Limpeh's luck has turned. My account was heavily in the red when I quit betting a few weeks ago. Lately, though, I think the results have been more predictable.
You see, one of my principles has been: do not bet in the first half of the season. This was something that I broke many time and I ended up losing money because a lot of upsets take place in the season: weaker teams are very enthusiastic, and stronger teams have yet to find their best form. However towards the end of the season, it's the stronger teams which find their best form, either because their best players are the ones with the strongest characters, or because, having rotated their squad, their players are still fresh, compared to other teams who have had to play their best 11, week in week out.
The other reason why betting nearer the end of the season is best is that you would already have assessed each team's strengths and weaknesses over the course of the season.
So this time, I bought Everton to play well against Hull. Normally Everton is not a strong enough team to be considered more or less certain of winning. But it's a tired and demoralised Hull we're talking about. Ditto Burnley. They are the whipping boys now. I would have bet on Arsenal to beat them, but the odds were too low (1.07) so I didn't punt. Portsmouth is not a whipping boy, because a lot of their players have underperformed at the start of the season, and because they have a good manager. I also bought Aston Villa to beat Reading, because this was a Premiership vs League Championship FA cup tie. However I've had to endure some very nervous moments because Reading was leading 2-0 at one stage, before it ended 2-4.
Chelsea to beat Stoke. I guess I was lucky. This could have been dangerous because we know that John Terry is not at his best. But Stoke are away and therefore not at their best either.
So all 3 of my predictions came to pass. Good for me. I hope that my luck will continue.
Monday, 8 March 2010
Saturday, 6 March 2010
Cock ups
1. The old folks asked me to pump tyres. No problem about that. It was getting flat for a while, and I really didn’t mind learning about these things. So I went down to the petrol kiosk to pump the tyres. I didn’t know what the correct pressure was. I had just come back from sending my grandmother to the eye doctor. There was 1 old woman sitting in the passenger’s seat, 1 maid sitting at the back, in the sweltering heat, 1 guy clowning around with the air pump.
I read the tyre, and it said that the maximum possible pressure was 54 psi. I thought that was much. But the guy before me put in only 30 psi. Was that the standard for cars? In the end, I compromised and I put in 40 psi for all 4 tyres.
So I asked my parents what the correct pressure was. Asked them why they didn’t tell me what it was when they asked me to pump the tyres. My father said, “you got to be more independent in life”. I thought that was pretty rich coming from a person so reliant on me to get his power point slides done.
They said, look at the sticker behind the car door. So I did. Unfortunately I found out that the numbers were in bars, not in psi. I told my mother that I had pumped in 40 psi. She said, that’s too much. You should have followed the sticker, and put in 27 psi for the front and 33 psi for the back. I thought, that doesn’t really correspond with 2.7 bars and 3.3 bars, does it? Anyway, she went to the kiosk and let some air out.
Later on, I went on the web and checked. 2.7 bars is 39.2 psi. 3.3 bars is 47.8 psi. My initial estimate was not far off the mark. (Actually I will put in 39 psi for both front and back because the back is hardly laden.) Luckily we have somebody in the family who’s mathematically literate. Now I have to go back there and pump in more air again.
2. There was another cock up in the family. My aunts bought 2 ducks for CNY. Then my grandmother, who is blind and incapacitated, kept on nagging my father to buy ducks. So he bought another 2. The result now is that we have 2 ducks we don’t need. So if anybody wants a spare duck let me know.
3. There was once I went shopping in IKEA with honest face and a few others. We were each getting a gift for the department gift exchange. There were a few $10 items, and I saw a CD rack that could be mounted on a wall. I thought, great, just what I need. So he agreed to buy it and I would take that during the gift exchange.
After the Christmas party, when I got home, I opened it and found that there wasn’t anything there to mount it on the wall with. Basically you had to drill a few holes in the wall, and then screw the thing on. It was a lot of trouble. So that’s why the thing was lying around doing nothing for the last 2 years.
Finally, I decided to do something about it. I borrowed a power drill from my uncle, and then tried to mount it. It was a sweltering afternoon, and my shirt was already soaked with sweat before I began. In the end I had to shut the door and work without my shirt. It wasn’t difficult knowing how to work the power drill, but the first 10 minutes were extremely difficult, until I found out the function on top of the drill: I had been operating it in screwdriver mode, not drill mode.
But even with the bit in drill mode, getting through the plaster proved to be extremely difficult. In the first place, getting the hole where I wanted it to be was difficult enough. The pencil markings turned out to be a little ambiguous after a while, and I kept on constantly having to bring up the rack to measure against the wall. It was difficult to keep on drilling, and the noise was terrible. I tried using smaller bits to drive the hole in deeper, and then using a larger bit to expand the hole. After a certain point, I wasn’t sure that I was making any headway. And the worst thing was that I was working on 3 different holes at the same time.
1 hour later, I decided that I wasn’t going to be able to drill deep enough to get a hole as deep as the plug. I decided to give up. Moreover the holes didn’t look as though they were the right shape to support the plugs.
Later on, I decided that enough was enough. After 3 ugly holes 2 cm deep. And not quite regular enough to support the plugs. I turned to my second choice of location to put the CD rack: my bed post. Drilling the holes through wood was comparatively a wonderful experience, and within 15 mins, I was done. I went to the HDB estate to buy some nuts and bolts, mounted the rack, and suddenly 75 of my CDs found a new home. So that was nice.
I read the tyre, and it said that the maximum possible pressure was 54 psi. I thought that was much. But the guy before me put in only 30 psi. Was that the standard for cars? In the end, I compromised and I put in 40 psi for all 4 tyres.
So I asked my parents what the correct pressure was. Asked them why they didn’t tell me what it was when they asked me to pump the tyres. My father said, “you got to be more independent in life”. I thought that was pretty rich coming from a person so reliant on me to get his power point slides done.
