Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Imagine
It’s amazing what the human mind can create out of technology.
I was searching on the Internet for some technical specifics about motors, so I tried numerous search terms and went through an infinite stream of pages. Page after page of technical specifications, graphs and tables later, I stumbled upon something very curiously intriguing, and the first thing that went through my mind was “Damnit, why couldn’t I have done something like THIS for my Final Year Project?”
I’ll leave you to read up on the details. When I went through the development process of this…product, I found many similarities in how I went about my FYP. There was the initial skepticism, working with a problem that few understood, and of course the many rounds of prototyping, testing and redesign. Even the waking up at 3AM with an idea part also struck a bell.
Now that I’ve printed out my thesis for binding and final submission after consulting my supervisor, it’s fun to speculate on what I could have done if I really had complete freedom in choosing a project.
Well, I’m not entirely sure the testing process would have been that enjoyable in the long run, but I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t be as messy as mine.
I think.
I was searching on the Internet for some technical specifics about motors, so I tried numerous search terms and went through an infinite stream of pages. Page after page of technical specifications, graphs and tables later, I stumbled upon something very curiously intriguing, and the first thing that went through my mind was “Damnit, why couldn’t I have done something like THIS for my Final Year Project?”
I’ll leave you to read up on the details. When I went through the development process of this…product, I found many similarities in how I went about my FYP. There was the initial skepticism, working with a problem that few understood, and of course the many rounds of prototyping, testing and redesign. Even the waking up at 3AM with an idea part also struck a bell.
Now that I’ve printed out my thesis for binding and final submission after consulting my supervisor, it’s fun to speculate on what I could have done if I really had complete freedom in choosing a project.
Well, I’m not entirely sure the testing process would have been that enjoyable in the long run, but I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t be as messy as mine.
I think.
Monday, April 10, 2006
Surprise surprise
| You Are Guinness |
 You know beer well, and you'll only drink the best beers in the world. Watered down beers disgust you, as do the people who drink them. When you drink, you tend to become a bit of a know it all - especially about subjects you don't know well. But your friends tolerate your drunken ways, because you introduce them to the best beers around. |
That song in my head...
Back in the time before I discovered my musical inclinations, there was always 90.5FM as played by my dad in the car and in the house, and there was this one filler song that they always played, the kind of instrumental that gets thrown in between when there’s nothing else to play. I first heard it when I was still in primary school, probably late 80’s early 90s.
The thing about this song is, it had such a jazzy and catchy riff that it simply stuck in my head, and even in those days when I didn’t know much about jazz I could already hum it from memory. That was probably my first exposure to the rhythm of the blues and the sounds of jazz. As I became a big time fan of the blues, my curiosity about that song just grew stronger and stronger.
The problem was, I never knew what it was called. Due to its rather anonymous nature, the radio DJ never bothered to mention who it was or even the title of the song. Much as I liked the song, I couldn’t find it anywhere and I had to be content with being reminded of its existence only when it played on the radio. Searching through the discographies and sound clips of composers like Ennio Morricone and Henry Mancini, whom I thought would have composed something along that line, were futile.
They played yet again the other day, and this time I somehow had the presence of mind to ask my dad what it was called. He didn’t quite know either, except that the song name had the word “Tijuana” in it.
So off to the Internet I went, going in circles all around this huge mess of what Mick Jagger had unknowingly prophesised in Satisfaction as “useless information”. Without going into the gory details, my intensive detective work paid off at long last.
“A Taste of Honey” by Herb Alpert and The Tijuana Brass.
It was bold and brassy, with a groovy walking bass line and a driving shuffle. The melody was by no means flashy, just a simple line played by a lead trumpet backed by a brass section and interspersed with the kind of tremolo-drenched electric guitar found mostly in surf tunes or spaghetti westerns. In fact, after listening more intently it had a distinct mariachi brass feel (the clue is in the Tijuana part) rather than a jazz big band sound.
The whole combination oozed 60’s vibe, but then again that’s because it WAS in the 60s. The sound of that era was also firmly etched in my mind by The Shadows (especially this song) and The Ventures. It seems to me that was truly the age of instrumentals, a time when an instrument could carry the whole song without vocals simply by playing a memorable melody that could paint a picture in the listeners mind. It could have been a trenchcoat-wearing sleuth walking the sleazy streets, a spy threading through the corridors of his nemesis’s large castle, a slicked-up bachelor cruising the highway in a Cadillac or a surfer-dude (before they were called dudes) riding the waves on the beach to win the adoring gaze of bikini-clad and immaculately-coiffed girls.
And perhaps, that’s influenced the way I approach music. Less fancy notes (I couldn’t play them even if I wanted to anyway) and more meaningful lines, the kind that I can hum in my head.
I’m not sure many of today’s songs would have lasted that long in my memory if they were playing back then.
The thing about this song is, it had such a jazzy and catchy riff that it simply stuck in my head, and even in those days when I didn’t know much about jazz I could already hum it from memory. That was probably my first exposure to the rhythm of the blues and the sounds of jazz. As I became a big time fan of the blues, my curiosity about that song just grew stronger and stronger.
