Lent 2020: I'm Giving Up Facebook, Instagram and Twitter

We are in the season of Lent, which is normally marked by penitence, contrition, and focusing on Christ as we contemplate His passion and death. This year, I'm going to try and give up my favorite social media apps: Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

Egad. Lord, give me strength to keep my resolve.

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Shifting from Dayre...Again

Dayre announced that it was shutting down, which led me down a road of beefing up my Tumblr to get it looking the way it does now. Then Dayre didn’t get shut down, and I was in this weird limbo phase of managing yet another blog.

Then they announced a transition in management, and now Dayre is going to be marketed as a women’s lifestyle blogging platform.

Long story short, I’m back to being on Tumblr and Blogspot.

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My Lego Sets from 1996-1998

I went back to Springside to retrieve items that Mum wanted me to sort and throw. I found my old Lego sets! These brought back wonderful memories, as the Aquanauts series were meant to be played underwater--I remember going swimming at the club with these in hand. There's a ship that appears to be some space-travelling spy series, which I also believe made some trips to the pool.

I honestly have no idea where I got the other random minifigures from, but there's a policeman and what appears to be a Frenchman in a red cap. Now they've found a permanent home on our Modular series.

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Are You Quitting Guitar? (May 2017)

A friend messaged me and asked if I was quitting guitar because of all the gear I was offloading on Carousell. Another joked that I was keeping the guitar pedal economy going by trickling down my effects onto the newer generation of 2nd-hand market buyers. On that latter point, I did realize I'm now part of the 2nd-tier of the gear life cycle; I did build my first analog pedalboard by buying 2nd-hand exclusively, and the sellers offered the same reasons--not having enough time to play with the pedals to justify keeping them, and having to fund other necessities.

Personally, I'm downsizing for both reasons. For a time, I had many TC Electronic, Joyo, and Boss pedals. I had four different amps, two amp heads and two combos. I was going direct to PA most of the time in church, where I primarily play, so why was there a need to keep so much gear? I decided to be resolute and responsible with my time and money. Having recently moved into our own apartment, Christine and I are discovering that everything costs money. If it's not in the house when you need it, you have to go out and buy it. I know, it sounds obvious when it's put that way, but we were living with my parents.

My goal is to sell off all other gear except my Mothership and Interceptor boards, as shown above. I was nearly going to sell off the Mothership, but the level of time, effort and renewed sentimentality (from using it at the recent Night of Worship) has deterred me. You can read up here as to the drama that surrounded the Disaster Area gear, and you can watch this video here as to why I needed the level of control in preset switching.

The Interceptor has all the tones I need and more--the GFI pedals have tremolo, harmony, shimmer, chorus and flange sounds, so that covers my modulation needs. I wasn't sure that I would be able to fit an entirely functional rig onto a Pedaltrain Nano, but I have!

So in short, no I'm not quitting guitar. I'm just streamlining my resources to only have what I need. A big board for the times I need the large degree of control, and a small board for most of my sessions.

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My Experience with a SingTel Customer Service Officer

If my tone comes across as "the upright, uptight customer", it's probably because there's immense frustration stemming from the recent update of the SingTel app on my phone that keeps crashing.

I don't usually update apps for fear of buggy performance. Well, the SingTel app started crashing on the old version, so I felt like I had no choice but to update to the current 6.4.1. It STILL kept crashing after updating. When it wasn't crashing, there'd be the perpetual spinning circle of doom--so I thought that if I left the app to load, it would eventually load properly.

Nope, it still refused to work. So I have left the phone and the app on to load trying to get it to work on numerous occasions. Lo and behold, I get the warning message AND the notice of data usage within a short period of time. I'm a moderate data user, clocking in 2.5GB per month (with a 3.5GB plan as buffer), so it came as a surprise when my data usage exceeded the cap this month.

I'll let the screenshots speak for themselves.

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A Major Update!

So I'm supposed to be studying but the lighting conditions are far less than ideal, so I'll take a little break to blog before moving up to my room where I have much better lights (but also much more distractions). Here's the update of my life for the past few months, so I'll be concise and share the relevant stuff.

Study, study, study!

