Concert recap: BNL

It'd been a long while since I'd been to a live concert. Almost long enough that I'd forgotten how a well-crafted show can hold your attention for almost as long as a good play or movie. And certainly long enough that I'd forgotten how it feels to be sitting through the concert and then suddenly hear something so delightful that you and two-and-a-half thousand people get up and start dancing. I understand that BNL is known to put on a particularly good show, so it was fortuitous to have a chance to see them live last year. And disappoint they did not.

I went in to the show remembering that they sang "Pinch Me", one of my favorites, and the song that goes, "It's been, one week since you looked at me.... yah dah dah dee dah dah dee dah yah dah." So it was a pleasant surprise when they brought out "If I had a million dollars", "You run away," and other songs that I knew, but didn't realize that BNL sang.  When you hear a song that you haven't even thought of for a decade, but that you heard every day on the radio for an entire summer ten years ago, it's amazing how the mind not only brings back the melody and lyrics, but also other thoughts and feelings that were associated with that song back in the day.  That's something that's just so powerful about music.

I left the show better understanding the appeal of the band and why they developed such a following over the years.  They alternated between acoustic and electric songs, with each member of the band playing different instruments and singing different harmonies for a variety of arrangements that kept the show fairly dynamic. From barbershop acapella to improvised rap to banjo-driven folk, the band sprinkled novelty numbers around their mainstream hits.  I left the Mountain Winery humming and singing their music for the next few days.

No matter how much the world has changed in the way we consume media these days, it's hard to imagine anything that can truly replicate the impact that a successful live show can have for a band.  And there's nothing else that inspires a musician to dust off his instrument like attending a live show.

Wake-Up Kiss: a new song about lazy mornings

The morning is one of my favorite times of the day. I wrote this song when I was traveling to Paris a few years ago, inspired by leisurely mornings in the City of Lights. Although I was in France, the first word in the chorus actually has a Chinese translation I should point out: "Zao an" means "good morning" in Mandarin. Why use Chinese here? Well, my Chinese is not great by any means, but there are certain Chinese phrases that I really got used to saying at home while growing up. And "zao an" was one of them. Also in the chorus, I would have liked to have been able to use the French word, "mademoiselle" (one of the few that I remember from high school French class), but it just didn't work. So combine my limited Chinese with my even more limited French, and this is what you get, "zao an madame."

With regards to the music, I wrote the chords on guitar, first. Then, I wrote the melody with Finale. When I do that, the melody can often be difficult to sing, because I don't pay as much attention as I should to my own singing range when I compose. I had to actually download the MP3 to my phone and learn how to sing the song that way -- and I still don't have it quite right. But I had a day off last week and so I figured I'd give it a go to see if I could get a reasonable take down.

So I went driving around in the afternoon during my daughter's nap and looked for a different spot than last time. Although it was a beautiful day and there were some really scenic possibilities I found, I couldn't quite get far enough away from the road to avoid all of the road noise. So apologies for the sound of cars rumbling by. This was the best take I could get down:

A New Uke for the New Year

Just before Christmas, we took a family vacation to Maui. As is always the case when I visit Hawaii, I got ukulele tunes and all sorts of Hawaiian music stuck in my head, which is such an integral part of the whole experience and part of what makes the islands so relaxing.

As we were leaving, my wife thought it would be fun to buy my daughter a toy ukulele as a souvenir. And I agreed. So we picked one up from downtown Lahaina on our way to the airport.  While my daughter loves her little pink uke, at some point I expressed some mild disappointment that the instrument didn't really hold it's tuning very well. So it wasn't really playable as a real instrument.  My wife heard this and rectified the situation by surprising me with a ukulele of my own on Christmas morning!

She did a good job finding a solid instrument at a reasonable price. Apparently, the local music store was running low on inventory before the holidays, saying that ukulele's have been pretty popular this season. I wonder how much of the recent surge in popularity has been due to this song?

I love my solid-wood, Kala concert ukulele. I've been playing with it over my Christmas vacation and will hopefully be able to record something soon that I can post. As there are only four strings on a ukulele, the chord formations are fairly easy to learn for a guitarist. What takes the most getting used to is how to hold such a small instrument.

Happy new year!

A 5-piece band performance of "Hello World"

Earlier this summer, for the first time in awhile I had a chance to play with a band -- albeit just for one performance. The opportunity arose when an invitation went out to a music list I'm on at work, informing us about an upcoming diversity fair that had open performance slots available for musicians. So I signed up on the list, then contacted some other musicians on the list to see if they wanted to collaborate. We met a few times to rehearse, auditioned, then met for a few more practices before performing at the event.

There was some question as to whether my song, "Hello World," qualified for a "diversity" fair. The organizers were looking for more regional or world music, I think. But since the song was based on my daughter's red egg and ginger party, the organizers thought it could work. Here's a video clip of our performance back in June:



The band consisted of Erin Bell on vocals, Pauline Samson on sax, Rushabh Gandhi on bass, Ghan Patel on doumbek, and me on guitar. It was really fun playing with such talented musicians, from practicing with them, to arranging the song, and ultimately performing together. To hear the song take on a new life was also pretty gratifying. The experience definitely made me think further about whether I should focus more on playing in a band again rather than noodling away on my own. When you play in a group, you can complement each other with your various strengths and leverage the resources and talents of the collective group.

It turns out that while the band did meet a couple of times after our performance, before we could really get going again we got derailed. One person left the company, another went on sabbatical, I got pretty busy, and we just ran out of steam. I guess that's one of the challenges of playing in a band -- just being able to stick together and making the schedules work.

