stems from a fellow collaborator was like opening up a present in the mail. The stems carried with them the possibility of creation. I think that’s what keeps me excited.

To urmymuse, cheers man!

CREDITS:

“2011 Simpler Times” was mixed by Ivan Chew. Album cover by Ivan Chew, based on an original photo (CC-BY license) by Kanako Honma. All music and images licensed under a CC-BY license. Please credit:

• urmymuse – ccmixter.org/people/urmymuse
• Ivan Chew – MyRightBrain.wordpress.com (ramblinglibrarian@gmail.com)
• Kanako Honma – www.flickr.com/photos/kany1120/6181719694/in/photostream/

My submission for Writing the City, July 2011 theme, “Local Magic”. Submitted 31 Jul 2011.

About this piece: I started on this just one day before the deadline. Not so much for the contest but as a personal challenge. The deadline loomed. National Service, BMT, ghost story – those were the closest ideas that surfaced, to the themes of “being local”, “superstition” and “magic”.

No such thing as ghosts
July 31, 2011 By ivan chew in Competitions, Local Magic

Chan was lost.

Night exercise, Basic Military Training. Their platoon sergeant thought to bring them through a forest short-cut, back to camp. So they entered the Tekong foliage, single-file, bathed in patches of moonlight. Not long after, Chan found himself detached from the rest of his fellow recruits.

“There’s no such thing as ghosts,” Chan assured himself yet again. He had an inherent fear of the dark. It did not help that his platoon sergeant chose to share a ghost story just yesterday evening. A supposedly true camp lore. About the lingering spirit of a recruit who died in training.

Using his torchlight did not help Chan one bit. The night forest looked absolutely alien. It did not occur to Chan to shout for attention. His mind spiraled between hopes of reaching the main walking trail, and sheer terror of not knowing where he was.

He stumbled, groped, tripped, crawled, scrambled. He was scratched, poked, choked by the unfriendly jumble. His spectacles was all fogged up. His panic reached a point that his legs gave way. He sat down heavily, sobbing.

“Eh, here.”

Chan turned in the direction of the voice. “Alan? Buddy, that you?”

“Here. Here lah.”

A gush of immense relief and gratitude soaked through Chan. Although he could not see very far with his fogged up spectacles, Chan could hear his buddy’s voice quite clearly. It seemed to take Chan only a few steps to be back on the main trail. He saw his platoon mates several meters ahead.

They all made it back to camp.

While washing their boots, Chan went up to his buddy. “Alan, thanks. Lucky you came back for me. I must have been walking in circles.”

His buddy looked puzzled. “Since when did I go back for you? You sure took your bloody time though. We were the last two.”

Chan involuntarily shivered.

It suddenly dawned on him that his buddy spoke only English. The voice he heard in the forest had spoken in Mandarin. ”这里.” Here.

“Chan, you OK not? Suddenly look so shocked. Seen a ghost or what?”

Chan stared past the camp perimeter, beyond the lights. The forest remained impenetrable.

He managed a croak. “No.”

After a longer pause, he said, “No such things as ghosts. I don’t believe in them.

But I think there are guardian angels.”

They hang there, secrets suspended
Waiting to be read by the wind

They hang there, dancing slowly
Ciphers on the pages of the sky

~ Ivan Chew

Image courtesy of Guerito CC-BY-NC.

At this Infocomm123 article, their resident blogger Daniel Tsou listed me as one of the three online Creative Commons musicians he’s come across:

He calls me:

A local musician who writes great music, some of which are even used on local podcasts such as Simply Geek!

It’ll be super cool if he wrote that I’m a librarian in there, somewhere. But I’m not complaining! Just very tickled to be called a musician.

ASIDE
I couldn’t help but think about how the dots connected.

Daniel is one of the guys over at Tech65. Other than one or two emails and one Skype chat, I don’t really know him (in case any one wonders if I prodded him to be included in the article, heh).

I didn’t meet Daniel directly. It was through one of his Tech65 counterpart, Chinmay, who attended this GarageBand meetup in 2008 that I organised. Chinmay said he was recording podcast episodes for their online show.

Think it was about a year later when Chinmay emailed to let me know he was using my CC-licensed track for their podcasts. Which later led to them inviting me on episode 12 of Simply Geek. That’s when I first conversed with Daniel. Which led to the Infocomm123 article.

That’s how the dots connected.

Through music.

But a few days ago, the volume knob became loose. I could feel the entire volume control unit (beneath the pick guard; that’s the large white plate you see on the guitar body) move. Not good. And then the sounds was intermittent. Definitely not good.

I loosened the pick guard screws to access the inner workings. Several problems were apparent.

The volume control unit: After some time examining how it was bolted on (at first I thought it was glued to the pick guard from beneath), I discovered a hex nut held it in place. To access the hex nut, I pried off the plastic volume knob with a small flathead screwdriver. Then tightened the nut.

OK, one problem solved.

The other problems was less straight-forward (although to a guitar tech, they are simple problems).

Basically, the wiring and connections was broken and/ or loose. Needed to be re-soldered.

There was a soldering iron at home but I needed soldering tin. Bought some the next day. Then got to work.

Removed all the guitar strings. Loosened the pick guard screws.

Flipped the pick guard over and this was what I saw:

Took the chance to examine the pickup wirings.

The problem areas:

• Spot #1: The picture shows the volume control unit. There’s a hard wire that’s soldered to the other two tone controls. The connection was broken. Must have been due to the loose nut.
• Spot #2: Frayed and loose wirings.
• Spot #3: Loose connection to one of the soldered points of the pickup selector switch.

Here’s a closeup of the pick up selector switch:

Right after I took those pictures, I went to work. I don’t have a lot of practical experience or skill in soldering. Steady hands required, for sure. In the end, I managed to muddle through and not burn up anything.

Re-strung the guitar. Works well now.