Am migrating to Tumblr.

Will not be updating this blog anymore. Join the tidal wave of change, the bells of doom ring, and the end is near…well you know what I mean.

Honestly though, Tumblr is just more flexible.

Makes me think about shows. I just get up there and play. Sometimes I talk and sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I wonder what to say. Sometimes I wonder if people script their stage banter. Sometimes some bands make silence work for them in between songs. It makes them look mysterious. Or angry and broody. Maybe all of the above.

If even cave men had the urge to create music, and/or listen to music, and saw the creation of some kind of music, or sound, as momentous enough to record it in cave drawings centuries ago, why is modern man losing the ability to enjoy music, something so primitive and instinctive? (Ok I’m not talking about appreciating Herbie Hancock…or music that requires a music college degree to understand.)

Maybe we don’t have enough silence in the world to make music special again. There is too much music and noise everywhere. Throw a stone around any coffee bar or cafe and you’ll hit a “musician”. Everyone is making noise and putting out material – words, music, sound, film, opinions, photos, remixes, pastiches…will there be anyone left to listen?

Its uncanny I just finished reading Chuck Palahniuk’s Lullaby today.

I wrote a song for the One Dream Initiative recently. I usually don’t do many pro-bono gigs, if at all, because I’ve always thought that we should leave it up to the big names like Bono. But I met the leader of this group, and he asked me a really simple question when we met:

“Why do you think Singaporeans are always complaining and always so unhappy? Why do they always seem like they do not like the lives which they lead?”

I thought that was really interesting, and he had pretty good answer for this question. Well, you can’t solve everyone’s existential crisis (haha, if only everyone would please get one each), but I guess it all has to start somewhere. So I wrote a song, the only way I knew how to contribute to this cause.

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“If you and your friends had SGD5K, what is the “One Dream” you have, which you will give your best to see fulfilled? What represents your deepest passion to make Singapore a much better place, where everyone can live much better lives?”

More on One Dream

And then I woke up and read this, and thought to myself, “Wow you’ve really forgotten why you wanted to do this in the first place.”

I’m going to make sure I never forget what this is all about.

Are you and Artist, or Just Someone who plays music?

Many of us use the term ‘independent artist’ or ‘recording artist’ to describe ourselves, but are we really artists, or are we just people who play music?

To answer that question we need to decide what it means to be an artist. Many of us grew up in an environment where we were only taught what art means at a superficial level. Maybe our first definition of an artist was someone who was really good at making realistic paintings or drawings or maybe someone who made weird abstract creations that were supposedly only understood by special people. Perhaps we made a vague translation of those ideas and applied them to music in some way and that’s as far as we got.

So what does it mean to be an artist? I think that’s a question worth asking – often. The answer will likely change and evolve for you over time. It’s not one of those words you can just look up in the dictionary, assimilate and forget about.

I’ve spent a good deal of time thinking about this myself. As of right now, here’s what I’ve got:

* An artist creates from an internal frame of reference. They don’t look around to see what’s cool or popular and act out of the hope for validation. They believe in their ability to create something meaningful from their own unique experiences and view of the world.
* Their drive to create is more important than their desire not to fail.
* They operate under the premise that what they say and do matters. A lot of creative people act as though they can say or do whatever they want because it doesn’t really affect anyone in the end anyway. These people are not artists.
* True artists see opportunity to create art everywhere in their lives. They step back and see possibilities instead of just facts. They imagine new, beautiful and interesting outcomes and dream about ways to make them happen – even if they seem crazy or unrealistic.
* They take responsibility for making things happen in the real world.

An artist can be a singer, a photographer, a painter, or a teacher, a judge, or a waiter. All it requires is a heart, some courage and some creativity.

Roberto Benigni’s character in “Life is Beautiful” was an artist. In this scene he uses his creativity to help paint a different picture of what was happening for his son.

Sometimes being an artist is about protecting something beautiful and sometimes it’s about creating something beautiful.

I have a friend who’s spent some time on tour with Billy Joel. She said that one time he spontaneously decided to play a couple’s wedding reception for 4 hours because he happened to be staying at the hotel where it was held! Probably blew their minds. I’m sure they will never, ever forget that and it’s impossible to know what that meant to them, but I’m sure it was profound. Those are the things that artists live for.

Artists give voices to the voiceless – because they can. Artists blow people’s minds – because they can. Artists change people’s lives – because they can. They can do things that other people don’t do because they’re looking for things that other people can’t see and seeing things that other people can’t, or don’t imagine. They live in a world of possibility beyond the boundaries that most people accept and then they use their vision to create beautiful things in the real world.

Artists are not defined by their technical ability. A poor musician can be a great artist. What makes an artist is that they create and preserve beauty in ways that most people would never think of. An artist is someone who sees life itself as the venue for their creativity. It doesn’t start and end within a song. For a true artist, a song is just part of a bigger work of art. It’s not just about filling up seats or making people move. It’s about how what they do really affects people.

Sometimes art is about changing the world. Sometimes it’s about helping someone get over the loss of a loved one. Other times it’s about making someone smile, or helping someone believe in something that they had given up on.

There are a lot of tools to create art. You’ve got music. You may not be Billy Joel… but to someone you are. What are you going to do about it?

It will be released on 11th April.

I really like the cause. I hope everyone else does too. =)

But now I think I need to delete my Twitter account too.

Remember back when you listened to some song on radio, or in some dark corner of the internet, where the streaming speed was so dreadfully slow you had to wait two hours to listen to one 3 minute song fully loaded?

These days, after listening to something awesome, you’ll be sharing it on Facebook or Twitter, and forgetting about it the moment you’ve stamped that social currency on your status. Look at me, I listen to cool music.

There’s a heightened, secret, ecstasy in listening, falling in love with, and obsessing about music in private.

Let the singer sing to you, and you only.

Fall in love in private.

But honestly? It gets really hard to tell out of the 20-30 songs completed which are the top 10%. So you have to write like, 100 songs. Then you can cherrypick.

But there’s another, bigger problem. Because you know, personal taste in music is so subjective. I cannot listen to any country music for more than 3 minutes, because the twanginess just turns me off. But that’s taste.

And on the other hand, Chilly Gonzales said he looks at music as pure science. He despises personal taste as a point of reference to music. ( I wonder what he’d say about twangy singing – technically unsophisticated? Is that science, or taste?)

Me? I can’t even read a damn page of music score.

So….*deep breath*

Back to filling my 90%.

Those include side-stepping impulse-buying, impulse-eating, impulse-anything. To be “rational” is to play tricks in your own mind.

This trick-playing also works when writing a song.

Sometimes I imagine landscapes going up and down. Sometimes the landscapes look like lego pieces, sometimes they look like skyscrapers, and other times like hills rolling on forever.

Maybe I just need to take more music theory lesson. (Well maybe I really need to take theory lessons. Its the missing link for myself to grow, I feel.)

It was in a very grassy place with lots of greenery.

Then the funeral ended, and people were staying to speak to each other, but I picked up my guitar and I left. I then walked a little way down the road to try to take a cab, but there were three middle-aged women who started trying to get cabs too.

I ended up pushing and shoving with them.

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And then I woke up and I had to go to work to complete my notice period.

Hmmmm.