Right before I was about to finish New Song 4, my muse already gifted me a new melody to mull over. And here I find myself almost every morning continuing the tune, branching out, going back and forth, shining a light into a path that I am paving at the same time. I’ll be updating this post as I go along — just like “working with the garage door up“.
I found myself a victim of the hot glue. It was a scene taken out of a comedy show wherein a fool was impatiently pumping a piping hot glue gun. He was doing that not over anything other than his other hand. And then, boom! The nozzle spewed a glob of loogie right on my left pointing finger. There was instant pain as soon as it contacted with my skin and a second after that, it was multiplied by 10.
My son witnessed all this careless stupidity. While the heat was bearing on my skin, I was frozen, not knowing what to do but to wait for the hot glue to dry. I even thought of swatting it out of my finger like a bug. And I did, so I smudged it, causing a bit of collateral damage to one of my fingers. The unbearable pain made me drool. And my son snickered at the sight of that.
Blistered Finger and Guitar. 11 February 2022
As soon as the hot glue petrified, I ran to the kitchen to wash and cool off my finger. My son, beside me, was coaching me to not scratch off the glue as he had experienced a similar accident himself while working on one of his school activities. At that moment while the water was running, I realized that I knew the feeling my son endured when he had his fine time with the hot glue. Definitely excruciating moments.
My Guitar Finger
Not an affliction on my finger could stop me from playing the guitar — especially that I was trying to scratch an itch to figure out the chords that I used for a decades-old song that I wanted to bring back to life. Try as I might, I was confined to playing out that song by forming simple chords not requiring bars.
New Song 4 in 2003
Learning Era
Simple chords just near the head of the guitar reminds me of two distinct periods in my life when I was starting to learn to play the guitar. It was my cousin, Coco, who taught me the earliest chords I knew, which were D - A - G - A of the song “Line to Heaven” by Introvoys. The second period, was when I became part of a religious organization’s musical band. I was mainly the drummer but subbed on the rhythm guitar. The chords that overplayed in the gospel songs that we played were C - Am - Dm - G - C - C7 - F - Em - Am - Dm - G - C.
This electronic music that I composed in MTV Music Generator around that time is an embodiment of those latter chords. And frankly, I find it cheesy.
New Song 4 in 2022
The hot glue accident happened in February and it’s been a full month already. My finger grew a new skin, even though still tender, I am training it to grow a thicker one by playing different chords, especially with bars. The song has come a long way since then. After 22 versions, I finally settled.
12 March 2022 update: I’m changing the title of this song from “Lubay” to “Lubay Bulay” so give context to the shifting and contrasting melodies.
Happy Chinese new year! Padaluyin natin ang magandang suerte sa pamamagitan ng pag let go sa mga nakaraan — mapabagay man yan o pangyayari. Hindi man siya madali, kailangan nating subukan.
Sa pag let go lang tayo makaka-move on nang mas magaaan kesa dati. Sa ganitong paraan din magkakaroon ng puwang muli ang mga bago at mas magagandang bagay sa buhay natin.
Related sa letting go and moving on itong tutugtugin ko, na nagsimula sa isang set ng chords na ayaw akong lubayan, parang siyang LSS. Parati ko siyang tinutugtog para mahanap ko yung tamang timpla pero hindi ko talaga makuha. Parang gusto niyang ipanganak sa mundo regardless sa hitsura niya. Ganun pa man, tatapusin ko na siya para lubayan niya na ako.
Nawa’y nakapag-celebrate kayo kasama ng mga kapamilya, kamag-anak at mga kaibigan nang ligtas syempre. Marami tayong maipagpapasalamat.
Sa simula ng taon na ito, isang maganda paalala na lagi tayong mag-menor. Bumagal mula sa tulin ng takbo natin. Pwede ring umatras at bumalik para magnilay-nilay. Take one step at a time, ika nga. Sa kabuuan, maranasan natin ang balance sa iba-ibang anggulo ng buhay natin.
Sa pagtingin natin sa di kalayuan, hangarin natin na magkaroon ng linaw kung saan natin gusto pumunta at ating tahakin ang daan papunta doon. Isang suggestion ko, isulat mo ang mga gusto mong makamit ngayon taon. Sino mo gusto maging? Saan mo gusto pumunta? O kahit maging malinaw lang sayo kung nasaan ka ngayon, malaking bagay na yun.
I’m not sure if it’s only a phenomenon in my brain that the first album of a new artist that I listen to, I immediately like almost all songs in it. Then when I encounter or seek the other albums, it didn’t have the same effect. It feels like a certain standard or image have been imprinted in me about that artist. All other songs were being compared to that first impeccable album that I’ve loved.