They said, look at the sticker behind the car door. So I did. Unfortunately I found out that the numbers were in bars, not in psi. I told my mother that I had pumped in 40 psi. She said, that’s too much. You should have followed the sticker, and put in 27 psi for the front and 33 psi for the back. I thought, that doesn’t really correspond with 2.7 bars and 3.3 bars, does it? Anyway, she went to the kiosk and let some air out.
Later on, I went on the web and checked. 2.7 bars is 39.2 psi. 3.3 bars is 47.8 psi. My initial estimate was not far off the mark. (Actually I will put in 39 psi for both front and back because the back is hardly laden.) Luckily we have somebody in the family who’s mathematically literate. Now I have to go back there and pump in more air again.
2. There was another cock up in the family. My aunts bought 2 ducks for CNY. Then my grandmother, who is blind and incapacitated, kept on nagging my father to buy ducks. So he bought another 2. The result now is that we have 2 ducks we don’t need. So if anybody wants a spare duck let me know.
3. There was once I went shopping in IKEA with honest face and a few others. We were each getting a gift for the department gift exchange. There were a few $10 items, and I saw a CD rack that could be mounted on a wall. I thought, great, just what I need. So he agreed to buy it and I would take that during the gift exchange.
After the Christmas party, when I got home, I opened it and found that there wasn’t anything there to mount it on the wall with. Basically you had to drill a few holes in the wall, and then screw the thing on. It was a lot of trouble. So that’s why the thing was lying around doing nothing for the last 2 years.
Finally, I decided to do something about it. I borrowed a power drill from my uncle, and then tried to mount it. It was a sweltering afternoon, and my shirt was already soaked with sweat before I began. In the end I had to shut the door and work without my shirt. It wasn’t difficult knowing how to work the power drill, but the first 10 minutes were extremely difficult, until I found out the function on top of the drill: I had been operating it in screwdriver mode, not drill mode.
But even with the bit in drill mode, getting through the plaster proved to be extremely difficult. In the first place, getting the hole where I wanted it to be was difficult enough. The pencil markings turned out to be a little ambiguous after a while, and I kept on constantly having to bring up the rack to measure against the wall. It was difficult to keep on drilling, and the noise was terrible. I tried using smaller bits to drive the hole in deeper, and then using a larger bit to expand the hole. After a certain point, I wasn’t sure that I was making any headway. And the worst thing was that I was working on 3 different holes at the same time.
1 hour later, I decided that I wasn’t going to be able to drill deep enough to get a hole as deep as the plug. I decided to give up. Moreover the holes didn’t look as though they were the right shape to support the plugs.
Later on, I decided that enough was enough. After 3 ugly holes 2 cm deep. And not quite regular enough to support the plugs. I turned to my second choice of location to put the CD rack: my bed post. Drilling the holes through wood was comparatively a wonderful experience, and within 15 mins, I was done. I went to the HDB estate to buy some nuts and bolts, mounted the rack, and suddenly 75 of my CDs found a new home. So that was nice.
Sunday, 28 February 2010
Humpback Oak
A few weeks ago I heard that Humpback Oak were releasing a limited edition boxed set. That was interesting.
Humpback Oak was one of Singapore’s best loved bands. They came up at a time when Singapore did not have much of a local music scene to talk of. (Actually things are a little better now but still not much. Not in English pop anyway.) There were other bands that were being bandied around like the Oddfellows. I had heard of Opposition Party, but they were metal and I didn’t dig metal.
I had heard of Humpback Oak. It was an interesting name, but they were a lot of bands with strange names. (Astreal? Livonia? Padres?) They were bandied around as one of the best Singapore bands. But it’s relative, I thought. Anything half decent would be considered excellent by our standards.
One day when I was in Tower Records (still remember that place?) I heard “Pained Stained Morning” being played. It was good stuff and I liked it. I’m not going to say they are the best band in the world, but it was streets ahead of what I was accustomed to. Funnily enough once I heard it I knew it had to be Humpback Oak, because of the accent, and because the music matched how it was described in the press. Somber, brooding, haunting. The last adjective is most salient because their second album would be called “Ghostfather”.
I got the album afterwards. I liked it, it was good. Musically they are really not very impressive, but Leslie Low was a good songwriter. I was a little startled at how many good tunes there were on that record.
Second album, “Ghostfather” was equally good. Even though it had fewer obvious pop gems than “Pained Stained Morning”, it was a more unified album, dealing with loss, restlessness and anomie. It’s probably one of the gloomiest albums that I’ve heard, in any case.
I don’t know why Leslie Low picked the name Humpback Oak. They are large, heavy objects. Probably archaic as well. I think Humpback Oak’s music is very Singaporean, rooted in the Singaporean experience. They may have been compared to American Music Club and REM, they may have started out playing a lot of Bob Dylan. But there was the heaviness, the feeling of being constantly trapped in a comfortable cage, of being a frog in a well. It’s not a surprise that they were on the soundtrack of Eric Khoo’s “12 Storeys”, which deals with similar themes. They are distinctly un-American. Their music is whatever the opposite of “yes we can” is.
Except that in the sense that your polar opposite is your own mirror, there was a lot to borrow from those American bands which chose to highlight the emptiness and futility of the American dream. You could borrow that, and it would sound right at home over here, and I think that is what Humpback Oak have done.
Lyrics, I wouldn’t have much to say about the lyrics. I think they are Leslie Low’s weak point, even though you still roughly get what his music is all about. Every Humpback Oak album has their fair share of clunkers, like “don’t die, don’t kill yourself, it takes too much time”. Or “Turkey you turkey me”.
But there’s a lot that Singaporeans can identify with. Like not having an identity, and not fully knowing what is the meaning of that flag you sing the national anthem to every morning. Like being alienated from your parents who knew so much more hardship than you did. Like the eerie emptiness of a void deck in the afternoon. Like staring 20 storeys down from the back of your HDB flat, feeling smothered and yearning for release. Because unlike most of the bands out there, Humpback Oak lives in HDB flats too. (Caveat: a lot of black music from the UK comes from council housing, which is rather similar to our HDB, except that their version of the HDB is more seedy.)
The third album, “SideASideB” wasn’t as good as the first 2. But if I listened to it, I could have 1 or 2 of those songs growing on me.
