I know it’s too early to give such an award but given the rarety of the occassions, I doubt – but certainly sincerely hope – that such a day keeps popping out from my life. At work, I’ve closed one project and closed one deal in record time. Basically for both meetings, cut away all the hi-how-are-you’s, they lasted less than 10 minutes. For the second meeting on business deal, I have left the meeting room before even having a chance to drink that package of sugery drink that the clients provided.
Back home, I have begun my routine practice on recording my vocal tracks. Wanted to give up halfway but I have persisted (tempted by World of Warcraft all the time and besides, at times I did not do that well). Tired after 3.5 hours of practicing, wanted to play online game. But since Jason is so keen on creating this concept album (or EP – extended play – because of the number of songs), I said to myself, if not today, when?
Started writing songs from 9.30pm. I have to admit that my voice was a bit tired after extended practicing. Plugged in my electric classic guitar, the first song was out in less than half an hour! I was so excited because I have not been writing for a long time. The last serious batch of songs were written back in Indonesia during Christmas and one casually written song (surprisingly Cynthia likes it) about more than a month ago.
After written the first song – a fast song – using some familiar chords, I have switched to a slow one experimenting different chords. The process continued with me experimenting a different lyrics style on the third fast song. Back to another slow one with some 7th chords. I have got to confess the process got harder and harder as I entered into early morning of the night. My fingers were numb and my voice was nearly gone. One good thing about technology nowadays is that I can theorectically keep writing songs non-stop because I can record all the chords and melody on the fly. In the past, I need to transcript the music notes as I proceed. Now, just record and move on. The flip side is of course I tend to be worn out a lot faster.
The last song of the set was the most difficult one to write. After coming out four songs of different styles, I was running low in creativity on how to make the last song different from the rest.
The most number of songs I have written in a single 24-hours day is two. And for the hundred over songs I have written in the last 10 years, I can only recall 2 days when that happened. So much I wanted to give up but I was worried that if I stopped, I would have lost the momentum and lost the concept. Hence I pressed on and completed the last song borrowing the existing No Eye Candy style. This concept album or EP will not be complete without the last song.
Overall, I am very pleased with the results and the variety of the five songs.