The biggest update is that I've stopped work at AMKMC and am now a full time theological student at Trinity Theological College. I'll let some of these photos do the talking for me:

Orientation Day was packed.

My class is huge!

At the TTC chapel, where I go for chapel services, a staple part of student life.

The Hebrew Aleph-bet (alphabet), which we had to memorize on the first day.

Genesis 1:1 in Hebrew.

Church history class.

This year's CSCA lectures with Dr. Simon Chan on "Subversive Liturgy".

Random picture of Jumbo sleeping under my car while taking a break from studying.

Our visit to St. Mary of the Angels for our Field Education.

Reading my Mission and Evangelism textbook with a book stand to alleviate some of the "eyeball aches" I've been getting recently.

A view of the chapel from the back (where I'm usually now since undertaking AV responsibilities).

I've completed my first year Old Testament and Theology courses, so "by right" I should have more time to study than my fellow first year sufferers. But the truth is, I feel like I don't. I'm discovering that in order to retain information, I can't read at my usual pace. I miss out a ton of details! With Thursday mostly free and Friday all to myself, I pray that I will be able to catch up with my friends who are so well-adept at reading and writing. You can keep me in prayer for:

• Church History - I'm really quite bad at geography and remembering places!
• Hebrew 1 - 'Nuff said.
• Mission and Evangelism - A mountain of readings, and a lot of group projects. Thankfully, my group mates are amazing!
• New Testament 1 - The hardest for me so far. Our textbook isn't the friendliest and I've had to read up or watch other lectures to make sense of what the author of our textbook is trying to say.

Gigs and gear adventures

By the grace of God, I'm still able to get some vitamin M (music) in my system. My ministry "swan song" was serving on a worship team at this year's YMEFLC (Young Methodist-Evangelical Free Leaders' Conference), which I had the immense privilege of playing through a Fender Deluxe Reverb. Tonal bliss!

My amp sim became a mute switch. What a beauty of an amp!

In September, I'll be performing with some pals of mine I've come to admire and respect at Blujazz. Ivni and Wai Yee are blind musicians and are part of an annual concert at Blujazz (Ivni is a drum student at Bossworkz Music School, and yes, he is a blind drummer!) and I've had the privilege of meeting them to play on their bands for the past two years. It's a humbling experience to play alongside them because they show me that music transcends boundaries, even physical ailments.

I didn't have time to take a picture of them, but here's a shot of me rehearsing with an iRig Pro interface and using my phone as the effects processor.

Also, I think I've discovered that there is no way to achieve high gain tones through analog pedals unless you have a decent high-gain amp--which I will never own. Hence, my recent acquisition of iRig gear to play heavier stuff: and I'm mightily impressed! How I wish this technology was available to me when I was starting out! iRig equipment makes the multi-fx style of gear much more accessible for the beginner guitarist.

Soli deo gloria. Now, back to studying!

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An Overview of My YouTube Channel

If you're wondering what kind of content I produce on my channel, they're mostly lessons and play-throughs of songs. Feel free to browse my channel after looking through these playlists, and don't forget to like and subscribe!

The Electric Guitar



Covers and Tutorials



Snippets and Musical Escapades

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The Sweet Presence

I recently played for New Heart's concert in Singapore Life Church. Dr. Yenn, Dr. Ephraim, Derrick, Tai-chi, Dickson, Ngee Ping, Joshua, Kim and Judy are such amazing people to play with. I have certainly improved my sight reading by leaps and bounds since the first day I played with them, and I am indebted to Yenn for taking me in even though I was terrible at reading scores!

My personal highlight of the concert was during a song I didn't have parts to play, so I was seated and soaking in the incredible atmosphere of worship. The song was "Chen Zhang" (trans. Maturity), in which the pre-chorus has the lyrics (and I'm trying to translate to the best of my ability),

"Maybe trials are blessings in disguise,

Without which we wouldn't have the chance to mature."

Then it happened. An indescribably huge and invisible presence seemed to permeate through the walls of the concert hall and filled up the space above me. It seemed infinitely large, and what I was compared to this Being was like a drop of water facing the entirety of the ocean.

