This is how my music studio looks as of now.
This song from the 1980s has been haunting my memories so I decided to look for it on Youtube and learned the chords in one night.
Broken Wings
Category Archives: music
Back to singing live–online for now
So we had our livestream last night that lasted 2.5 hrs. People were telling us this was our most enjoyable episode to date, with jamming sessions in between questions during our in-person and Zoom interviews. One of the interviewees was live from Texas. I had an amazing guitarist, while one of the co-hosts played the keyboard and I was singing and manning the Zoom meeting that was livestreamed as well. Other co-hosts also provided backing vocals or main vocals as needed. I played the tambourine-like percussion instrument in one song. Everything was spontaneous–and that was the most fun part.
The “studio”, which was a porch/wood workshop of one of our high school classmates/co-hosts, was messy but it didn’t show much in the livestream, but we gotta do something about it soon.
We had so much fun that I left the studio at 12:30 am and got home in Qc at around 1:45 am. I had black brewed coffee to keep me alert on the road and maintained my speed at 80kmph, except when overtaking.
Before the livestream, I visited my mom and brought her purple flowers, drilled some stuff in the upstairs bathroom of the main house and added a new shower head. Then visited one of high school friends who was back in the country and gave her more of my hand-made masks and some for her kids.
One of things that I needed to do during this visit was to get my old watercolors/pencil/charcoal drawings to hang in my room.
As I wrote on an Instagram post:
I used to paint and draw in high school. I found these in my room in xxx (hometown) and framed them to grace my room here in QC to remind me of who I was before I lost myself in ugliness and sadness. I have found that girl again, even though she’s xx heavier now, she’s still the same old creative person, richer in experiences. (By the pond, watercolor, CallMeCreation 1994).
I found this girl. The girl who balanced football, theater, school, her Greek-letter organization, and social life. She is her own person. Her heart was yet to be broken and become jaded in this photo.
Lord, help me
I am here at Yupangco Building in Makati with my girls. I had been trying out the pianos here and I am dying. Been tinkering with the grand pianos and upright pianos here. I may come out of this store with a Yamaha P-125 with me. 🤦🏻♀️
Save me from myself. I’m like a kid in a candy store. I even fell in love with the guitars. The guitars are so beautiful and the tones are perfect. The cheapest Yamaha guitar there is PhP 17k.
We’re at the nearby Starbucks so I can calm myself and contemplate.
Came back to Yupangco…
I can’t resist.
My birthday, Christmas, and promotion gift to myself. So far I haven’t felt any buyer’s remorse. It sounds and feels 10x better than my old Roland that I’m gonna sell online later tonight.
Smitten
The Yamaha P-125 is on sale at Yupangco.
I should be saving money for my future tiny house but I really, really want to buy that piano. I have to sell my Roland E-09 first but I don’t know how without too much work on my side. I don’t know how I will be able to sell it before the sale ends.
I can pay cash for it now but that would be reckless with Christmas coming up and stuff. The question is, do I really need it? No. But I really want it. For two years. I just didn’t want to indulge my wants before because there were more important things to spend on the last three years and I needed to be more practical.
Music is one of my passions. I wonder how long can I hold off buying this thing. I need to buy a new microwave oven because my old Whirlpool (which I think is already 10 years old) already conked out.
I’m so tempted to drive over there tomorrow and test the piano.
I received today a Tumindig shirt birthday gift from a friend.
For the uninitiated, the Tumindig shirt/movement/logo started as a protest symbol against Duterte. You know how he and his minions love to do fist bumps as his signature stance (which is really cheesy, by the way, but the masses love it). So the fist bump stood up (tumindig/tindig), an act of defiance or a symbol of people waking up. This character was created by a comic illustrator that goes by the monicker/nom de plume Tarantadong Kalbo (“bald dumbass”) and people had been customizing this tumindig symbol by dressing it up according to the occupation/personality of who wants to adopt it to indicate his/her defiance vs Duterte.
When we still had a printing shop, I had a shirt made with national hero Jose Rizal (who was executed by the Spaniards for his subversive novels) muffled to protest the passage of the Cyber libel law (they wanted us to become the next Singapore with no freedom of speech). I wore it to a business conference at Manila Peninsula, which almost cost me my entrance to the event because I didn’t look like a business reporter. Good thing the person manning the registration knew me that I was a regular at their business conferences.
I have a long history of wearing protest clothes and my friends know this.
I’m slowly adding Christmas decor because I want to end my dreary year with some cheer. I took one Christmas lantern from my mom’s house (and she has a lot) and this one is so bright that I no longer need to buy more solar-powered lanterns so we can hang outside.
I could order patio furniture from Ikea but what will I do with them after we move? We already have patio furniture in our future tiny home. Let me weigh the options…But I’d like to grill and eat outside with the girls and I promised some friends we can grill some steak and fish and have drinks before Christmas break. Since my friend K will likely stay in the city again for Christmas (K’s entire family is in the US), I think we should have another get-together with our friends, if they can brave the traffic going to QC.