The problem was, I never knew what it was called. Due to its rather anonymous nature, the radio DJ never bothered to mention who it was or even the title of the song. Much as I liked the song, I couldn’t find it anywhere and I had to be content with being reminded of its existence only when it played on the radio. Searching through the discographies and sound clips of composers like Ennio Morricone and Henry Mancini, whom I thought would have composed something along that line, were futile.
They played yet again the other day, and this time I somehow had the presence of mind to ask my dad what it was called. He didn’t quite know either, except that the song name had the word “Tijuana” in it.
So off to the Internet I went, going in circles all around this huge mess of what Mick Jagger had unknowingly prophesised in Satisfaction as “useless information”. Without going into the gory details, my intensive detective work paid off at long last.
“A Taste of Honey” by Herb Alpert and The Tijuana Brass.
It was bold and brassy, with a groovy walking bass line and a driving shuffle. The melody was by no means flashy, just a simple line played by a lead trumpet backed by a brass section and interspersed with the kind of tremolo-drenched electric guitar found mostly in surf tunes or spaghetti westerns. In fact, after listening more intently it had a distinct mariachi brass feel (the clue is in the Tijuana part) rather than a jazz big band sound.
The whole combination oozed 60’s vibe, but then again that’s because it WAS in the 60s. The sound of that era was also firmly etched in my mind by The Shadows (especially this song) and The Ventures. It seems to me that was truly the age of instrumentals, a time when an instrument could carry the whole song without vocals simply by playing a memorable melody that could paint a picture in the listeners mind. It could have been a trenchcoat-wearing sleuth walking the sleazy streets, a spy threading through the corridors of his nemesis’s large castle, a slicked-up bachelor cruising the highway in a Cadillac or a surfer-dude (before they were called dudes) riding the waves on the beach to win the adoring gaze of bikini-clad and immaculately-coiffed girls.
And perhaps, that’s influenced the way I approach music. Less fancy notes (I couldn’t play them even if I wanted to anyway) and more meaningful lines, the kind that I can hum in my head.
I’m not sure many of today’s songs would have lasted that long in my memory if they were playing back then.
Monday, April 03, 2006
Let's see...
This blog is coming close to it's first year anniversary. It started life as a chronicle of my 10 week internship at the suggestion of an enthusiastic friend (I wonder if she still reads it now though) and it has since become a creative outlet of sorts, a pseudo-pedestal-cum-podium from which I dispense opinions I deem suitable for public consumption and espouse my somewhat lopsided musical tastes.
To commemorate this occasion let's have a look at some of the more recent interesting searches that led here, see if you can figure out which entries contained these terms:
1) brewerkz
2) people who captures stray dogs (I don't know either)
3) hound dog taylor video (perhaps related to the above)
4) chet atkins
5) fabrication galvanised sheet
6) roomful of blues singapore
7) vjc guitar ensemble
8) stone polish sandpaper (no idea)
9) blues virus singapore
10) NUS Chancellor Shield
Among some of the other more "colourful" search terms that aren't stored in my Sitemeter log anymore but which I distinctly remember are:
1) nude singapore girls (or some permutation/combination)
2) geylang girl xxx (ditto)
3) trashy lingerie
Again, see if you can spot those. Don't expect anything too exciting though.
And to reflect the marvels of how the Internet has shrunk our neighbourhood, here are two other bloggers with whom I've made contact through this blog:
1) Angels and Vagabonds by Tim McGarry
2) Bamboo and Motorbikes : Soundscapes of Japan by Ayme Frye
Both are excellent blogs well worth reading, you'd do well to check them out.
To end it off, I would like to extend a warm welcome to a certain Singnet user who seems to keep entering my blog via a yahoo search for "boogie-chillun.blogspot juke joint". Regardless of whether you happen to be an attractive female or not, do drop a line and say hi.
Back to our regular programme.
To commemorate this occasion let's have a look at some of the more recent interesting searches that led here, see if you can figure out which entries contained these terms:
1) brewerkz
2) people who captures stray dogs (I don't know either)
3) hound dog taylor video (perhaps related to the above)
4) chet atkins
5) fabrication galvanised sheet
6) roomful of blues singapore
7) vjc guitar ensemble
8) stone polish sandpaper (no idea)
9) blues virus singapore
10) NUS Chancellor Shield
Among some of the other more "colourful" search terms that aren't stored in my Sitemeter log anymore but which I distinctly remember are:
1) nude singapore girls (or some permutation/combination)
2) geylang girl xxx (ditto)
3) trashy lingerie
Again, see if you can spot those. Don't expect anything too exciting though.
And to reflect the marvels of how the Internet has shrunk our neighbourhood, here are two other bloggers with whom I've made contact through this blog:
1) Angels and Vagabonds by Tim McGarry
2) Bamboo and Motorbikes : Soundscapes of Japan by Ayme Frye
Both are excellent blogs well worth reading, you'd do well to check them out.
To end it off, I would like to extend a warm welcome to a certain Singnet user who seems to keep entering my blog via a yahoo search for "boogie-chillun.blogspot juke joint". Regardless of whether you happen to be an attractive female or not, do drop a line and say hi.
Back to our regular programme.