Introducing "Hello World", a new song about new beginnings

With my engineering roots, the phrase, "Hello World" is a very familiar expression of new beginnings.  But this song is not about successfully embarking on the mastering of a new programming language.  This song was inspired by my daughter's Red Egg and Ginger Party.  Roughly a month after her birth, my wife and I followed a Chinese tradition of inviting friends and family over to welcome her into the world -- effectively her "Hello World" moment -- and handing out red eggs for good luck.  The day of the party, the weather was gorgeous and my daughter was greeted with such smiles and warmth from people who were close to us, but strangers to her.  Still, she must have felt like she was familiar with them in some way.  After all, these were people whose voices she heard while in her mother's womb.  This song was inspired by what I imagined her thoughts might have been had she been able to verbalize them -- thoughts of wonder and excitement, needs and hope.

Still, when I sat down to write this song, I wanted to broaden the scope a bit more so that it referred to other "Hello World" situations.  In particular, I also envisioned a modern day troubadour, traveling the country for the first time, small town to small town, chatting with a coffee shop owner, bar tender or a small audience.  It's a romanticized image of the real touring independent singer-songwriters do, to be sure, but one I had much fun playing around with.

Ultimately, whether you're talking about a new baby or a new artist, there are common hopes and desires that I think we all share.

New Song: Henri Rousseau

This song, "Henri Rousseau," was inspired by my trip to Paris a few years ago.  Rousseau was a French painter that I learned about while visiting the Musee d'Orsay.   After browsing the work of renown Impressionists, like Monet, Renoir, Degas, and Cezanne, I recall turning the corner on the top floor of the museum and stumbling upon paintings by Rousseau -- who I had never heard of before.  Not only did his paintings stand out, but his story was quite engaging, as well.  In fact, any of you who maintain an artistic hobby -- or any hobby, for that matter -- on the side of a demanding day job, would probably find some inspiration in Rousseau's biography.  A self-taught painter, Rousseau was the son of a plumber and worked regular jobs for much of his life, until he finally started painting seriously at the age of 49.  In a previous blog post, I describe in greater detail what this song is about (to me).  Take a look at that post if you haven't seen it, yet.  And if you have, let me know if you guessed that it was Rousseau that I was writing about.

While I wrote the lyrics for this song a couple of years ago, I didn't write the music until last year.  Then, over this past Christmas break, I found a couple of hours to sit down in front of a video camera and record a few of the songs I'd been working on -- including this one.

These days, I don't have much time to set up mics, do a bunch of takes, or do much editing.  And I've given up on trying to do anything special with the lighting and backdrop, especially as my make-shift "home studio" has long been converted into my daughter's nursery.  But I've continued to write and I've decided that it's been no fun sitting on these songs, waiting to work on an album that may never happen.  So I'm going to start putting some more stuff out there, worrying less about the flaws and polish, and just doing what I can with the time that I have.  Not unlike what Monsieur Rousseau must have done, I imagine.
  

Daddy Daycare goes to see Tut

I started off 2010 with a full week of Daddy Daycare. My daughter and I took walks in the park, a trip to Half Moon Bay, and a visit to the de Young museum to see the King Tut exhibit.

The exhibit was a lofty $27.50 per adult, and, only after buying my ticket did the salesman tell me that strollers were not allowed in. This meant that I had to carry my daughter throughout the exhibit, which he moments prior encouraged us to take our time with and to view each artifact from many different angles in order to truly appreciate what we were seeing. So this was perhaps not the most family-friendly exhibit.

There were other disappointments about the exhibit, as well -- the biggest of which was the anticlimactic final room. The last halls are designed to reflect the four rooms that made up Tutankhamun's tomb. When you get to the final room, you expect to see the casket of Tut himself, or at least a healthy collection of artifacts from his chamber. Instead, you only get a smattering of items and a video projection of Tut's casket. Then, you realize that the images of the casket used in the marketing materials are actually ones of King Tut's ancestors, which you did see in an earlier room. And you also realize that if this was all that the museum was able to get, that the other items in his chamber must either have been really expensive, or simply under laser, lock and key in Egypt somewhere, not to be moved for any old traveling exhibit.

That said, part of the reason that the final room was anticlimactic was that the exhibit does a terrific job building up to the final room. Midway through the exhibit, I had long forgotten the stroller situation. The artifacts were in pristine condition, their arrangement logical and narrative, and the descriptions sufficiently detailed so that you really are drawn into a different time and place.

One of my favorites was a wooden hand-held board/box game that was not much larger than an iPhone or a Nexus One. But you could really imagine a young Tut playing with the intricate pieces to pass time, just as he would play a mobile game today. I do wish that the instructions for the game were included in the description, but they weren't. If I had more time, I might have studied the game a little while longer to see if I could guess at what the game mechanics were like.

I also was impressed by the coffinette for Tut's viscera. You may have seen this in other marketing promotions (and mistaken this for Tut's coffin). But the miniature coffin was partially so intriguing because of its small size and amazing detail. That was definitely worth a look from all angles. The wooden bust of Tut was interesting, as well. You wonder to what extent it reflected his real likeness. Finally, the sheer ritual of amassing such a collection to accompany someone into the after life was fairly thought-provoking as well -- I'm sure there's a song in there some where.  So, overall, I do think the exhibit was worth seeing and I would recommend it.

Now, will my daughter remember anything that she saw in the exhibit? While she did stay awake through the whole thing, she seemed to enjoy looking up at the tall ceilings and the lighting more than the ancient artifacts!