First Step

I started a new channel on YouTube to mark the new beginning of my dream that I recently revived (lol). I used my real name with a shortened version of my dad's name haha. Please don't think that I hate my dad's name. I actually really like my dad's name, alright. It's just that I don't want people to google my real name and find me so easily, because my dad's name is very rare.

So here it is, the video that I painstakingly filmed and edited (we'll get to that story later..) 

Funfacts:

• It took me three days to learn this.
• It took me about 40 attempts to film this without making any mistakes.
• I actually didn't want to tie my hair up hahaha. But the fan was too loud and the room was terribly hot.
• Even in this video, there are many mistakes and brainfarts. (Those brief pauses were actually brainfarts hahaha.) 
• I got fed up of recording and had to tell myself gahhh I'm going to settle with this one.
• I recorded the audio using my phone and merged it with the video (muted the video's audio) because my camera's microphone has too much noise and I'm lazy to find ways to reduce the noise.
• The Thai dude who made this arrangement played wayyyyy better than me.

____________________________________________________________

Special shout-out to the anonymous person who made a comment on my whiny blog entry. Your words encouraged me to practise harder! If you're reading this, please let me know your real identity. I'd like to make an attempt of one of your favourite songs in the future!

I'm working on a Sungha Jung arrangement right now. Can't promise whether I'll be posting new covers anytime soon haha.

Ugh

Whenever my classmates ask questions, my lecturer will explain nicely. Whenever I ask questions, he'll answer me "don't overcomplicate things", "don't think too much", "don't make it complicated."

Ugh.

If I teach in the future, I'm going to remind myself not to do this.

Blogging from class, first day of the new sem, like a boss.

Those Who Wait

I am currently going through this phase of obsession towards Tommy Emmanuel's beautiful piece called Those Who Wait. It's a bit funny though, the way I've been hearing about Tommy Emmanuel since the past 7 years but never bothered to watch any of his videos on YouTube. I thought I won't like him. But boy, I was so wrong.

(There's a better quality video of him playing on YouTube, 

but the owner of the video disabled the embed code.)

I tried learning this, I really did. I even printed out the tabs. And I was so humbled by the fact that I actually have short fingers. I've never really been bothered about this throughout my years of playing guitar. It's because you don't really need long fingers to hold basic chords, you see. All these while I've been too comfortable thinking that being called a sifu and being able to play barre chords make me a cool guitarist. Boy, I was wrong. I still have a lot to learn. And I also learnt that I can't stretch my fingers wide apart, or wide enough to play this piece. A YouTuber said your fingers can adapt and stretch further apart if you practise. That's a bit of a good news.

Anyway I'm putting this here so you can listen to it. It's really beautiful and everyone deserves to listen to something as beautiful as this. 

____________________________________________

My ex-classmate from primary school got into Asia's Got Talent by the way. Meanwhile, my ex-housemate will be heading to my dream university. The reason why I'm saying all these? I don't know, really. I should stop focussing on myself sometimes. A few days ago a friend wrote on Facebook that "Success is a by-product, not a goal." While I'm at home not sleeping at 3 or 4 am, trying to ignore the pain from the growth of my wisdom tooth, I can't help to think of how everyone's growing up faster than me. Everyone's heading towards that direction--and I'm still here gaining approval from people to tell me that I'm good enough, funny enough, pretty enough, while I'm denying the fact that I need all these. Because I really don't know what I need and what I don't need.

Anyway, this song has a little bit of background behind it. In one of the videos that I found, Tommy Emmanuel actually explained why it's called Those Who Wait:

"We learn so much in life, don't we? I mean life is our teacher, life is the school--if we're smart, we learn the lessons and learn from each other. And I think one of the hardest things that I've ever learnt is patience--trust, faith, and believing that things are going to work out. It's really hard to learn to be patient. And that's what this song is all about--about truly trusting that if your mode is alright, and everything about you is heading in the right direction, there's no way that you could go wrong."

But Tommy, sir, I don't even know what it means to be having a mode that's alright. I don't even know where's the right direction ._.

April

22 years ago on this day, the uncle that I've never met passed away. He was my mum's younger brother. They always said he died too soon, at the age of 25. And my mum was miles away, with me just two weeks away from being born into this world.

Every year, I try to remember about this and remind myself how life is precious. I often fail, though. It's a lot easier to question and complain about things. It's a lot easier to feel miserable when plans fail and trains derail. 

Not feeling sad or anything, but I guess that's all I have to say for the time being. Trying hard to remind myself day by day that every little effort counts and still hoping to grow rich and famous heh. I know this is a ridiculous and incoherent post, but...what's not ridiculous and incoherent on this blog anyway.

"Sometimes words don't say enough. Sometimes silence says too much." 

--Passenger, Nothing's Changed.

P.S Of course I was kidding about being rich and famous...

Guitar and Stuffs

I've been noticing that recently about three of my favourite YouTube fingerstyle guitarists have been endorsed by a guitar company and were given two free acoustic guitars each.

And I've been subscribed to these channels long enough to say that they started small. They're definitely playing wayyy better compared to when they first started uploading videos.

It makes me realise that perhaps my life could've been different if I dedicated more time and effort and taught myself guitar more seriously.

Being in my position now, where life seems to be monotonous since forever, isn't helping much. I often wonder about the paths I never took. Why didn't I follow my heart, why didn't I tell my dad I am 100% sure that playing guitar is my only passion in life. Maybe 95% sure. But I'm sure enough that if I ignore all factors in my life that stopped me from doing it, I'd be a lot happier now.

Among the factors that stopped me are:

1. I've always believed that I am not exceptionally good, and this is very true. I've never put the time and dedication to push myself harder because I always believe that no matter how hard I try, I just can't reach that level because I wasn't born with it.

2. My guitar isn't going to bring me anywhere in life. It's not going to give me enough rice in my plate. That's what they said.

3. It's an unrealistic dream. You're an adult now, and adulthood is all about responsibilities, not about "following your heart."

And I just can't stop envying other people--how they've always seem to get their passions and chances of shining to collide. Why are some human beings created to experience thrill and excitement, while why do some others live boring, monotonous lives? Was it a mere result of bad decisions, or fate--that they never got their chances to do what they want? It intrigues me sometimes, all these weird questions in life. But just like what that Passenger song said, well, I guess that's just the way it is.