A piano/ slow rock version of this earlier song:

HAVE I TOLD YOU LATELY - II

Listen/ download at ARCHIVE.ORG

This work by Ivan Chew and Firdaus is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License. For permissions beyond the scope of this license , please contact via RamblingLibrarian@gmail.com.

How the song came about
At the last songcraft meetup, before the session started, Jerron played the chords of the song on the piano. It sounded like a slow rock version, so I was inspired to come up with this version II.

The drum, piano, orchestral strings, and bass tracks were MIDI recordings (there are multiple tracks partly because I played the left-hand and right-hand piano pieces separately, since I can’t play the piano that well — also, I had to boost the piano track by duplicating them).

I recorded five separate vocal tracks, with three parts sung in harmony. This was to make up for my poor vocal talents. When combined, the vocals sound much nicer than what I can sing “live”.

I’ve not uploaded the “minus-one” track for this version. If anyone wants a go at it, email me.

Enjoy!

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Somehow I’ve forgotten to post this here (I blogged it at Starfish Stories :: The Band, but forgot to feature it here).

It’s a remix of “Walking On Air” composed in 2007.

“Walking On Air 2008, with Friends from Songcraft”

Details at the Starfish Stories band blog.

A rock song, reminiscent of ’80s rock. At least that’s what I’ve tried to achieve here.

HAVE I TOLD YOU LATELY (SWEET DREAMS)

Listen/ download at ARCHIVE.ORG

How this song came about
It started when Firdaus emailed to the Songcrafters a set of lyrics he wrote. A lullaby, titled “Sweet Dreams”. Said he hasn’t got a melody or chords and invited members to make a song out of it.

It so happened that the previous day, I was trying to come up with a song using the chords Am/ C/ Dm. No lyrics yet, other than mumblings of some lines.

When I hummed Firdaus’ lyrics to the chords, they sounded perfect to my ears. I only needed to tweak two or three lines here and there.

As I worked on the song, it sounded like it needed a heavy metal sound. I managed to create that Overdrive/ Distortion effect using a customised guitar effect setting:

The drums, bass and electric guitar lead are MIDI while the rest are “live” instruments.

I revisited my aging Def Leppard collection to get the drum sound I wanted (see if you can hear the double bass sound there).

For the singing part, I recorded my vocals and converted it using the GarageBand “Male to Female vocals” effect. Heh, Firdaus said it sounded like Fann Wong Faye Wong. Who am I to argue?

Anyway, I discovered that for this song, a female voice added that required “mysterious/ ethereal” feel that I wanted. If any ladies out there want to help me sing this song, the Minus One can be downloaded here.

OK, thanks Firdaus, for inspiring me to do this song.

Lyrics here:
[Verse 1] Am/ C/ Dm/ Am
It’s been a long day
Time to put those toys away
I’ll read you a story
Before you sleep tonight

Don’t be scared now
There are no monsters here
I’m here beside you
I will always be near

[Chorus] C/ G/ Em/ F
Have I told you lately
That you’re so beautiful?

You’re a gift from heaven
You’re one in a million

Have I told you lately
That you’re so beautiful?

You’re a gift from heaven
A dream come true

[Verse 2]
Sleep well little darling
I’ll see you in the morning
Adventure awaits
A brand new day!

We will fly in the sky
Fight pirates who have one eye
Sweet dreams…
Sweet dreams…

[Repeat Chorus]

[Outro] Dm/ C/ A/ A d(Em)
So darling close your eyes
Dream of vanilla skies
And as I close the door

[Repeat Chorus]

~ Ivan Chew

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This is the sung version to these lyrics:

Recorded and mixed with GarageBand.

IF YOU WERE A DANCE

This is the Minus-One version. Feel free to record your version (creative commons license applies):
IF YOU WERE A DANCE (MINUS ONE)

Chords:
C/ Em
D/ C
[chorus: G/ Em/ D/ C]
[Bridge: A/ Em/ C/ Em]

If You Were A Dance
============

I know your face
From the visions in my dreams
I know your smile
From the memories in between

If you were a star
I’d be the fleeting wind

I know your touch
My worries melt away
I know your laugh
They’re clear and bright as day

If you were a stream
I’d be a flowing dream

I’m the silent wall
And through it all
I’ll never let you fall

[Chorus]
If you were a dance
I’d be your song
And we would carry on
Into the dawn

I know your face
From the visions in my dreams
I know your smile
From the memories in between

If you were a star
I’d be the fleeting wind
(I’d be the fleeting wind)

I’m the silent wall
(I would be the silent wall)

And through it all
(I would be a flowing dream)

I’ll never let you fall
(I would never let you fall)

[Repeat chorus]

[Bridge]
We’ll keep on dreaming
We’ll keep on dancing
We’ll keep on loving
We’ll keep in living

[Repeat chorus]

~ Ivan Chew. May 2008.

This work by Ivan Chew is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License. For permissions beyond the scope of this license , please contact via RamblingLibrarian@gmail.com.

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We had this for dinner.

An entire loaf.

Between the two of us.

Soft, fresh homemade bread has that effect on us.

My wife’s recent “obsession” with homemade bread. But I’m not complaining!