Hmm…stuff in Ofix are cheaper…
New toy
I’ve been playing with this thing the entire night by recording my audio. For less than PHP 2,000 (PHP 1,750 to be exact since I bought this during the 10.10 sale), I was able to score a good USB condenser microphone for my interviews. As I have mentioned before, I will be joining my high school friends in their Youtube series, interviewing people about anything under the sun that interest the kwarentals, or those aged 40 and up. They already ran the teaser last week and then they will interview me next month before my debut in December in time for our high school reunion.
The audio is crisp and picks up my voice really well. There is also a 3.5mm jack at the back of the mic for earphones/headphones monitoring. You know, kinda like what recording artists put on their ears to monitor their own voices so they can easily track if they’re going off-key because the backing music can easily drown out their audio. This is really neat. There is also a converter so I can hook this up to a microphone arm if I don’t want the stand blocking my LED monitors when I’m interviewing or doing podcasts/streams.
The base is heavy and solid so the mic will not topple down. Overall this is value for money.
I’m so happy with this purchase.
Out of whack sense of direction
Before I start talking about my terrible sense of direction, I learned today that my daughter, Twin I, ordered a kalimba from Shopee (via cash on delivery) using the money she earned from doing her chores. My daughters are learning to work for things that they want. The problem is a kalimba is hard to tune. I know how to tune stringed instruments by ear but a kalimba is a different animal because it’s a small idiophone so it’s harder to detect the smaller changes in notes.
I needed an app to help me with the tuning. And to tune this thing, you literally hit the prongs with a metal hammer either at the top end (to lower) or at the bottom end (to push it to a higher note).
What’s odd about this kalimba is that it only has the major chords. The origin of the kalimba is an instrument from Zimbabwe that was exported to Brazil (called mbira in Brazil). That instrument didn’t follow the western tuning (western octaves) and this modern version was converted to follow the western octave. So you can only play the songs here that use the major chords (no sharps and flats here).
Now about that sense of direction…It’s a miracle that I can travel on my own, go out to provinces in foreign countries and go back home alive. I remember when I was in Amanohashidate I got lost trying to reach the other side of town. I didn’t want to cross the sandbar so I assumed I can take the bus to cross to the other side of town but almost ended up going to Ine, a far off fishing village 15 km away.
So first of all, I took Kyoto Tango Railway line at 5 am and it took me 3.5 hrs from Shin-Osaka station to reach Amanohashidate. It was a nice way to see the countryside.
From the main station before Amanohashidate you have to take a one-car train. It was like a train ride to nowhere.
I arrived there at 8:30 am very hungry and looked for a place to eat. I found a hole-in-the-wall eatery that served ramen for JPY 800 a bowl.
After that, I searched for the way to the viewing deck to see one of the top 3 best views in Japan, according to my research. There was a tram and there was a chair lift. Of course I chose the chair lift because I court danger. And you only live once so why not?
And I traveled all the way from Osaka Prefecture to Kyoto By the Sea to see this view.
I don’t know…it was pretty for sure but a bit underwhelming. I have seen better views in my life and I have traveled far and wide within the Philippines and there are a couple of views here that can rival this. Anyway, my boss in Tokyo marveled at how I was able to visit this when she herself hasn’t been able to check this out. I stayed at the lookout area for an hour or so and explored the park to make my hours-long journey worthwhile.
I can ride a bike on that sandbar to reach the other side of town but it was hot and I didn’t want to get tired so I took the bus and figured I can stop by the Motoise Kono Shrine and walk to the other side of this sandbar.
The only problem was I didn’t know what the entrance to the shrine looked like. So on and on the bus went. And then all I saw was the sea.
There was a couple at my back and the guy was speaking in mixed English and Korean. I asked the guy if I missed the stop to the shrine. He had this horrified look on his face that told me I committed a grave mistake. He told me we were already on our way to Ine, that fishing village at the edge of Kyoto Prefecture. There was no train there and this was the last bus.
He told me to get off the bus immediately to catch the last bus back to Amanohashidate train station. He spoke to the driver in Nihongo to tell him I took the bus by mistake and I need to catch the bus on the opposite side.
Perfect timing, when I got off the bus going to Ine, the last bus going back to Amanohashidate was just arriving. I thanked my guardian angel and took a great sigh of relief. But when I got off the bus, the train going to Kinosaki (in Hyogo Prefecture) was leaving the platform. I was just one minute too late! Damn those very prompt Japanese trains!
So I took my chance and looked at the trains that were leaving the station. I figured I could get another local train to Toyooka or an express passing by Toyooka.
By 4 pm I was on my way to Kinosaki where I had booked a night’s stay in a ryokan with its own onsen. I left the rest of my luggage at my hotel in Osaka for safekeeping so I don’t have to lug it while traipsing around from one prefecture to another.
Thank God for my JR Pass that let me ride all trains that I want.