Composing Class!!!

Hi! Our third composing class will be on 29/10/2013 (Tuesday) at Foyer Lembaran. Everybody is welcome to attend. Details as follow:

Date: 29/10/2013 (Tuesday)
Time: 8.30pm - 9.30pm
Venue: Foyer Lembaran (Upstairs of Kafe Lembaran)

Please bring your pen and notebook. Comment your name here for attendance.

What To Look For When Buying Guitar

Good morning guys. You know a lot of people always ask this question. "What do i look for when i want to buy my first guitar?" Hence based on my experience and feedback from others, i would like to do a little sharing regarding this. A senior(his name is Kok Long) first shared this knowledge on this blog. I know i've read it but can't seem to find it back. So if anyone found it, feel free to include the link in the comment below.

Before buying a guitar, you need to identify which kind of style do you want to explore and indulge in. Fans of rock, blues and metal? Then go for electric guitar. Want to be a fingerstyle pro like Sungha Jung, then go for classical guitar. Or if you just want to strum your favourite pop radio songs then opt for acoustic guitar. 

Electric Guitar

Series of Gibson Custom

Electric guitar is the best instrument for you to explore endless possibilities of sound and tone in your playing.  You can choose sweet clean sound or just turn on the distortion for some loud noise that could make your neighbour angry. But if you never touch a guitar before, it's best to start off with acoustic guitar first. Learn your basic chords, strumming, scale before you move on to electric guitar. You need to have a guitar amp, guitar cables and if better some effect pedals to go with your electric guitar. With the effect pedals you can fine tune your sound with gain, overdrive, crunch, clean, volume, tone, etc etc.

Electric guitar comes in range of prices. In my opinion, the ones below 1k really gives koyak sound. So don't go for that. Rock, blues, pop go for Fender, Gibson, Epiphone. Rock, metal go for ESP, Ibanez. 

Acoustic Guitar

Taylor (with cutaway)

Takamine (without cutaway)

This is what most people look for as their first guitar. First thing you ought to do is to set your budget. Acoustic guitar can go as low as hundred plus but i really don't encourage you to buy that crap. Sounds like crap, feels like crap, in a nutshell, it is CRAP. If you're a beginner and not sure whether you're going to stick to this new found interest of yours, stick to range 300-500. Personally i have only one guitar, EVO (3 years old and counting) and the price is only 320 with bag, tuner and a strap. I got it in Gurney Evolution Music House. But as you gain more experience in playing, then you will start to hunger for better sounding guitar which comes with higher price. 

Next you need to opt for one with the output jack or without it. Guitar with output jack  costs more than the one without it but it allows you to plug in guitar cables to your guitar, out to the amplifier. This is usually for performances on the stage, but without it you can always place a microphone near the guitar sound hole and it works pretty much the same.

Next is the cutaway, which is a design that cuts the body, allowing player to comfortable reach for the high frets. You can see the difference in the above two guitars. 

Most important of all, different players have different taste towards guitar on how it should sound and feel. So take your time, go to several music shops, try as many guitars as you can, know the difference in sound and feel, then only make your decision. 

Some brands with good acoustic guitars: Taylor, Fender, Takamine, Groovy, Yamaha

Classical Guitar 

Fender Classical Guitar

3 steel strings, 3 nylon strings

A classical guitar has a full-bodied, warm and mellow sound. This is partly due to the nylon strings. Comparatively to the acoustic guitar, classical guitar is easier to play as the nylon strings are softer than the steel acoustic ones. But the classic guitar has a thicker neck hence not suitable for small hands. Classical guitar sounds best when finger style is being used. Not so nice when strummed as compared to acoustic guitar.  

Of course whether you're a right-handed or left-handed person you can still get play the guitar. Just remember to include this to the "what kind of guitar you're looking for" and tell the salesperson. Hope this enlightens you. Have a good day. Cheers. 

Drum Tab Sharing: According To You

Feel bored with those slow tempo songs that I had posted before? Then this one might just fit your taste xD

Its According To You by Orianthi, and its tempo is around 131 BPM. The fill ins are not complicated, just that it is now running at faster tempo

A great drummer should be able to play various kind of songs at various kind of speed, so remember to give a try on this one :)

Drum Tab Sharing: Ga Lao aka 掉了

Recently while zap-zap my LGM stuff and I found another "not so difficult" song, 张惠妹 aka 阿密特(Amit) mia 掉了。 I played this song 1 year ago, so I rewrite the drum tab and share to you all :)

It is not very long, just 1 full A4 page only, some of you might feel that its too simple to play, but aiya cincai la, u can increase the song u can played by 1 nia xD

So below is the drum tab, as I said, not too long, have fun :)

Drum Tab Sharing: At Least I Got You (至少还有你)

Just another drum tab for a simple song. 至少还有你 by 林忆莲. Not very hard to play, and I think you can handle it very quick :)

Enjoy~~

Drum Tab Sharing: 那些年

Hi, there will be no more drum practice session until next semester (maybe until March 2012 @@), but it doesnt mean that the learning process has to pause until tat time :) Here i present to you another popular song punya drum tab, which is,  那些年.