Anyway I made my way to Club Street with a bit of trepidation – I was on ICT and I was expecting a recall on that day. So I had to drive my van and all that army stuff down to my office, park it there, and take a bus to Club Street amid all that messy MRT construction.
I should go back a few steps to explain: Humpback Oak were releasing a boxed set of all their works, containing their 3 CDs, as well as a 4th CD, containing some rarities and (this is the most interesting part) MP3s of all their cassette demos that they used to hawk in indie music shops from when they were struggling musicians. They were going to sell the boxed set exclusively on Saturday and Sunday from 1 to 5 pm, at Polymath & Crust / Books Actually.
So when I got there the queue was snaking down to the first floor. It was a little past 1. The queue went all the way up to the 3rd floor. I bumped into the drummer from the second band. I bumped into Siew Kum Hong. So now you know that the NMP who advocated repealing 377A is also a Humpback Oak fan.
When it was my turn, I wondered whether I should buy 1 or 2. I bought 2, cynically thinking that I could probably sell the second one at an extortionate rate in 5 years’ time, especially since it was autographed by all 4 of them.
So there was this table with Leslie Low and 3 others. They looked like they have aged, they’re no longer the skinny indie kids you saw in the publicity photos. They look bulky and middle aged. I didn’t know which of them was who. I know what Leslie looked like, but today he was different, wearing a goatee and a moustache, and looking like that mask people wore in “V for Vendetta”.
Very hastily I mentioned to one of them that I was thinking of covering one of their songs. Which one? “Home”. Hey Leslie, this guy wants to cover our song. “Really? That’s interesting”, said Leslie. Well just send us a copy when you’re done with it, OK? So, great. Now I owe Humpback Oak a cover version of “Home”.
It’s true, though, that I thought I was going to radically re-invent that song into something trip hop and drum + bass. But I’m a long long way from completing it. I’m even a long long way from figuring out how to do drum + bass. I hear it in my head, though, and surely that counts for something.
Anyway, so I’m the new proud owner of Oaksongs, serial numbers 58 and 59 out of 500. I dunno if they’ve sold out by now. Maybe and maybe not. The obvious first thing is that they have spent a great amount of effort on the packaging. I think it was designed by one of the more famous designers in Singapore. The outside is designed to look like a worn cardboard box. A bit tricky when the cardboard is new. When you open it, it looks like a house inside, an indie slacker’s room with all those concert posters and stuff. There’s a little cardboard bed, which is actually a small box containing teeny weeny booklets with all their lyrics.
Leslie Low went through a lot of trouble making digital photographs of his lyric sheets. (Which I think is strange because lyrics is the one aspect of Humpback Oak that I’m not a fan of.) But you can see some of his old songs scribbled on SJI stationery (all 4 met at and were from SJI). In one of the lyrics, you can see his 6th form poetry and his “O” levels schedule side by side.
I also have to comprang about the CD packaging. The CDs are wrapped up in paper that is origami folded. Obviously not meant for heavy usage. I had to dig out some plastic jewel boxes to put the CDs into.
Otherwise, you can imagine, I was proud of my newest purchase. Now to list my old Humpback Oak albums on eBay and get my $60 back.
As for the recall, you can see from the news: some ppl from the Police and from Civil Defence got recalled, but not the SAF. So I didn't get recalled.
Humpback Oak was one of Singapore’s best loved bands. They came up at a time when Singapore did not have much of a local music scene to talk of. (Actually things are a little better now but still not much. Not in English pop anyway.) There were other bands that were being bandied around like the Oddfellows. I had heard of Opposition Party, but they were metal and I didn’t dig metal.
I had heard of Humpback Oak. It was an interesting name, but they were a lot of bands with strange names. (Astreal? Livonia? Padres?) They were bandied around as one of the best Singapore bands. But it’s relative, I thought. Anything half decent would be considered excellent by our standards.
One day when I was in Tower Records (still remember that place?) I heard “Pained Stained Morning” being played. It was good stuff and I liked it. I’m not going to say they are the best band in the world, but it was streets ahead of what I was accustomed to. Funnily enough once I heard it I knew it had to be Humpback Oak, because of the accent, and because the music matched how it was described in the press. Somber, brooding, haunting. The last adjective is most salient because their second album would be called “Ghostfather”.
I got the album afterwards. I liked it, it was good. Musically they are really not very impressive, but Leslie Low was a good songwriter. I was a little startled at how many good tunes there were on that record.
Second album, “Ghostfather” was equally good. Even though it had fewer obvious pop gems than “Pained Stained Morning”, it was a more unified album, dealing with loss, restlessness and anomie. It’s probably one of the gloomiest albums that I’ve heard, in any case.
I don’t know why Leslie Low picked the name Humpback Oak. They are large, heavy objects. Probably archaic as well. I think Humpback Oak’s music is very Singaporean, rooted in the Singaporean experience. They may have been compared to American Music Club and REM, they may have started out playing a lot of Bob Dylan. But there was the heaviness, the feeling of being constantly trapped in a comfortable cage, of being a frog in a well. It’s not a surprise that they were on the soundtrack of Eric Khoo’s “12 Storeys”, which deals with similar themes. They are distinctly un-American. Their music is whatever the opposite of “yes we can” is.
Except that in the sense that your polar opposite is your own mirror, there was a lot to borrow from those American bands which chose to highlight the emptiness and futility of the American dream. You could borrow that, and it would sound right at home over here, and I think that is what Humpback Oak have done.
Lyrics, I wouldn’t have much to say about the lyrics. I think they are Leslie Low’s weak point, even though you still roughly get what his music is all about. Every Humpback Oak album has their fair share of clunkers, like “don’t die, don’t kill yourself, it takes too much time”. Or “Turkey you turkey me”.
