On Getting Better

Hi everyone!

 Am so happy to have some time on my hands now to update this blog!

 I just read some of your comments that apparently I’d left “unapproved” (but which I actually just didn’t know about). There was one that came from Niz, who heard my cover of “O Holy Night” on the Jam compilo album (released in 2005, I think, but distributed for free to the radio station’s clients) and said she didn’t like it. “It isn’t good,” she remarked.

 I like it when people speak their minds. Those who do have actually gone on to become great friends of mine. So thank you Niz and everyone out there who’s listened to my stuff and found it wanting. It’s my incentive to keep working on my craft and get better!

But that’s the tricky part about recorded music. You may have recorded it way, way back, in 2004 or whenever, when you were still unsure and wet behind the ears, but some people who will hear it for the first time in 2011 will see this as the absolute snapshot of your artistry. 

 So I guess I’ll be getting more comments like Niz’s as my recorded stuff from kopong-kopong slowly makes its way through this world. 

But meanwhile, here’s a bit of me now, at the Tori Amos night in 2009, doing a cover of  “Caught A Lite Sneeze.” Recorded by fellow Toriphile Aldena at Conspi. Stll a work in progress, still a bit rough, but I’m getting there. And thanks for being here with me.

The Lumang Baul

Hi everyone!

 I’m currently on break from TV work, which is a great opportunity for me to finish my unfinished stuff. I was so blessed this month to be visited by a colleague, singer-actress Lynn Sherman, who is also on break from work.  We recorded a song - actually a mashup of existing songs- here in my home studio for a period of three days and we had an interesting process going. Hopefully my break will be long enough for me to mixdown everything I have and really hone my chops as a music producer. 

 Another colleague, the very talented singer-theater actor-multi-instrumentalist Nar Cabico, emailed me to ask about the AIDS-awareness rock musical we were both part of some years back. He’s joined a youth initiative on AIDS awareness and wants to use some of the songs we recorded for that.  So I ended up making kalkal my lumang baul of songs and I rediscovered this gem of a song, still rough at the edges, but rather enjoyable to hear again. Lyrics were penned by a succession of writers that came and went during the troubled preproduction stage of this musical (rather aptly called “Palipat-lipat, Pasalin-salin”) so the producer, the inimitable Rochit Tanedo, finally came up with the final draft together with her daughter Amihan. The music is fairly simple, just E flat

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minor throughout (my favorite key actually, hehe), but Nar’s vocal talent really made this piece shine. We tracked the live parts at Shinji’s and mixed them down at my place, where I added a few more instruments.