Case in point: Oasis’ (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? was the first album (albeit their second album) of a musical artist that I bought with my saved allowance. All songs in that album was monumental in contributing to my identity and confidence as a teenager. Liam Gallagher was my role model both in poetry and photography, fashion sense and the shag hairstyle. The next album that I discovered of them was Definitely Maybe, which was their debut studio album. On the contrary, it was ok, I liked Supersonic and Married With Children.
A picture of Oasis’ cassette tape album, (What’s The Story) Morning Glory?
Not all artists that I’ve encountered for the first time was through a full album. Bon Jovi, for example, was an influence from my cousin and uncle almost ten years my senior. They introduced me to this guilty pleasure rock band through their Cross Road greatest hits album. Then after a little while, These Days album was released. From a different end of the spectrum from Oasis, that album influenced me in romantic and sappy ways. After a decade or so and three studio albums in between, another album came my way, Lost Highway.
I’ll be growing this list as I comb through my personal collection. Enjoy!
Recently, I hopped on to Spotify as an artist. I released several electronica singles under the label Weet Weew. The experience was liberating in the sense that I’ve been putting it off for quite some time and finally got to grapple with it. I got to revisit some old compositions and reacquainted with a DAW (digital audio workstation) of choice: FruityLoops.
The logo of Weet Weew Music to My Ears record label.
The signature
Preparing for a (rather bleak) future when crazed fans would ask me for autographs, I thought I needed to have one. So I practiced using a big round-tip marker and settled with a 0.6 mm-tip pen.
A scanned photo of a notebook with Brian Dys signature.
With a trusty scanner, I scanned it with a resolution of 600 to be able to “blow it up” and properly enhance it. From Photoshop to Illustrator to Figma to its destination, Spotify — it took me around an hour to do all this.
The process
1. Photoshop
We’re using Adobe Photoshop to prepare the material for vectorization in Illustrator.
File → Open To open the material
Image → Adjustments → Desaturate To convert it to grayscale
Image → Auto Contrast To make the paper whiter and ink blacker
Image → Adjustments → Threshold To convert the paper to pure white and ink to pure black; yes it will pixelate, that’s why it’s important to have a high resolution material; some areas might be lost, so you might be working on several layers with different threshold amounts
Window → Channels Copy and paste the artwork into an alpha channel and select it (it will select the white part, so, invert the selection to select the black part)
Window → Layers Go back to the layer while the selection is active
Layer → New → Layer Via Copy To copy and paste the black part into a new layer
Layer → Delete → Layer Select the original layer and delete it
Manual Adjustments Now you have a line art (with transparent background) that is fairly easy to adjust — like if you need to extend or erase some parts
File → Save → .PSD Save the file as Photoshop file
2. Illustrator
We’re using Adobe Illustrator to convert the prepared material into vector. Sure, from the scanned material we can go straight here — I personally see the result is better when we prepare the material prior vectorization.
File → Open To open the .psd file
Photoshop Import Options dialog → Convert Layer to Objects To keep the layers (if any) in the material
Select the Object To select the particular layer we will vectorize
Window → Image Trace To customize settings for vectorization
Object → Image Trace → Expand To vectorize the object and see its layers
Manual Adjustments Now you have vector objects — remove any unwanted layers like solid backgrounds (to make the background transparent); also prepare for the desired artwork and artboard size
File → Export → Export As → .SVG → Use Artboards Save the file as Scalable Vector Graphics file; for handwritten signatures in particular, the default setting for SVG Options will do (it’s a different case when you have images and fonts in your material)
3. Figma
Figma is awesome because you can use it for free and it is web-based (use it alongside Facebook on the other tab of your favorite web browser). Really, this part is optional — it just so happened that my Spotify header image template is conveniently in Figma (you can use Photoshop or Illustor, too).
Right after I uploaded my updated header image to Spotify, I turned to see that my notebook has grown itself some robot doodles, courtesy of Bryce. Consequently, I asked him if we would like to color it in Photoshop and that lit up his face!
A pen and notebook with Brian Dys signature and some robot doodles.
Sometime in 1995 I chanced upon a song playing in NU107. It captivated me with “Champagne Supernova” lyrics – me being in hipster phase, being attracted to things that was ironic and overall it just called onto me.
A picture of Oasis’ cassette tape album, (What’s The Story) Morning Glory?
Right after that a voice roped me to go to a local music store. I was there at their glass display counter browsing a wall lined up with all sorts of music in cassette tape.
I hummed the lyrics of “Champagne Supernova” to the sales lady and she pulled out an Oasis.
The first time ever have I known this band. And the rest as they say is that I made them my idols.
Beady Eye, Noel Gallagher – it’s all Oasis to me.
I pay tribute to Oasis for my poetry and photography. Pretentious as it started but hey, we all fake it till we make it.
