Fly

Y + B

Melody

Sound

Today I went to the Walt Disney Concert Hall to see noon accompany Kim Tae Woo of the late g.o.d....

No big deal... right?

The main performances of the benefit concert were by classical musicians (orchestra, quartet, pianist, haegum soloist). One thing I noticed in these youth musicians is that the majority of them looked so unhappy. Every sequence of notes they play seems to translate "mom made me do it." When the pianist came out and the orchestra was waiting for their part to come in there was one guy in the front row violin section who sat back all the way in his chair (sagaj style) and sighed loudly enough for everyone in the terrace level to hear. I give them some sympathy though because they are the ones who weren't strong-willed, independent-minded, and stubbornly disobedient enough, like me, to defile and resist every piano lesson their parents threw at them. Yea. No regrets. Baby. Just ignore the salty discharge from my eye.

After the orchestra was done, this kpop star pops out and brings out the storm after the calm while working the crowd in all its 1 and 3 beat, ahjuma clapping glory. I heard noon's piano clearly throughout the first two songs, but when he (and the whole orchestra) busted out "I Believe I Can Fly" noon was lost in the sound waves and unable to reach the terrace where I was sitting. He was quite good. He came out for an encore performance, which by the way was more like a "2nd Movement" because he had prepared 3 whole tracks along with 3 background rent-a-rappers rapping along side him to 90's kpop. I actually did enjoy this strange raucous crossover in such a pristine, classically ambient concert hall, but I must admit that I couldn't help but cringe a little at times knowing that mom, dad, and our guest pastor's family from hip town Jacksonville, Mississippi were sitting on the opposite side of the hall.

Mr. Kpop left the stage on a high note with people (mostly those youngsters dressed and ready to go clubbing after the concert) out of their seats dancing and groovin' (not grooving) to the catchy beats. The concert hall was now full of energy but what everyone forgot was that the youth orchestra had their final piece to play. The hall suddenly became uncomfortably silent as the conductor came back on stage and the orchestra began to play Symphony No. 9, a fairly upbeat piece in classical music standards, but definitely not as upbeat as Mr. Kpop's runs. To "kill it" even more they did an encore piece (no one asked) called "Arirang" a Korean traditional folk song.

In short, the whole concert was like listening to someone's ipod shuffle. Enjoyable yet incoherent in my humble opinion. At least I got in for free and at least I get some bragging rights that my very own sister was on stage with... Mr. Kim.

On the way back home, I was left with one question:

When all is said and done, to whom does the glory go to?

Be My

Everything

Grace

amazing.

[thanks lindajames]

Contemporavant

Contemporary + Relevant = Contemproavant

"brilliant parody"

via Worship Matters

on a totally related note,

spam + rice + seaweed = spariceweed

or spam musubi (mmm~)

.

sorry mr き, i win. =]

Dirty Jazz

I realized why I like jazz.

Ever since I graduated from Super Mario Piano Academy with a double major in Chopsticks and Rugrats, jam sessions with noon have been rare. We had completely mastered that one song everyone knows from birth and suddenly remembers whenever two people get on a piano (just googled it and it's fittingly called "Heart and Soul"). We even created a techno version of that other minor sounding duet song. That's right. Acoustic techno.

I always say, "I taught her well" whenever someone compliments noon, but really, I taught her well... (good thing she doesn't read this blog, I think). One of the minor reasons why I quit piano lessons was because I didn't like the idea of losing to noon at an instrument, so my solution was to be awesome at the guitar. Unfortunately, I lose to myself in that as well. The major reason for quitting? Collecting stars in Super Mario 64 > Collecting star stickers for practicing piano. woo-hoo! I got it!

Then I met jazz. It was love at first sound. More technically, it was the blues (King Jesus is All) and in this context I'm referring more to the improvising aspect of jazz (that'll calm the jazz enthusiasts). When I heard improvisation for the first time, it was just... weird in a good way! I was so drawn to the idea of making music on the fly that I wanted in immediately. Reason? I didn't have to read a single note to play! (duh!) and of course the freedom I would have in that! So I learned the blues scale and forced my way into the circle and began to learn more riffs and styles to expand my limited sound. Though I admit more than half the time, no, 99% of the time, I don't know what the funk I'm playing, but with the scales as the tracks I can keep up with the groove all day. choo choo. Even as I play predetermined chords in a sequence and notes in a scale, there is an infinite possibility of patterns and syncopations. This is what I like to call dirty jazz - unpolished, unlearned, low level, newbie improvisation (but it still sounds kinda cool).