But there’s a lot that Singaporeans can identify with. Like not having an identity, and not fully knowing what is the meaning of that flag you sing the national anthem to every morning. Like being alienated from your parents who knew so much more hardship than you did. Like the eerie emptiness of a void deck in the afternoon. Like staring 20 storeys down from the back of your HDB flat, feeling smothered and yearning for release. Because unlike most of the bands out there, Humpback Oak lives in HDB flats too. (Caveat: a lot of black music from the UK comes from council housing, which is rather similar to our HDB, except that their version of the HDB is more seedy.)
The third album, “SideASideB” wasn’t as good as the first 2. But if I listened to it, I could have 1 or 2 of those songs growing on me.
Anyway I made my way to Club Street with a bit of trepidation – I was on ICT and I was expecting a recall on that day. So I had to drive my van and all that army stuff down to my office, park it there, and take a bus to Club Street amid all that messy MRT construction.
I should go back a few steps to explain: Humpback Oak were releasing a boxed set of all their works, containing their 3 CDs, as well as a 4th CD, containing some rarities and (this is the most interesting part) MP3s of all their cassette demos that they used to hawk in indie music shops from when they were struggling musicians. They were going to sell the boxed set exclusively on Saturday and Sunday from 1 to 5 pm, at Polymath & Crust / Books Actually.
So when I got there the queue was snaking down to the first floor. It was a little past 1. The queue went all the way up to the 3rd floor. I bumped into the drummer from the second band. I bumped into Siew Kum Hong. So now you know that the NMP who advocated repealing 377A is also a Humpback Oak fan.
When it was my turn, I wondered whether I should buy 1 or 2. I bought 2, cynically thinking that I could probably sell the second one at an extortionate rate in 5 years’ time, especially since it was autographed by all 4 of them.
So there was this table with Leslie Low and 3 others. They looked like they have aged, they’re no longer the skinny indie kids you saw in the publicity photos. They look bulky and middle aged. I didn’t know which of them was who. I know what Leslie looked like, but today he was different, wearing a goatee and a moustache, and looking like that mask people wore in “V for Vendetta”.
Very hastily I mentioned to one of them that I was thinking of covering one of their songs. Which one? “Home”. Hey Leslie, this guy wants to cover our song. “Really? That’s interesting”, said Leslie. Well just send us a copy when you’re done with it, OK? So, great. Now I owe Humpback Oak a cover version of “Home”.
It’s true, though, that I thought I was going to radically re-invent that song into something trip hop and drum + bass. But I’m a long long way from completing it. I’m even a long long way from figuring out how to do drum + bass. I hear it in my head, though, and surely that counts for something.
Anyway, so I’m the new proud owner of Oaksongs, serial numbers 58 and 59 out of 500. I dunno if they’ve sold out by now. Maybe and maybe not. The obvious first thing is that they have spent a great amount of effort on the packaging. I think it was designed by one of the more famous designers in Singapore. The outside is designed to look like a worn cardboard box. A bit tricky when the cardboard is new. When you open it, it looks like a house inside, an indie slacker’s room with all those concert posters and stuff. There’s a little cardboard bed, which is actually a small box containing teeny weeny booklets with all their lyrics.
Leslie Low went through a lot of trouble making digital photographs of his lyric sheets. (Which I think is strange because lyrics is the one aspect of Humpback Oak that I’m not a fan of.) But you can see some of his old songs scribbled on SJI stationery (all 4 met at and were from SJI). In one of the lyrics, you can see his 6th form poetry and his “O” levels schedule side by side.
I also have to comprang about the CD packaging. The CDs are wrapped up in paper that is origami folded. Obviously not meant for heavy usage. I had to dig out some plastic jewel boxes to put the CDs into.
Otherwise, you can imagine, I was proud of my newest purchase. Now to list my old Humpback Oak albums on eBay and get my $60 back.
As for the recall, you can see from the news: some ppl from the Police and from Civil Defence got recalled, but not the SAF. So I didn't get recalled.
Tuesday, 23 February 2010
Facilitation
I think that Lee Kuan Yew is the perfect Virgo – super anal retentive.
I think that the Singaporean education system is very much like Virgo – it will be perfect, and you will be good at the details, but you will also very much miss out on the bigger picture.
Why do we have the biggest port in the world? Why do we have the best airport in the world? A great port and a great airport. But they are just means. We have the best facilities in the world. But they are just facilities. They enable great things to be done, but what?
We are a hub, and we hope to be in the centre of everything. We have a great finance sector, but banks are only there for something. What is that something? That’s why we often talk about the Singaporean soul. But what is it?
We seem to exist for other people. People are a cog in the Singaporean machine. And Singapore itself is a cog in an even greater machine. We host events. IOC conferences. WTO talks. APEC forums.
We have the Esplanade. But so many of the shows at the Esplanade are foreign acts, and actually, justifiably so. They deserve it. But what have we got to show for ourselves?
Singapore has a “special relationship” with China. I don’t really know, we’re supposed to be a gateway to China. Do people remember that Singapore gave a lot of money to China when they were fighting the Japs, and when the Japs got to us, they gave us hell? I hope they remember that.
We’re a gateway to the West. And India too, but not really because everybody knows how “well” Singapore treats its Indians.
The one art form which we’re justifiably proud of is food. But food is the pleasure of the flesh, and not the soul. And food is also a facility – it facilitates our being alive.
I’m quite proud of our HDB flats. I always thought that HDBs were unique in Singapore. Actually, they are not. You have public housing in the US, and the UK. They are horrible places. Squalour, crime, drug abuse, prostitution. In a way, they are somewhere in between the shanty / squatter towns in a bad part of town, and a real house of your own. They are high class squatter holes. 99 year lease? It’s just the government telling you that you can squat here for a while, maybe your whole life. But the land will never be yours.
Remember when you were young, you went to the museum and saw how miserable those poor coolies were in their shophouses? You just have to remember that these days, shophouses are considered to be high class real estate.
You just have to remind yourself that being in the middle of everywhere is the same thing as being in the middle of nowhere.
I think that the Singaporean education system is very much like Virgo – it will be perfect, and you will be good at the details, but you will also very much miss out on the bigger picture.
Why do we have the biggest port in the world? Why do we have the best airport in the world? A great port and a great airport. But they are just means. We have the best facilities in the world. But they are just facilities. They enable great things to be done, but what?