As large as this Being was, there was no fear, just a warmth swelling up from inside my heart. I knew who this Being was. It was God. It could only be God. He has appeared to me before, in the privacy of my room, in the crowded space of an MRT train, at the communion rails in church, and now, in this concert hall.

I felt God enveloping me. And every question I had inside, questions about what was I to do with life and what was I to accomplish in His name, how was He going to provide for Christine and I, how was I going to deal with the constant opposition to ministry--they drowned in this ocean of warmth and love that wrapped me. I could have hugged God right there. I wanted to burst into song and dance, I wanted to lie prostrate before Him in worship.

God was there. And I, a child, a son, a subject of the King, a servant, could not but worship Him with all of my heart in that concert hall. I felt like I had come home. I felt a sense of completion, like every fibre of my being had finally been rid of the vile proclivities to sin, and my spirit was free to be myself--I didn't have to pretend to be this "strong male leader" type, I didn't have to carry the labels of "ministry staff" or "intern" or "crazy guy who gave up a secular job". I didn't need a thousand reasons to justify every action and decision. I just was.

I couldn't see a physical form, but I felt God's smile. I couldn't hear any audible voice, but my spirit was resonating with a phrase that was planted in my heart, "You're right where I want you to be."

21 July 2013

The day God met me.


And of course, I couldn't help but take a gear photo for the night:

After all these years, I still can rely on Line 6 gear to last the night. This is in stark contrast to what happened in JB at Full Gospel Church, where we played the week after:

Do you notice how my volume pedal is going straight into the amp, bypassing my Timeline? That's because the 9V adapter that came with my Timeline died during rehearsal, and I had to play the concert without a delay pedal. Note to self: bring extra 9V adapter just in case.

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Gladwell's Rule

I'm sure you've heard of Gladwell's Rule at some point in time or another. It has become the mantra for self-help and a guide post for the hopefuls who want to excel in something, be it a hobby or a professional activity. Simply put, Gladwell's Rule says that if you want to excel in something, you have to put in an average of 10,000 hours to reach the standard of professionals. This was backed up with research conducted on budding musicians in conservatories and athletes-in-training, where the researchers tracked their practice/training routines and tried to establish a direct correlation with their eventual results.

Just for fun, I tried to estimate how much time I put into playing my guitar. My rough conservative estimate of the amount of time spent practicing, noodling and gigging are as follows:

15mins of practice per weekday

3 hours of practice over Sat/Sun (including worship prac)

2 hours of gigging per week (including serving on worship teams)

(15x5)/60+ 3 + 2 = 6.25 hours per week

I have averaged this out with the consideration that I used to put in 8-10 hour practice regimes when I was in Secondary school, and I used to gig every 2nd night at one point in my life. Now, I'm happy with not practicing the entire week, and probably clock in practice only for the purposes of playing in church, teaching guitar, serving on Sunday, and the occasional gig with YFC. Over 14 years, this gives me:

6.25x52x14 = 4550 hours

Alamak. I'm way short of Gladwell's 10,000 hour rule! Quantitatively, it looks like I have to increase my practice time, which I have resigned to admitting that it's downright impossible. Family, work and ministry commitments are just too demanding to accommodate this goal of reaching 10,000 hours.

I will take encouragement, however, that I have nearly reached the halfway mark, with mathematical proof that I'm semi-pro :P

Before some of you despair that you will never reach 10,000 hours, several scholars and psychologists have debated Gladwell's rule. They say it is inconclusive that the rule is universally applicable--mathematics students who take part in competitions and memorize the terms in irrational numbers (like Pi, for example) take only about 500 hours to become proficient at reciting numbers from memory. It is easier to be considered a prodigy at areas where the competition is significantly less (like reciting numbers).

For further reading:
Malcolm Gladwell - Outliers
Why Gladwell's Rule is Wrong

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How Would You Respond?

I chanced upon this video when browsing a fellow YouTuber's guitar lesson channel. Don't let the Grammar Nazi in you dismiss the video just because of its title--sit down and listen to it. Listen to the anger in the mother's voice. Observe how the guitarist (the subject of the verbal assault) doesn't speak a word against his mother. If you can, put yourself in the guitarist's shoes.