Seems that our mutual friend, O-leaf, is also on a breadmaking spree. She sent us a few YouTube links, like this one:

Lyrics that I wrote for a song. Posting it to see how it looks as a poem.

“To my wife. Thanks for the bread :)”

If You Were A Dance
============

I know your face
From the visions in my dreams
I know your smile
From the memories in between

If you were a star
Then I’m I’d be the fleeting wind

I know your touch
My worries melt away
I know your laugh
They’re clear and bright as day

If you were a stream
Then I’m I’d be a floating dream

I’m the silent wall
And through it all
I’ll never let you fall

If you were a Dance
I’ll I’d be your song
And we will would carry on
Into the Dawn

~ Ivan Chew
6 June 2008

[Updated, 7 June 08: Corrected the inconsistent tenses. Thanks to M.F. for the pointers!]

Inspired by a chat with Linda Ong, from Lunarin. This one’s for you, Linda O.

STILL STANDING
==========
Being cut
Up

Did me a lot of good.

When you
Saw me in the hospital later

Your first words were:

I have never seen
You so calm.

And you
Were right, you know?

I was calmer
And better

The scars were almost
Faded like a lost song

What’s important is that
Here
I am

A little thinner
But still standing.

~ Ivan Chew, 28 May 2008

Lonely Tree
Originally uploaded by fitaloon

This shall be my signature song for 2008:

ONE WORLD

The cool thing was that my young friend from Songcraft, Firdaus, did a mashup by splicing two versions of “One World” that I posted, and adding his vocals to produce this song:

ONE WORLD (Firdaus on Vocals)

Details are at this post, and this one.

Mundo Uno - One World
Originally uploaded by deVos

One World.

A collaborative piece with Firdaus.

SUMMER DAYS, WINTER NIGHTS 1.2

When I heard the original (with vocals) that Firdaus posted at his blog, I liked it immediately because it reminded me of what Carlos Santana might play. I commented that his song sounded like “Santana meets Oasis”!

I asked if he could email me a ‘Minus-One’ version, as I wanted to experiment with a rock guitar lead version. He emailed me a MP3 file during the week. I downloaded it and managed to work on it on Friday night.

Thanks for sharing, Firdaus!

Basically I added several “live” guitar leads and two “live” bass tracks. I cut about a minute from the original; I tend to keep my songs to about 3-and-a-half minutes. The most challenging part was keeping time with Firdaus’ original.

There were at least two segments where his guitar strumming didn’t quite keep in time with his drum beats. After a few hours of “close-quarters” editing and experimenting, I decided to replace an entire segment (starting from the 33rd measure) with a GarageBand drum loop. At the 50th measure, I didn’t replace his original segment but lowered the volume of his original track and raised the volume for the drum loops. Luckily, Firdaus used the standard 120 bps setting, so I was able to incorporate the GB drum loops into the song perfectly.

I think I spent about 18 to 20 hours before I was happy with the final version.

I used three custom guitar effects settings:

Bass effects:

This work by Ivan Chew is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License. For permissions beyond the scope of this license , please contact via RamblingLibrarian@gmail.com.

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Bought a Bass Guitar today. A Stagg “B300-BK“.

Standard “J” electric bass guitar - Pickups: 2 x JB - Controls: 2 x Volume + 1 x Tone - Body: solid Alder - Pickguard: White (BK/BL/SB) or Tortoiseshell (N/NS) - Neck: Hard Maple, bolt-on, 867 mm, (34.2 in.) - Fingerboard: Rosewood, 20 frets - Bridge: “JB” Classic - Machine heads: Standard “P”, nickel - Colour: Black.

Bought it from Zen Guitarwerks (they’re located at the basement of Peninsula Shopping Complex, at Coleman Street) for $310, including a $20 guitar bag.

Discussed with my wife if I should buy the bass guitar. Did a mental check so that I was sure I’d be using it and not buying it on a whim.

Didn’t really shop around to see if there were better deals. My budget was $500 or less. If the instrument was within my budget AND gave me the right feel, I was prepared to buy it there and then.

So I dropped by Peninsular Shopping Complex (which, in the last decade, has quietly become the guitar player shopping mecca in Singapore).

Zen Guitarwerks was the second shop I went into (the price range of the bass guitars at the first shop were beyond my budget). It’s a relatively tiny shop, and I’d almost missed it had my wife not pointed it out.

Within minutes of my scanning the price tags at the bass guitar section, the young girl manning the shop asked if I needed help. Her demeanor was friendly, and she seemed knowledgeable about the stuff in the shop.

Tried about four bass guitars from different price ranges. The one I bought was the lowest priced in the store, but somehow the feel and tone was nicer than the higher priced ones that I tested.

Final test was to tune the bass guitar, check the action for buzzing (none that I could tell), last intuitive feel of the weight and fret play.

I’ve reached a point where the sound generated from MIDI just isn’t good enough. Plus, I’m interested in learning more instruments. Admittedly, I was also encouraged after watching videos like these (now how’s that as an example of YouTube indirectly influencing a purchase decision?).

Technical skills-wise, I’m still going to focus on the guitar. But I decided to buy a bass guitar to try out some musical ideas I have in mind. I don’t expect it to drastically change my compositions but will see how it goes.

Will check out some online resources and books from the public libraries.

Nice to be trying out something new.