We are a hub, and we hope to be in the centre of everything. We have a great finance sector, but banks are only there for something. What is that something? That’s why we often talk about the Singaporean soul. But what is it?
We seem to exist for other people. People are a cog in the Singaporean machine. And Singapore itself is a cog in an even greater machine. We host events. IOC conferences. WTO talks. APEC forums.
We have the Esplanade. But so many of the shows at the Esplanade are foreign acts, and actually, justifiably so. They deserve it. But what have we got to show for ourselves?
Singapore has a “special relationship” with China. I don’t really know, we’re supposed to be a gateway to China. Do people remember that Singapore gave a lot of money to China when they were fighting the Japs, and when the Japs got to us, they gave us hell? I hope they remember that.
We’re a gateway to the West. And India too, but not really because everybody knows how “well” Singapore treats its Indians.
The one art form which we’re justifiably proud of is food. But food is the pleasure of the flesh, and not the soul. And food is also a facility – it facilitates our being alive.
I’m quite proud of our HDB flats. I always thought that HDBs were unique in Singapore. Actually, they are not. You have public housing in the US, and the UK. They are horrible places. Squalour, crime, drug abuse, prostitution. In a way, they are somewhere in between the shanty / squatter towns in a bad part of town, and a real house of your own. They are high class squatter holes. 99 year lease? It’s just the government telling you that you can squat here for a while, maybe your whole life. But the land will never be yours.
Remember when you were young, you went to the museum and saw how miserable those poor coolies were in their shophouses? You just have to remember that these days, shophouses are considered to be high class real estate.
You just have to remind yourself that being in the middle of everywhere is the same thing as being in the middle of nowhere.
Saturday, 20 February 2010
JC2
When I look back upon the different years of my life, 1 year stands out in 1 respect. It was the year in which I was in JC2.
It was not the year in which I had the most personal growth. It was not the most exciting year. (Actually, in some ways, it was.) It was also the year where I failed a Maths exam for the first time. (I’m counting from primary school – failing maths exams in pre-school doesn’t count, and in any case I don’t remember.)
At the beginning of the year, my father grabbed me by the scruff, and told me, this is the most important year of your life. (For a long time, anyway). That is partially true only – all the years of your life, before you become old and infirm, are important. But he was right in another sense.
A lot of good things happened because I did well in school during that year. In the Singapore school system, you spend 12 years in school, and apparently years 1 to 11 are not that important, but only to let you get to the next level. At the end of your 12th year, in your “A” levels, you will write a series of exams that will determine your fate to a large extent. Which uni you go to, for instance.
I had mostly been a B student. My teachers all saw me as a B student with 1 extra gear that is seldom used. That year, I used that extra gear. I cut back on a lot of my ECAs. I dunno how I managed to clock up a good ECA record, but honestly there was a lot of interesting things, except that when you looked closer, you might notice that it was missing a bit of depth. For example, I did very few things that involved leadership.
I actually started having some structure in my life, which is not really difficult if you’re attempting to do just 1 thing. I don’t remember being exceptionally stressed that year. I was like a farmer. You just did what you were supposed to do every day, and when the autumn comes, you get bountiful harvests.
So that year was the year, I applied for the uni that I got into. (In fact it was only my third choice uni, even though there were many who would gladly study there. My first 2 choices rejected me.) I got a near perfect score for my “A”s. It led to some good things that you guys might know about.
I don’t think that I did anything really meaningful that year. It was a good year, a happy year. For once I didn’t have to feel disappointed about school. There was a peace of mind. Nothing to do but sleep and study. But terribly unexciting. You could say I lived the Singaporean dream.
It was not the year in which I had the most personal growth. It was not the most exciting year. (Actually, in some ways, it was.) It was also the year where I failed a Maths exam for the first time. (I’m counting from primary school – failing maths exams in pre-school doesn’t count, and in any case I don’t remember.)
At the beginning of the year, my father grabbed me by the scruff, and told me, this is the most important year of your life. (For a long time, anyway). That is partially true only – all the years of your life, before you become old and infirm, are important. But he was right in another sense.
A lot of good things happened because I did well in school during that year. In the Singapore school system, you spend 12 years in school, and apparently years 1 to 11 are not that important, but only to let you get to the next level. At the end of your 12th year, in your “A” levels, you will write a series of exams that will determine your fate to a large extent. Which uni you go to, for instance.
I had mostly been a B student. My teachers all saw me as a B student with 1 extra gear that is seldom used. That year, I used that extra gear. I cut back on a lot of my ECAs. I dunno how I managed to clock up a good ECA record, but honestly there was a lot of interesting things, except that when you looked closer, you might notice that it was missing a bit of depth. For example, I did very few things that involved leadership.
I actually started having some structure in my life, which is not really difficult if you’re attempting to do just 1 thing. I don’t remember being exceptionally stressed that year. I was like a farmer. You just did what you were supposed to do every day, and when the autumn comes, you get bountiful harvests.
So that year was the year, I applied for the uni that I got into. (In fact it was only my third choice uni, even though there were many who would gladly study there. My first 2 choices rejected me.) I got a near perfect score for my “A”s. It led to some good things that you guys might know about.
I don’t think that I did anything really meaningful that year. It was a good year, a happy year. For once I didn’t have to feel disappointed about school. There was a peace of mind. Nothing to do but sleep and study. But terribly unexciting. You could say I lived the Singaporean dream.
Monday, 15 February 2010
Bunions
Something funny happened during Chinese New Year. An aunt of mine was showing around her feet. It looked kinda weird, there was a big lump at the base of her large toe, and her large toe was curled towards the other toes. It looked kinda ugly. She said she was going for an operation. She said it was bunions.
That condition of the foot looked familiar, and suddenly I realised that I had a mild version of what she had. I can’t remember how exactly it was but the other 5 or 6 aunts and uncles in my room at that point in time found it extremely funny that I had belatedly realized what was wrong with my feet.
