Lion and the Lamb (Bethel) - Guitar Playthru and Tutorial

This isn't another lead guitar cover. Here's a suggested lead and rhythm guitar arrangement for Bethel's "Lion and the Lamb", which I've come up with catering to the following scenarios:

1. Your band doesn't have a keyboardist but you need to recreate the synth pulse.
2. Your band doesn't have the expensive Strymon stuff to pull off the big, spacey-sounding lead tones.

With two electrics, you'll be able to cover enough tonal ground, and with the right arrangement, they'll complement each other to form a big sound.

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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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How Great is Our God (Guitar Solo)

I was very refreshed to learn a Hebrew version of the song "How Great is Our God" recorded by Joshua Aaron. Right in the middle of it, there's a powerful, declarative guitar solo that spoke so much to me. Call me crazy, but the musician in me worships with solos! I decided to learn it and incorporate it whenever I get called to play this song. Be sure to check your pitch with those whole step bends!

For viewing Joshua Aaron's full song:

P.S.
This short recording was done with a whole new workflow, completely cutting out any Windows editing, and relying on Amplitube for recording the audio, and iMovie for editing the video with subtitles. I think I'm getting the hang of it!

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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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Brunch and Lunch at Curious Palette

Nestled in a row of shophouses opposite Paradiz Centre, Curious Palette caught our attention for a variety of reasons: they had a Scotched Egg dish, their fries were truffled sweet potato, they had a soft-shell crab burger, and their hotcakes were so big that it has been purportedly substituted a main course for a food blogger. We just had to try them out!

Here's their menu as of 10 May 2017:

Corned beef scotched egg. The slaw had too much garlic, in my opinion.

Crab cake on English muffin

My piccolo late, which was nice and strong.

Wife's mocha, which had a nice balance of chocolate, milk and coffee.

Another view of the crab cake. That's a chorizo pate on the side.

The Croque Madam, which has a great cheese filling that goes well with the nice ham!

Soft-shell crab burger.

There's a nice selection of dessert cakes that you can order off the shelf.

Salted egg yolk chicken wings.

Their hotcake that takes 30 minutes to prepare. We thought it was ok.

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Benign Trivialities

Call it what you will--1st world problems, benign trivialities, minor irritations--but they are still anger-inducing and cause great distress. My car got reared into by a Malaysian cab driver when I took my in-laws to JB. I experienced terrible customer service from an electronics store that gave me wrong labels for free gifts and wouldn't pick up my calls, and I couldn't do anything at the redemption center, which was a 20-minute drive away from home. I have numerous defects in my new home that require laborers to come in and rectify.

And of course, with a new home, comes all the relevant paper work to keep the machine running. Bills, taxes, groceries, insurance, conservancy charges keep coming at me. Unpaid (and yet unclaimed) expenses from the renovation come back to haunt me.

"This is nothing, you're being soft."

This, and a night of worship coming up on Saturday, with no time to practice because I have papers to submit, which I have no time to write because I'm handling all this nonsense. And the noise from renovation in the units that surround mine.

I happened to glance at an Instagram feed of an "internet guitar star". Yes, power chords and sloppy lead guitar playing can get you multiple endorsements, a towering 3-storey house, a wife and 3 kids.

Lord, this is so unfair.

At least, that's what my heart is crying out. But I know that for every trivial rant I put up here, there are a thousand legitimate problems people go through that are unnoticed, and they're genuinely struggling. Yes, I know. It's unfair that I get to rant about "1st-world problems".

Lord, help calm my anger with the Holy Spirit's presence. Transform my anger into thanksgiving and praise.

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