Long time no blog

Hey (:

It's been a long time since I last blogged, been doing more "productive" things with my free time. Haha, for example- studying and playing guitar. Yes, playing guitar. (: I realised that it helps me to destress quite a bit.

Haha, since I picked up my first guitar on... 8th June 2004, I've been playing guitar ever since. (: Thanks to my buddies in New Creation, especially "shi fu" Jacob, and fellow "shi xiong" Randford, we've played guitar throughout the entire church camp. (: It was fun! Haha, sleeping at 3am or so, just to listen to Jacob play guitar. I loved his rendition of "Whole New World, Alladin Original Sountrack" thus, the first song I wanted to learn was Whole New World. And yes, I managed to get the first half of the song right, and back in Singapore, I practised to the wee hours of the morning to get my technique right.

Playing the guitar, or any instrument at that, is no easy task. There are so many techniques, I can personally name you a few for the guitar. The very basic techniques include strumming, plucking, picking, which every genre of music has to explore before going more in-depth into the deeper, tougher techniques. Since I'm a rock player, a favourite of Joe Satriani and Steve Vai, I'll name you some. Pick scraping is a good one, also, we have "shredding", "tremelo picking", "ripping", "bending", and the rest of the simple ones, sliding, hammer-ons, pull-offs etc.

There's so much to learn! Both theoratically and practically. First, for example, in shredding you have to know the notes of the particular scale you are going to shred, or rip. That, my friend, is theory for you. Rock and metal players have to know their theory really well, and also their guitar neck. I bet if you go to any experienced guitarist, and you point to any note on the fretboard, he can tell you the note straight away without even sparing half a second to count.

Well, there's so much to learn. Why learn? It's a personal experience. For me, I'm deeply in love with guitars. There has not been a day since I bought my guitar that I did not think about it. That is the truth, there have been days when I did not touch it, but there has never been a single day go by where I ignored its existence.

My Yamaha PAC112J, my electric guitar. Bought as a birthday present, 14 years old. Near August, and it has been more than a year now with that baby. I love my guitars, although my classical is useless and now ready to be thrown away. I do not throw it away because I have built a huge load of me on that guitar. It is a concept hard to explain, even harder to grasp.

You break up with someone, you feel hurt and lost. Ever wonder why? This is Mr Marcus Tan CC's explanation, and probably a good and reasonable one at that.

"The reason why all of us are emotionally traumatized when someone close to us leaves us, is precisely because we have left a huge part of us in that person. For example, you grew up with your parents, and they were the ones who shaped you. Thus, a huge part of you is based on your parents and the influences they have passed down onto you. When they leave, the huge part which is made up of them is suddenly lost, and it feels empty. With that, when they leave they leave a huge gaping gap or hole inside you. This is emotional trauma."

It is as though you are built BASED on the things around you. This is an interesting thought, one that I can and will accept. And it relates to a lot of things in my life.. Well, yeah it's interesting once in a while to ponder about these kind of topics. (:

Well, this post has been boring and long enough! I guess I should talk about dumb things now, like three dumbos trying to fool about with a photo-printing machine in tampines mall popular. Haha, well that's enough nonsense for tonight! Thank you, you have been a great audience. Goodnight!