Suddenly a lot of things became clear, like how, around 3 months before my marathon, I couldn’t run more than 15km without getting a sharp pain in that joint. How, if I ran in a way that did not aggravate my bunions, I risked some other part of my leg. And why I retired. (One of the important reasons was my propensity to get injured – now I know why.)
Anyway, my grandmother was there, and she couldn’t understand much of the conversation which was taking place in English. She asked what the hell was going on. I said there was something wrong with my leg. Then she took my leg and felt it, and touched my big toe, and declared, “now, there’s a lump that should be cut off.” The other ppl were laughing their heads off by now.
My father popped in, and looked at the foot, and said, “Well you look at that, it’s not what a normal foot should look like. It’s so obvious.” I sneered, “yeh? You only telling me about that now after more than a year?”
The aunt who had bunions told me, “if you don’t really like your company, you can go for an operation, they’ll give you 4 weeks of MC.”
That condition of the foot looked familiar, and suddenly I realised that I had a mild version of what she had. I can’t remember how exactly it was but the other 5 or 6 aunts and uncles in my room at that point in time found it extremely funny that I had belatedly realized what was wrong with my feet.
Suddenly a lot of things became clear, like how, around 3 months before my marathon, I couldn’t run more than 15km without getting a sharp pain in that joint. How, if I ran in a way that did not aggravate my bunions, I risked some other part of my leg. And why I retired. (One of the important reasons was my propensity to get injured – now I know why.)
Anyway, my grandmother was there, and she couldn’t understand much of the conversation which was taking place in English. She asked what the hell was going on. I said there was something wrong with my leg. Then she took my leg and felt it, and touched my big toe, and declared, “now, there’s a lump that should be cut off.” The other ppl were laughing their heads off by now.
My father popped in, and looked at the foot, and said, “Well you look at that, it’s not what a normal foot should look like. It’s so obvious.” I sneered, “yeh? You only telling me about that now after more than a year?”
The aunt who had bunions told me, “if you don’t really like your company, you can go for an operation, they’ll give you 4 weeks of MC.”
Saturday, 13 February 2010
Songwriting
Another song popped into my head. It wasn't fantastic or anything. But I thought, what the hell, write it down. One day, you're going to be old, and you're going to be glad to be even writing stuff of that standard. Don't be fussy. Build up a stockpile so that you won't regret it when you grow old.
I don’t really know whether or not to write this. I think I may have grown as a songwriter over the last 2-3 years, or maybe I have not. It’s not a coincidence that many people write their best songs before they’re 30. Songwriting is a process, whereby the best ideas, and also the ones that come most naturally to you, are the ones which get written first. So even if you do get better at it as time goes on, your best ideas are already out there, and you simply have to do something different.
Anyway, I’ll put a header on some of my points.
1. Songwriting is a black art.
When people say they write songs, the reaction is naturally scepticism. Why? Because the number of good songwriters out there is comparatively few. It is difficult. Like Bjork says on “Human Behaviour”: There is no map and a compass won’t do. Music theory teaches you relatively little, or at least it’s only half of the story. Music theory is like grammar. Just because you have mastered grammar, it doesn’t make you a great story teller.
2. Music theory.
Of course, having a music education helps. I have been educated in music almost all my life, and I cannot imagine what it is like to listen to music with an uneducated ear, so I take for granted that you will be able to identify notes when hearing them, you will identify chords.
3. Have an opinion.
The second task of a songwriter is to develop taste. Have an opinion about music. Every song, you like it or you don’t like it. Why does this speak to you? What is it saying? Why do some songs remain in the memory, and why do others fade? Why is this something you want to listen to over and over again, and why is that something that irritates you?
This is very important, almost the first skill you have to learn as a songwriter, because you will be using this skill to assess your own work.
I have learnt as much about music from music critics, as I have from my music teachers. I have read reviews about albums, and often wondered, why some albums get bad reviews and others get good ones. Sometimes, music critics are wrong. More often than that, though, they are right. And 20 years later, the critical opinion about a given piece of music should be secure.
4. Emotional vocabulary
Every chord is a colour. (Actually, some people think that every note is a colour too.) But chords are more important than which key of the scale you are playing. Irving Berlin only knew how to write music in the key of F. It doesn’t really matter.
Every chord, relative to the tonic, conveys an emotion. Understand the emotional impact of chords. Simplistically, major chords are happy and minor chords are sad. But not always. From I to IV is like going to a higher plane, and from I to V is going to a lower one. But not always. Inversions (ie changing which note of the chord is used in the bass) change the way the chords sound, and change the emotional shade.
More interesting than the I, IV and V are the relatives of these chords. Sometimes you will have the minor versions, the major versions, the extended chord, your 7s, 9s, 11s, even 13s. Augmented. Diminished. Suspended. Know your chords. This is important.
5. Chord progression
Chord progressions and melody in music are similar to plot and narrative in a story. Like a good maths proof (it is not a coincidence that I learnt how to write a song around the same time I was learning how to write a maths proof) a chord progression is a sequence of ideas which lead, logically to each other. Whether the chord progression makes sense or not, is analogous to whether it is grammatical.
6. Melody
A melody will typically contain certain notes that make up the chord. There will be transitional notes that don’t have much to do with that chord, and they are called passing notes. The melody needs to both be consistent with what’s going on in the chord progression, and at the same time it should be artistically appealing. That’s why writing a song is not easy – it’s like solving a simultaneous equation. You don’t want to have a melody which follows the chord progression like a slave. There’s no tension, and it’s boring. But you don’t want to have a melody that is not related to the chord progression either.
Somebody asked “what is melody” in a music forum. It is a very good question. Our most conventional notion of melody is that it is the part of music which is in the foreground, it is typically linear, with only 1 note at a time (like if 1 person is singing). It is a sequence of notes.
Any of these notions can be violated. The melody can be in the bassline. Counterpoint is what we call it when there are 2 melodies playing against each other at the same time. Harmony is what we call it when 2 or more non-clashing notes are played together. 2 or more voices can make up the same melody, they just sing different parts of it.
