This is where it all started. I used to be a potato couch only because my brother hogged the computer 24/7 by doing the things he used to do that were related to his assignments back in KDU PG, or games.
I ended up watching TechTV, and they had this programme that always had updates on the good or bad games. This appeared, and it only received a rating of 2/5 back then, I think.
But I managed to catch a glimpse of whatever the game could provide, and I fell in love with one acoustic song.
So, I got suckered, purchased this game, and started playing this game. It was an interesting concept, and that's when I started to know of Guitar Gods using their guitars to battle against each other through melodies in a major jamming session, or in a very long winded guitar solo sort of thing.
In this game, you're known as U-1, some legendary descendant who happens to be a saviour for another whole new alienated race, where he 'really came from' ..
So, you battle against enemies through melodies and tunes. When they attack you, you dodge their attacks in a very simple way, then you attack them back through whatever your guitar can do.
And the reason why I picked up the guitar is because that this guitar focuses mainly on the guitar, as the main character's weapon is an instrument that copies off the guitar voice.
Plus, the beauty of this song, is that it's not like Guitar Hero. In the Guitar Hero series, you know that the songs you're going to play are Rock songs. If it's not rock, it's got something to do with the guitar, and it's the typical British/American sort of rock.
But in Gitaroo Man, the composers for most of the songs, COIL, came up with really good ideas. The first stage was normal Hard Rock, second stage was Japanese Techno Pop, third stage would be one of the best - disco funk and blues, so on and so forth.
When it got to stage six, according to the story, it was the time where U-1 crash-landed on the planet he's supposed to go and save the prisoners, and he spent the night by the seaside. He sat by the beach, playing his little gitaroo (guitar) until this girl came by and sat beside him. They had a minor thing going on, and the song came in.
It was the evening, the sun was about to set, and this beautiful song just took place. It was titled The Legendary Theme:
Extremely beautiful. It didn't matter that if the storyline didn't make clear sense even if you finished it, but I realised that stories can be told through music; and not words.
Like how Bob Marley united Jamaica during its bad days, he used Music as another language to unite people. And with that, this told a story.
The whole theme just fit the song, and it just wouldn't sound right if it wasn't played at the right area.
Of course, there's the rock version for this song, but this still had the magic.
Only because of this mellow song, and not because of Jimi Hendrix, Metallica, SlipKnoT, Dream Theater or any other insane musician's band (or the guitarist's band), made me stand up, head down to the guitar shop close by my house, and started taking up lessons back in August 2002.
Ever since then, I progressed with the influences of live Penang bands, and got to a stage where I started playing Punk Rock, like the Blink 182 stuff. I halted my guitar lessons in the late 2003 because there was nothing to learn from there, as I didn't know what else to do.
And ever since then, I've been learning soloes from songs. Like Metallica's Nothing Else Matters, Enter Sandman, Master of Puppets.. Then it went to a very insane grudgy Nu-Metal band like SlipKnoT under the influence of my cousin.
Later on, I branched off to Yngwie Malmsteen. The actual guitar hero that I thought nobody would beat, until I saw guitar wizard Joe Satriani, and his student, Steve Vai.
Then came Eric Johnson, etc.
But the problem was; how did these guys come up with their melodies and ideas? Most importantly, how did they know what to play, and what notes to use?
In fact, a lot of music schools are not teaching young guitarists scales, and how to understand them. I kind of got bored of the guitar.. Nearly gave up..
.. Until I met my current/ex-guitarist, Lim Ying Kit. He played the guitar in a way that I never thought would be possible.
Ever since then, came Kelvyn Yeang. And that was in 2004. I took up lessons from Kelvyn, along with Ying Kit, for about 3 months, and progressed quite far, but could've went further if I continued my lessons.
Ever since then, the typical parents who wants you to study and be successful in an office sort of thing started complaining that I spent way too much time on the guitar compared to my studies. I have to agree on that, by the way! Especially during the most crucial year, the SPM year, my guitars were confisicated, and I had no more practice.
So, I put the guitar to a halt for quite a while.
Ever since then, it had never been the same. But I still can play averagely well. Just not as good as last time.
As I was growing up with the guitar nonsense, I was a very big fan of the PSX game in 1996 (I think), Final Fantasy 7.
The one that they remade the sequel into a movie that was released in 2005, entitled Final Fantasy 7: Advent Children that stunned the CGI-animation based movie industry.
I followed kept track with the game's soundtrack; under Nobuo Uematsu, who dealt with compositions and orchestral arrangements.
From then, I was rather interested. Not only in how the guitar works, and how electrical guitars pick up their sounds from the vibrations of the strings through magnetism to be transferred through cables and into the amplifier to be amplified, but how music really worked.
Like.. in an orchestra, there're several sections. The string sections that consists of the violins, cellos, and so on. Then the brass sections that consists anything which is gold and shiny, that you have you use your lungs to blow the dust out of it. Then there's the extreme cymbals, percussions, drums, and so on.
So, it's about coordination, how teamwork and a proper composition makes a song sounds beautiful. A harp can be used at some point of a song to play a chord, in an arpeggio, and then for it to take a lead while everybody quiets down. Like it or not, it's going to sound mellow.
Then if everybody comes in with the strings playing a certain pedal noted riff, and everybody supports them by playing sustained chords, it's going to sound big and round. And extremely aggressive.
So I realised that playing the guitar alone, is a great way to express yourself in terms of music. But if you have the chance to explore more and to describe more about yourself, you can do so by using technology, by all means, it's all about itchy fingers and a wide creative mind.
That's when I got introduced to Reason 3.0 in 2006, under Fundamental Mentalties during the Sentimentalities project that we released in 4th of November.
Let's take a breather. Too many words up there.
And not only I learnt about arrangements and all that stuff up to that point, but because of the whole Sentimentalities project, I managed to learn more about Sound Engineering through my sound engineer and friend, Wormy.
And ever since I started taking details of how a song is being recorded, mixed and all, that's ANOTHER way to tell how a song is being transcribed to .. an art?
After all, the right term for mixing is actually under Recording Arts. I admit that I can't draw even if it depended on my life, but I managed to pick up a different sort of art, and that's through mixing.
As the sound engineer, you have the full rights to turn a Jazz number sounding like a Heavy Metal song. It sounds impossible, but it's how you balance every instruments in the song. Notice how Heavy Metal or Punk songs usually sound like. The first thing you'll take note would be the noise.
The heavy noise.
What noise is that?
Simple: The loud banging drums, the distorted guitars and the vocals which usually can't be heard because the drums would drown it.
But what about something like.. But let's take .. Jazz.
We have distorted guitars from time to time, lightly distorted, and we've got drums, and vocals.
Although the vocals stands out the most this time, but the drums are being brought down to a level where it's still audible, but extremely soft. Guitars are mellow, and so on and so forth.
It's not noisy because the levels are being brought down, and all.
But the thing is, you can control it! Just that it tells a different story if you happen to be a little bit experimental.
And since then, when I recorded several self-projects or mixed beats (badly, honestly) for friends and all, I took note that everything plays a role. Coordination, volume settings, and all, that tells the story of a certain instrumental song.
And that's when I showed interest in Sound Engineering itself.
So it's from guitars, to music appreciation, composition, then to recording arts.
It's not the whole story, but that's the other side of me where everybody doesn't see and get. Now it's revealed :)
Back to assignments. aaaaah.
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