It is unfortunate when one doesn't have the love and support from loved ones. I've been there before, and perhaps even now, I face parental/societal disapproval of what I'm doing with my life, particularly because I devote so much time to music, the guitar, and my ministry. Music is important to me. At one point in my life, I was dreaming of world tours with the band, playing 250 nights a year, playing for sold-out concerts at iconic venues (I have dreams of playing at places like the Royal Albert Hall, Budokan, and our very own Indoor Stadium), and living for the thrill of performing.

Alas, the sad fact of life is that not every boy who dreams of becoming an astronaut becomes one. I have resigned to the fact that I will probably never play in a band that will do world tours, or cut chart-topping CD's, or get to do guitar clinics to inspire young guitarists to play with all their heart and soul. That being said, I have hope: I'd like to think that the musicians I jam with are world class!

I commend the guitarist for not retaliating against his mother. Whether or not he was inwardly spiteful is unbeknownst to us, but I think it was a good move not to speak up. It may appear to be "cowardly", but I'm very sure that silence in this case is the best way to keep things cool and under control. Hear the conviction in the mother's voice. There's no way she will be persuaded by a verbal exchange. She won't understand the value of music in the confines of her son's room. And you know what? I also think that this mother will not understand even if she saw her son performing on stage, where I believe he will be visibly passionate.

I'm in no position to speak about parenting, but I think it's not very helpful to attack your child's dreams and aspirations. I can testify that it really hurts. It shakes a person to the core. It shuts him out even more--he'll want to prove you wrong. He'll want to do it because you said he can't (if he follows his rebelliousness to the end).

How would you respond? How would you speak as a child to your unloving parent, or as a parent to your child with a supposed "useless" dream?

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Bump!

In Col 2:7, Paul exhorts the Colossians to be “overflowing with thankfulness”, which to my mind evokes the image of carrying a full cup of water and walking about. If someone were to bump into me, I would be spilling over the water from the cup. I believe this was the imagery that Paul was using, that when a Christian is bumped into, thankfulness is what overflows. Jesus taught in Luke 6:45:

“The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.”

What comes out of you when you get bumped into? Is it marked with anger, jealousy, bitterness and strife? Or can you cast that aside and labor to instead be reminded of God’s goodness, His love that has saved you? Thankfulness is not an automatic or reflex response. It is much easier to be spiteful, hateful and thankless, like a stone rolling downhill. But thankfulness needs effort and labor, like rolling a stone uphill. Let us be continually reminded (and to remind our young ones also) of the love God has for us, for in His love, our hearts cannot but respond with gratitude.

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At Wong Chiew

I was standing at the front of the counter, waiting for someone to take notice that I haven't placed my order. A server came up to me after 5 minutes.

Server: Are you here to order?

Me: Oh me? Of course not, I'm here to admire the fine art of beheading a duck.

Fret not, I didn't actually say that, but I very nearly did, especially after her condescending tone.

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In Silence

When you're here sleeping so soundly
I am compelled to maintain the silence that surrounds you
Everything is set to silent
The phones
The tablet devices
The empty distractions
Until all the remains is the hum of the air conditioner
And the distant rumble of cars

I can almost hear you breathing
And I am reminded right here and now
That although life demands I run in the fast lane
There are times and places to simply stop everything
And survey the beauty of God's creation
Through your little hands
Through your tiny heart beat
Through your lovely smile
Through you

Thank you, dear niece
For helping me in the worship of my Lord

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Youngest Student

Alexandria Tan, my niece and potential first drum student. She was quite captivated by the mechanics of the drum set (although I admit it's rather limited given that it's a DTXplorer, but it suffices), with the sound of the drums emanating from the sound system maintaining her attention for a good 10 minutes. It's good that the DTX has programmed songs that endlessly loop.

She observed how I played the kit, and tried to copy how striking the pad with a drum stick produces sound. No sense of rhythm, or a proper stick grip (actually, who am I to make such comments on technique? I'm not a drummer! LOL), but she had fun nonetheless. As you can tell from the picture, she can only play with the top pads but not the kick drum.

Dria dear, I don't mind you coming over and jamming with me; it reminds me of the universality of music, that it transcends age, and that it's not reserved to be enjoyed by an elite few. I hope to teach you the guitar someday!