7. Form
Almost the first thing people will teach you when you have formal instruction on composition is the form of the music. ABA, AABA, ABABCA, etc. This is important, of course, but it’s like saying that when you write a story, your words must fall on a straight line going from left to right. Although this convention is important, it has very little to do with whether you are writing a good song or not.
There is only 1 thing to learn from the idea of form: big pieces of music are made of smaller pieces of music. How you arrange the smaller pieces is the architecture design.
What’s more important, from my perspective, is how those smaller chunks flow into each other. How everything combines together to form the narrative arc. Always pay attention to the bigger picture, and how the smaller pieces make up the bigger puzzle. Sometimes you can have 2 really spectacular pieces of music, and they sound awful when you put them side by side because the flow is gone. Sometimes you can tolerate having a boring part, because it gives you a break from the exciting part.
8. Hidden melodies
Moving away from our conventional idea of melodies to the bigger picture, we need to understand what is a melody, in a more generic sense. Melodies are narratives. They tell a story. They lead the listener through a series of logically connected moods, and represent an arc through the music for the listener to follow.
If you study the human brain, you will understand that stories are our method of organising information and making sense of them. One favourite technique we have of memorising long lists, is to make up a story where all the items appear in sequence, in the story. The reason why this works is because we are so well adapted to thinking about stories.
Similarly, it is difficult for me to memorise a lot of numbers (musical notes are basically numbers. Sounds inhuman, but deal with it.) But when they are arranged in a catchy melody – miracle of miracles, it’s so easy.
So when you extend the definition of melody, into something like a catchy hook, or a motif, or a drum figure, the definition becomes something like: foreground.
This should explain why hip hop and rap works, even though there are so few chords and melodies. It’s all hidden melodies – the brain still has something to latch onto. Maybe it’s the combination of wordplay, or the rhythm of the words, or catchy slogans.
But the cardinal rule is this: the brain still has to have something to latch onto. Something to think about. Take away chords and melody, maybe you have to make the rhythm interesting. Or maybe you have to make the architecture interesting, like how minimalist music takes away a lot of your points of reference, and instead you pay attention to how the mood shifts and changes very subtly. But music cannot be vacuous.
9. Borrowing ideas
I’m not good enough to come up with my own ideas. Maybe nobody is. I’ve always borrowed from others. It’s like building a nest, all your material is stolen from somewhere else. But the creation, the nest, is yours and yours alone. Unless you steal somebody else’s nest wholesale (or a significant chunk thereof).
So when you are starting to write, just steal. Take a piece here, another piece there, put it together in a way that’s never been done before. Take somebody else’s melody, and harmonise it with different chords. Take somebody else’s chords an put a new melody on it.
Combine genres in a way that has not been done before. Chinese with Indian. Dub with classical. Avant Garde with Gregorian. Whatever.
10. Experience
I started “writing” music when I was 8. I wrote the first song I was happy with when I was 21. Yes, it takes that long. If you start off as an adult, your learning curve will be shorter. But you have to wait a long time and put up with stuff that doesn’t work. Then you learn your lesson from point number 3: assess it like a music critic.
If you can’t finish songs, KIV them. A few songs were stuff I KIV’ed from when I was a teenager, and now I have the experience to complete them, to solve problems I wasn’t able to solve back then.
You might learn some tricks. Like repeating a phrase because it sounds better the second time. Or ending a song abruptly. Or throwing in an unexpected chord.
After a while, the seam that you are mining will be empty. Then branch out, try a different form of music and see what happens. There are a lot of songwriters, they were very good when they were young, and then they lost it. Or rather most of their songs were written and as a consequence they ended up repeating themselves. There wasn't much that was new. Brian Wilson - his last great album was merely to finish a project he abandoned when he was young. Paul McCartney - was never as great a songwriter as when John Lennon was around. Lou Reed - wrote most of his great stuff before he was 30, with the Velvet Underground.
Is songwriting a young man's art? Or is it that people always run out of ideas no matter what? Only a few years ago, when I wrote something good, I'm like, "damn, I never knew I had it in me." Now it's like, "wait, didn't I just write this before? aren't I just piecing together some other stuff that I've done before, and done better?" After your best ideas are out in the open, it just gets more and more difficult.
I don’t really know whether or not to write this. I think I may have grown as a songwriter over the last 2-3 years, or maybe I have not. It’s not a coincidence that many people write their best songs before they’re 30. Songwriting is a process, whereby the best ideas, and also the ones that come most naturally to you, are the ones which get written first. So even if you do get better at it as time goes on, your best ideas are already out there, and you simply have to do something different.
Anyway, I’ll put a header on some of my points.
1. Songwriting is a black art.
When people say they write songs, the reaction is naturally scepticism. Why? Because the number of good songwriters out there is comparatively few. It is difficult. Like Bjork says on “Human Behaviour”: There is no map and a compass won’t do. Music theory teaches you relatively little, or at least it’s only half of the story. Music theory is like grammar. Just because you have mastered grammar, it doesn’t make you a great story teller.
2. Music theory.
Of course, having a music education helps. I have been educated in music almost all my life, and I cannot imagine what it is like to listen to music with an uneducated ear, so I take for granted that you will be able to identify notes when hearing them, you will identify chords.
3. Have an opinion.
The second task of a songwriter is to develop taste. Have an opinion about music. Every song, you like it or you don’t like it. Why does this speak to you? What is it saying? Why do some songs remain in the memory, and why do others fade? Why is this something you want to listen to over and over again, and why is that something that irritates you?
This is very important, almost the first skill you have to learn as a songwriter, because you will be using this skill to assess your own work.
I have learnt as much about music from music critics, as I have from my music teachers. I have read reviews about albums, and often wondered, why some albums get bad reviews and others get good ones. Sometimes, music critics are wrong. More often than that, though, they are right. And 20 years later, the critical opinion about a given piece of music should be secure.
4. Emotional vocabulary
Every chord is a colour. (Actually, some people think that every note is a colour too.) But chords are more important than which key of the scale you are playing. Irving Berlin only knew how to write music in the key of F. It doesn’t really matter.