Now fast forward to last Saturday: Noon and I were at tfpc last Saturday helping out with dad's seminar. During lunch time, we sneaked into the main sanctuary to jam on the grand piano. I sat on the right as usual. "Play something." She began playing this brightly syncopated, upbeat counter-melody and added in a catchy, funky 3 note riff on the spot. Then that spark of genius landed on my hands and I was now setting off firecrackin' melodies based on the 3 note riff as noon continued to comp on the lower ends. After a few minutes we had a smooth pattern down. We looked at each other and said, "Record this, now." We both took our phones out to record and ended up recording (maximum recording time on my phone: 1 minute), more than 5 times. What I realized was that every single time we recorded, it was different. Like way different. And it was perfectly fine that it was different.

And that's when I realized - I absolutely love how there is no way of reproducing that same improvised sequence and vibe (and repeating everything perfectly is different from being able to reproduce that exact moment in time, the thoughts and the emotions you have, etc.). Some runs you like. Other ones you don't. Sometimes only a measure of one recording is good or one bad note seems to kill the whole recording. It makes that moment that much more special. It makes it one of those "you had to be there" moments. It makes the world go around.

In short, I like jazz because I'm a slacker who can get away without any practice not because I'm good (seriously), but because I can pretend and make stuff up.

doo doo beep boop boppity doo!

Just wait for the album.

/poorly written SAT essay

Lift Your Name on High

Lord I Lift Your Name on High was the first praise song I ever learned on guitar and piano. I always thought it was such a simple song to play (chords = G, C, D).

This guy takes it to a whole 'nother scale.

Too legit.

The lyrics, all the more:

Lord I lift Your name on high

Lord I love to sing Your praises

I'm so glad You're in my life

I'm so glad You came to save us

You came from heaven to earth, to show the way

From the earth to the cross, my sins to pay

From the cross to the grave, from the grave to the sky

Lord I lift Your name on high

Happy Day

Classic.

Jiffy Jam

All day.

thanks jam.cha for the song

Hope

Imagine Words with wings that uplift the soul

One drop, two tears, three nails to make me whole

Imagine words with wings that uplift the soul

Take me higher and higher to places unknown

So foreign yet so familiar like a forgotten home

There is a peace of mind in knowing I'm not alone

I'm part of His story in the making

Before the womb, before time He made me

I can rest easy and let the Wind move me

He's the director and I'm in His movie

So I close my eyes and walk by faith

See visions with the ear, be still and wait

And I hear the Words invade my heart

"I will finish what I start"

Imagine Words with wings that uplift the soul

One drop, two tears, three nails to make me whole

Snow

This past quarter I had the chance to compose a song. Intro to Composition. The class (about 10 students) spent 10 weeks working on a final project, which was a 5 minute piece about an individual topic on any instrument, and that was the only grade in the class. We each had to write a song, find a performer to play the song in a concert setting, and then discuss the song. At first, I didn't like the way the professor approached writing music. He used "materials" such as inverting and retrograding a melody, getting someone's birthday and using that as the time signature (e.g. birthday is 9/16 so time signature can be 9/16), and all these crazy things that didn't include sitting and waiting around for a spark of genius.

He made one surfer guy, who wanted to write about the ocean, go to the beach for half a day and write down observation. He ended up recording the height and length of the incoming tides at 15 minute intervals for 4 hours. Another girl said that emotions help her write songs so the professor made her write 200 different emotions. She brought in one piece of paper with size 4 font with 200 emotions. (When the professor wasn't there one week she admitted she used a thesaurus. No shame girl, I would have done the same thing). This other guy ended up making a piece about a microwave because he once mentioned it as an example of where he gets inspiration. hah! Suckah. as in... it sucks for him.

As for me, I thought I was pretty clever. My piece was about my relationship with noon. My assignment was to come up with 50 different characteristics of noon and me. Ridiculous. I was going to compose for piano and have each hand represent a sibling. Older sister and younger brother. To top it off I was going to have her come down and play the piece. A+ right there. The audience would be in tears - so touched, so moved by the love..... But it was too hard. It was like writing for two instruments. I ended up writing for viola because I knew Philip. beautiful. The professor challenged me in many ways to be active in composing and writing. I resisted at first, but I realized it doesn't just come to you, and if it ever feels like it does it's because of an accumulation of inspired activity. In other words, inspiration comes from outside sources apart from me or from anyone. In this case, I was trying to capture the essence of a relationship between siblings who are connected by the Father's love (yea pretty deep stuff, ey?). It only feels like it's from within because we tend to internalize our life and circumstances. But what do I know right?

I can go into all the details of the piece because every measure is purposeful, but I like to let the music speak for itself. Though one thing I do want to mention is that the main melody of the piece (especially repeated near the end) is a waltz that dad used to hum and sing when I was a kid. He would come home from work and pick noon and me up and dance around the house in a waltz. To this day, I don't know where the actual song is from, but noon and I remember the melody clearly. Big thanks to Philip, who pulled off the concert with less than an hour to practice... since I didn't finish until then.