Saturday, August 11, 2007

better late than never!

ok, yes, it's the middle of august already!!! yikes. i have a few minutes now while i am standing by to help greg deal with this morning's break in. i am sure he will write about it on his blog in detail, but he was halfway through his 20 mile run at a local park (titiwangsa) and realized upon returning to the car to refill water bottles that the rear passenger window had been broken out and his bag stolen from the back seat. boy, this would be a hassle at home with canceling credit cards and filing a police report and insurance claim, but add a foreign culture and a 10 year technology gap, and you've got a headache to boot. (what does that phrase really mean, btw???)

icom has been in session for five official weeks already and i just finished the first round of assessments in addition to my semester performance. whew. my schedule is full at 18 credit hours. the classes i have this semester are Malaysian Studies, Moral Studies, Traditional 2-part Writing, Acoustics, Ear Training 3, Performance Studies, and Arranging. i've also begun private piano instruction, thank GOODNESS!

i am most interested in arranging (of course) and am taking myself back through last semester's contemporary harmony to improve my understanding of the 'basics,' which were not that basic to begin with. anyone who knows me can attest to my whining about not playing the piano well, but now it is absolutely essential in order for me to fully understand music theory. so even though i'm starting way too late, i hope that the focus i have now and my theoretical knowledge will help me. by the way, i'm not playing classical at all, it is all theory-based jazz progressions and chord voicings. for my normal, non-music-geek friends, that just means that instead of having set notes to play written on a music staff, i have a letters and numbers representing any type chord and i must play the notes where they sound the best in relation to the notes before it and after it. yikes. my brain hurts just explaining it.

my rationale on this is that by the time i learn to play i will be the same age that i will be if i don't. (makes sense to me, at least.)

yesterday's performance was 'a little more conversation' by the king himself, Elvis. i was unbelievably lucky in that my band was amazing! oh, they were soooo good. the groove was tight, they had fun, and put on a great show. i had josh on drums, nelson on bass, mizi on e. guitar, stephanie on piano, catherine on keys, our man ali on trumpet, and an extra vocalist, my good pal jeevan singing backup. i should have arranged the song to change keys at the climax, but instead i chose to sing up an octave, which made the first half difficult to hear in my low range. we may be able to post an mp3 of it on the blog. (i have such techies in the family you know!) this is probably more information than most can absorb; sorry. unfortunately i talk like this all the time now, which has caused brooke to officially pronounce me a music dork. ("oh man, listen to that color on the acoustic guitar! hey!! that arrangement is brilliant! ...whoa!! did you HEAR that sexy bass line?! i think i'm in love...")

for now it's business as usual for a few more weeks. i'm getting the hang of this schedule and at least at present am caught up in all my subjects. now to decide if i want to gig around kl or lead worship at the bridge more often or sign up for the KL half marathon or stick to the essentials and keep my time free for studies and family. so many good options. how lucky am i???

peace~
chryl
xoxo

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