Every chord, relative to the tonic, conveys an emotion. Understand the emotional impact of chords. Simplistically, major chords are happy and minor chords are sad. But not always. From I to IV is like going to a higher plane, and from I to V is going to a lower one. But not always. Inversions (ie changing which note of the chord is used in the bass) change the way the chords sound, and change the emotional shade.
More interesting than the I, IV and V are the relatives of these chords. Sometimes you will have the minor versions, the major versions, the extended chord, your 7s, 9s, 11s, even 13s. Augmented. Diminished. Suspended. Know your chords. This is important.
5. Chord progression
Chord progressions and melody in music are similar to plot and narrative in a story. Like a good maths proof (it is not a coincidence that I learnt how to write a song around the same time I was learning how to write a maths proof) a chord progression is a sequence of ideas which lead, logically to each other. Whether the chord progression makes sense or not, is analogous to whether it is grammatical.
6. Melody
A melody will typically contain certain notes that make up the chord. There will be transitional notes that don’t have much to do with that chord, and they are called passing notes. The melody needs to both be consistent with what’s going on in the chord progression, and at the same time it should be artistically appealing. That’s why writing a song is not easy – it’s like solving a simultaneous equation. You don’t want to have a melody which follows the chord progression like a slave. There’s no tension, and it’s boring. But you don’t want to have a melody that is not related to the chord progression either.
Somebody asked “what is melody” in a music forum. It is a very good question. Our most conventional notion of melody is that it is the part of music which is in the foreground, it is typically linear, with only 1 note at a time (like if 1 person is singing). It is a sequence of notes.
Any of these notions can be violated. The melody can be in the bassline. Counterpoint is what we call it when there are 2 melodies playing against each other at the same time. Harmony is what we call it when 2 or more non-clashing notes are played together. 2 or more voices can make up the same melody, they just sing different parts of it.
7. Form
Almost the first thing people will teach you when you have formal instruction on composition is the form of the music. ABA, AABA, ABABCA, etc. This is important, of course, but it’s like saying that when you write a story, your words must fall on a straight line going from left to right. Although this convention is important, it has very little to do with whether you are writing a good song or not.
There is only 1 thing to learn from the idea of form: big pieces of music are made of smaller pieces of music. How you arrange the smaller pieces is the architecture design.
What’s more important, from my perspective, is how those smaller chunks flow into each other. How everything combines together to form the narrative arc. Always pay attention to the bigger picture, and how the smaller pieces make up the bigger puzzle. Sometimes you can have 2 really spectacular pieces of music, and they sound awful when you put them side by side because the flow is gone. Sometimes you can tolerate having a boring part, because it gives you a break from the exciting part.
8. Hidden melodies
Moving away from our conventional idea of melodies to the bigger picture, we need to understand what is a melody, in a more generic sense. Melodies are narratives. They tell a story. They lead the listener through a series of logically connected moods, and represent an arc through the music for the listener to follow.
If you study the human brain, you will understand that stories are our method of organising information and making sense of them. One favourite technique we have of memorising long lists, is to make up a story where all the items appear in sequence, in the story. The reason why this works is because we are so well adapted to thinking about stories.
Similarly, it is difficult for me to memorise a lot of numbers (musical notes are basically numbers. Sounds inhuman, but deal with it.) But when they are arranged in a catchy melody – miracle of miracles, it’s so easy.
So when you extend the definition of melody, into something like a catchy hook, or a motif, or a drum figure, the definition becomes something like: foreground.
This should explain why hip hop and rap works, even though there are so few chords and melodies. It’s all hidden melodies – the brain still has something to latch onto. Maybe it’s the combination of wordplay, or the rhythm of the words, or catchy slogans.
But the cardinal rule is this: the brain still has to have something to latch onto. Something to think about. Take away chords and melody, maybe you have to make the rhythm interesting. Or maybe you have to make the architecture interesting, like how minimalist music takes away a lot of your points of reference, and instead you pay attention to how the mood shifts and changes very subtly. But music cannot be vacuous.
9. Borrowing ideas
I’m not good enough to come up with my own ideas. Maybe nobody is. I’ve always borrowed from others. It’s like building a nest, all your material is stolen from somewhere else. But the creation, the nest, is yours and yours alone. Unless you steal somebody else’s nest wholesale (or a significant chunk thereof).
So when you are starting to write, just steal. Take a piece here, another piece there, put it together in a way that’s never been done before. Take somebody else’s melody, and harmonise it with different chords. Take somebody else’s chords an put a new melody on it.
Combine genres in a way that has not been done before. Chinese with Indian. Dub with classical. Avant Garde with Gregorian. Whatever.
10. Experience
I started “writing” music when I was 8. I wrote the first song I was happy with when I was 21. Yes, it takes that long. If you start off as an adult, your learning curve will be shorter. But you have to wait a long time and put up with stuff that doesn’t work. Then you learn your lesson from point number 3: assess it like a music critic.
If you can’t finish songs, KIV them. A few songs were stuff I KIV’ed from when I was a teenager, and now I have the experience to complete them, to solve problems I wasn’t able to solve back then.
You might learn some tricks. Like repeating a phrase because it sounds better the second time. Or ending a song abruptly. Or throwing in an unexpected chord.
After a while, the seam that you are mining will be empty. Then branch out, try a different form of music and see what happens. There are a lot of songwriters, they were very good when they were young, and then they lost it. Or rather most of their songs were written and as a consequence they ended up repeating themselves. There wasn't much that was new. Brian Wilson - his last great album was merely to finish a project he abandoned when he was young. Paul McCartney - was never as great a songwriter as when John Lennon was around. Lou Reed - wrote most of his great stuff before he was 30, with the Velvet Underground.
Is songwriting a young man's art? Or is it that people always run out of ideas no matter what? Only a few years ago, when I wrote something good, I'm like, "damn, I never knew I had it in me." Now it's like, "wait, didn't I just write this before? aren't I just piecing together some other stuff that I've done before, and done better?" After your best ideas are out in the open, it just gets more and more difficult.
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