 The drum part for this song is far more complex compared to the previous songs like 七裏香 and Need You Now, but it's good to have a look and give a try :)

Sharing : 九把刀北大演讲——人生就是不停的战斗

Hihi, its me again, and tonight after watching the novel 那些年，我們一起追的女孩, I had searched some of the review / news bout this movie. And I found this, his talking in Beijing University. The way he talked is very interesting and maybe it may helps you when u need to stand in front, leading the audience and deliver your speech sweet and sound :) (It's a 2 hours speech, bit long but very meaningful, enjoy~)

时间：2011年11月5日 
　　 
　　　　地点：北京大学2号楼205 
　　 
　　　　主题：人生就是不停的战斗 
　　 
　　　　手打组：中财刘铮，魏文婷请尊重手打组作品，转载勿删除手打组。 
　　 
　　　　非常非常开心能够来北京大学演讲，我能表现出的最大的诚意就是，今天的演讲将是原汁原味非常忠于台湾版本的“人生就是不停的战斗”，还加了一段目前在台湾演讲一共讲了不到三次的“神的微笑”。希望我们今天晚上会有非常热血的两个小时。 
　　 
　　　　但是“人生就是不停的战斗”四个U的版本有点太过励志，而我本人是个非常不励志的人（观众笑）。所以我今天想给大家的讲的是一个很美很美的爱情故事。 
　　 
　　　　干，这个音乐可以小声点吗？不要也没有关系。（工作人员关音乐）谢谢，谢谢。因为一边演讲一边有背景音乐感觉像是个伟人（观众笑）。好像是在作那个九把刀的告别式一样（观众笑）。
　　 
　　　　这个演讲我们先从一个从小就长得非常白痴的人开始说起， 

Drum Tab Sharing: 七裏香

Yo, here I am, once again, presenting to you another drum tab, 七裏香 by Jay Chou. It is the 1st song I learnt to play, and it is interesting. And since there's a request for 七裏香's drum tab plus it is not too difficult to play, I rewrote the drum tab ( I lost my old drum tab few years back >.<), and here it is:

The original song: 七裏香 by Jay Chou

Drum Session for coming Sunday (13 Nov)

Hmm, since there are people who asked for drum session on this coming weekend, so I try to squeeze some of the time for drum class la. By the way, during this last few days of mid sem break, besides studying for tests / doing assignment / outing with friends / travel, there are still things you can do to improve your drumming skill :)
Some of them are:
1. Practice things I jotted down on the write board in Music Room
2. Practice to play "Need You Now" by referring to the tab I wrote
3. Listen songs and get the drumming feel + listen some of the fill ins in the songs
4. Go to www.youtube.com and search for drum lesson. There are plenty of good drum teaching video out there, and one of the best video uploader for beginner is ScoopDeville04. You can learn many basic things there.

Uncle Tod's Drum Lesson, Last time my reference video 

Also, due to Mayday Fever, I went and watched the movie "星空" and I found out that the theme song is interesting and easy to play too (except some left hand drag + a not so 9lat fill ins before bridge =.="). It's so glad (Glad because if you searched for English Song punya drum cover, its either the drum for the song is already quite difficult, or they add plenty of things to make them look pro >.<) that there is a guy who played drum cover for this song and it is exactly the same as the original song, so you can see how they play, easy to learn :)

星空 (Drum Cover by Dean, I duno is from school eh dean la, I know bukan EE school mia Dean nia >.<)

So, the session for this coming Sunday (13 Nov) is as follow. Same rules, book through commenting the post + 1 session 3 persons. 

Sun

Tze Hoe

1130 - 1pm

KHOR HUEY WEN
CHONG XIN ROU

Kok Choy

1 - 2.30pm

Chin Chee Leong

Chim Nyet Kian
ZiHeng

2.30 - 4.00pm

Caryn Fong

Alex Khoo

KIU SHIU GUONG

Drum Tab Sharing: Need You Now

Holiday often disturb our drum lesson in music room, but not your own room!

Here I would like to share an easy song named Need You Now. The drum beat is not difficult at all (It's just the 1st drum beat u learnt in music room). For the time being, you can just ignore those fill ins since you all haven't touch them before. Just play the beat and make sure that you can keep playing it for the whole song :)

PS: The drum tab is done by my hearing, so I do not guarantee that it is 100% correct :)

The Original Song: Need You Now by Lady Antebellum

Need You Now (1/3)

Need You Now (2/3)

Need You Now (3/3)