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My Hotmail Makes Comments

I discovered that I still can use my old hotmail account, which I cleared out really quickly (considering it's been defunct for three years). Mark all as read, and archive to a folder just in case someone comes up to me with the "oh, didn't you get my mail two years ago?" scenario.

Then lo and behold, my inbox humorously comments:

Sarcasm? An honest admission of surprise? I shall leave it for your interpretation.

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Looking Up

Sometimes
The turns, the forks, the crossroads, the junctions
They discourage me
They wind around until I realize I'm back to where I started

Sometimes
The dead-ends I come across frustrate me
The lost resources, the wasted time in getting there
But then I see Your sky
Your beautiful sky

The sky, its vastness
It forces me to look up
To lift my eyes from the ground
From this beaten path that so beckons me on

Maybe it's not You who intends that I wander or stray
But it's You who lets me fall
Just so that I will come to my senses
And realize

That while I have to focus my eyes on the path before me
My eyes occasionally have to focus on the home above me

Where You are
Watching over me
Cheering me on
Guiding me
Waiting for me

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Snippets

Every weekend is a great time of serving, gigging, fellowshipping, and just living in general. Oh to treasure these days.

Friday: Christmas Under The Stars, Poly Ministry

Saturday: Shema live at Olive Vine

Sunday: Playing at service feels like "Don't Forget The Solo"

"You can either keep Jesus and lose the sin, or keep the sin and lose Jesus."

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The Evolution

13 years ago, I was in a class that wasn't working out well for me. I was practicing the same song for 4 months, and I threw the towel in, seeking to learn the guitar myself. This did not bode well in the ensuing months. None of the tab stuff made sense to me, my fingers were too chunky to be making those "insanely fast chord changes", and my calluses hadn't formed. I still remember telling myself that the guitar just wasn't my instrument.

Napster, fellow classmates and church mates introduced me to a whole new world of sonic pandemonium: Blink 182, Greenday and X Japan. Suddenly, the guitar was just so alive with distortion. A renewed resolve got me buying a cheap Yamaha strat copy and a 10W practice amp. Power chords made sense. Tabs made sense. As my basics improved, so did my ear (I wasn't big on transcribing, so I learnt everything by ear), and before I knew it, I was working out every MP3 to prepare for mindless noise-making at the jam studios, and every radio song to impress the opposite gender. I was so dichotomous. My fellow punk/metalheads knew me as the noise maker, the "down-stroke king", and the anti-pop. My female friends knew me as the serenader, the guy who was "in touch" with the emotional songs.

A few years later, with Dream Theater and Joe Satriani changing my musical world once more, I was convinced I could be one of the fastest shredders. I practiced every single day, sometimes clocking 6 hours at a go, and sometimes during the holidays, I managed 10-hour routines.

I happened to listen to my old recordings with my previous bands and projects. I became a shredder, launching a sonic barrage of 16th notes at 200bpm. I loved distortion, cranking the amp to eleven and keeping the guitar's volume and tone at max. I copied riffs, licks and solos from John Petrucci, Paul Gilbert, Joe Satriani, and pasted them into any and every musical situation, even if it didn't fit into the context. It didn't matter what amp or guitar or pedal I used; they were tools to connect my fingers to the guitar, and to connect my music to the crowd.

Those were fun days, but I was blissfully unaware of how to serve the needs of the song and the crowd. Everything was about how I wanted to sound like, enforcing my tone onto listeners in the name of my personal creative expression. It took me a long time to realize that the band doesn't revolve around me. I had to get my head around the fact that the listener was trying to make sense of the band as a whole, not just the guitarist.

Serving at Youth For Christ was a fairly recent milestone in my life, but it undid all the bad habits intrinsic to my self-indulgent electric guitarist ways. I began to enjoy interacting with the rest of the band, listening out to what each band member had to say, and reacting to it in turn. Victor Wooten said that performing music is a lot like having a conversation; everyone can't be talking at once, otherwise the message gets garbled, so everyone's got to take turns.

Scaling down, pulling back, letting others take the spotlight--these were concepts I came to integrate into my musical identity, which evolved from the "fastest-slinger" to the sideman, and from the show-off to the supporter.

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