Dry Spells & Radio Commercials

It's been awhile since i touched protools again. finished up the 45 sec ad for preschi. it was for some green tea mooncake~ pretty cool stuff we did, and it is due tmrw! we kinda had the 2 week break to do it but hey we were good, mervyn, rox and amanda plus i. we were good man, the finished product was better than we expected. And right straight on the 45 sec mark! PERFECTION! TA DAH!

I enjoyed doing it really~ and amanda is damn good man, i never knew she was so good in mandarin and she was the voice over for the product and wah she sounds damn good and very appropriate for our style of ad~ merf and rox were the bickering couple in bed lol! good thing i didnt have to open my mouth~ but directed some of the script action and edited stuff also~ the final product as merf says, sounds damn pro~ lol! never thought radio commercials were so fun to do~

Anyway, i think i've sorta hit a dry spell for quite some time already and because of dat i cant progress on to my minor scales. I've been struggling with a hellota tone problems ever since i changed my mouthpiece and modified it further. My embouchure previously, the way i hold my sax, how much mouthpiece i place in my mouth, the amount of pressure i give on the reed, and my air support. sax is so fuckin hard to play man i swear. well ok maybe play is not the word here. The word is good tone, make dat two words.

But the instructor is rite, without good tone, how can u call yourself a musician man? ever heard a drummer, guitarist, pianist, saxophonist, brasswind player watsoever who can play their instrument but somehow or rather they dun sound good? some plain downright SUCK! UEUGH! I tell u, it's all about the tone man. the tone, the articulation, the accents, the wat not. Wat differentiates a saxophonist (or any other musician) who can play and one who sounds and plays damn well is TONE. So much like preschi eh? u can speak the language chinese yes. but sounding good and right speakin chinese, now dat's a whole different story man~ dat's TONE for u~

man, i cant remember how many lessons i've had (kinda like wasted) focusing on developing good tone. And i tell u it is fuckin difficult, it is not technique dat kills, no. i think tone is alot more difficult to master than technique. One guy said this: "Focus on producing a good tone, the technique will come naturally". I think rite now, i'd have to agree~ i've got bad memory, sometimes i cant seem to remember wat i did right and because of dat my progress is slowed. dat's no good, from now on, i gotta force myself to be mroe alert, mroe discerning as to where concerns learnin the right things. Memory, Observation, Experience - These are wat i learnt from scriptwriting in the early weeks. Now these are being applied in my sax learning. It's all about those man~

how long's it been? bout 2 mths and 2 wks~ short amount of time, short period. i cannot expect overnight success with tone because it comes with time. To be pro, one needs to accumulate at least 10,000 hours of practice doing the RIGHT things! divide dat by the number of hours one can practise and you will get a range of more than 10 years to as little as 2 or 3 years to achieve pro~ each lesson, each day passes by and i keep reevaluating my goals, my objectives. I needa be realistic while at teh same time, push myself, force myself to eat more meat. The instructor says dat my progress depends solely upon my own effort. And dat has been stickin in my head all the day.

then, comes my horn and the leaks, damn frustrating. But not for long. i will have it sent to Danny first thing tmrw morning. The earlier the better. Have him work on it and fix all leaks. After dat, it's back to the battle plan. i really gotta start gettin hands on, memorise wat i did right and be aware of wat i do wrong and i will right em all down in a notebook which i will buy. Gotta include my thoughts in there.

Angelic Moon

Did u see the moon yesterday?? it was beautiful man~ A halo around it~ with mars inside~ it was beautiful. The night sky had this shade of dark blue grey to it and it was clear and cool. I love the night sky, i love the moon~ and the stars too~ i needa find someone to watch the stars with me someday~ dat'll be fun.

The halo around a moon means dat it'll rain the next day~ wat exactly causes this halo effect, called moon rings around the moon? Well i was interested, so i did some research and wat i found was this from the Rings Around The Moon Website: The ring around the Moon is caused by the refraction of Moonlight (which of course is reflected sunlight) from ice crystals in the upper atmosphere. The shape of the ice crystals results in a focusing of the light into a ring. Since the ice crystals typically have the same shape, namely a hexagonal shape, the Moon ring is almost always the same size.
Folklore has it that a ring around the moon signifies bad weather is coming, and in many cases this may be true. So how can rings around the moon be a predictor of weather to come? The ice crystals that cover the halo signify high altitude, thin cirrus clouds that normally precede a warm front by one or two days. Typically, a warm front will be associated with a low pressure system which is commonly referred to as a storm.
It is believed that the number of stars within a moon halo indicate the number days before bad weather will arrive. Give it a try the next time you observe a moon halo.

Interesting huh?? The skies hold many mysteries~ zodiacs, auroras, comets, meteorite showers, rainbows.. wat not~ i love it~ check out the site to see the images~

So, who's interested in sky gazing???