Guitar Heroes Part 2

Acoustic guitars are more difficult to play than electric ones. The reason is electric guitars can *hold* a note longer and can manipulate a sound easier than acoustic guitar which cannot sustain a note long. (Like a piano compared to an organ).

Fingerstyle guitar playing with an acoustic is several degrees more difficult than playing with a pick because all fingers on both hands need to sync properly for the proper note to sound.

Why not play with a pick only..? Simple...a pick can only pick ONE note at one time...if you fingerstyle (ie..use fingers instead of a pick), you could play 5 notes at one time because you have 5 fingers free at any one time on your right hand.

One of the kings of fingerstyle is Andy McKee, he has a website here if you want to buy his tabs for his songs. (Tabs is like a musical score for a guitar). Below is him playing one of his compositions,Rylynn.




Ok...this the Sungha Jung playing Rylynn. The piece is slightly over 5 minutes...listen at the harmonics at 4:14. The 12 year old kid is a prodigy.

Some of you may think the kid is just a pro at copying guitar scores. Listen to this extremely haunting score. It is his own composition. The kid is gonna get a lot of female attention in college ;-)

My Guitar Heroes

How do you choose your fav guitar heroes..? The usual names would always be there like Hendrix, Gary Moore, Eddie Van halen and Slash.




What about a 10 year old korean boy playing U2, with or without you..?





Here's the kid again playing Pachelbel's Canon in D major with a veteran guitarist Trace Bundy. The piece is actually composed in 1680 to be played with 3 violins. Even veteran guitarist fear this song as it is very hard to play well.





This is what happens when 2 lead guitarist play a song...Don Ross and Andy McKee. Don Ross (with glasses) likes to tap his guitar front and sides for a percussion effect.
Ok...ok...so what if they look like nerds...





Nobody plays like Stanley Jordan. He taps guitars like a piano and can even play rhythm guitar and lead guitar at one time. We, normal guitar players play with 2 hands (one to pick and one to hold the notes) and use only one guitar.





A true guitar hero can even make a corny back street boys song into a concerto.

Summer of '83

I was in form 3, JB.

The school was English College or EC now known as Maktab Sultan Abu Bakar or MSAB.

I loathe the new name. Sounds like a teachers training college.

I would until today refuse to called my old school with any other name except EC.

I had a clique of friends whom I always hang around with. Sal*******, Re***, E*** and Zai******.

Sal*, was the musician and also the joker among us. He played the organ since primary school, drove his mom’s car without a license, likes electronics and the only one among us that actually married his girlfriend from school (he actually met his wife in kinder garden). As far as I can tell he was the only one from school that actually listens to smooth jazz. He does not have a curfew hour at home and can come and go at any time to my obvious jealousy and envy. Though he likes music and have a sizeable music collection at home, I have never seen him dance. He once took a picture of a pilot ejecting from a plane that was featured in the Singaporean NST. He bought an expensive camera lens with the money he got for the spread. My twin sister calls him weird because he sometimes wears a motorcycle helmet while riding a racing bicycle which he meant as a joke. He normally picks me up from home during weekends in his mom’s car. Only once we were stopped by police because we made a hasty turn near my house when we spotted the patrol car. We were let off with a stern warning. The after effect was only days, before long we were back driving around JB without a license, this time with no more hick ups. My theory was the police was busy stopping bikes, they don’t stop cars. Next time, you want to ride a vehicle without a licence, choose a car.

Re*, is a son of a prominent government servant. Shy and curious. Since his dad is rich, he normally pays if we hang out and I remember at one time brought me and several friends to dine at a club where we can order anything except the lobsters. I ordered a steak. His house was also the venue for 2 of our dance parties that lasted till 1 am, all expenses paid. I just have to bring the music, my ass and some girls. My mom until today still thinks I was at Sal* house, doing school work.

What she doesn’t know doesn’t hurt her, I guess.

He also likes fishes and has several aquariums at his house. He could name at form 4, Latin names for numerous fishes. Re*, Sal* and me shared the same interest in photography at school. Sal* and me would often skip class and hide in the school’s photography club darkroom. Re* always the law abider stayed behind. We would often make up fake wonderful stories to tell Re* about the adventures we had while skipping class but he never once took our bait. We had several theories about the reasons but later unanimously agreed that Re* was just too chicken shit to skip class. The philosophers were correct, you can bring a horse to water but you cannot make it drink. Re* unfortunately was the obstinate horse.

E***, has several brothers and sisters. It was usually hard for me to tell whether he was joking or serious. He loves Michael Jackson (while I love Rick Springfield) and always clowns around with the crotch pull and other moves. He left our group at form 4 to go to a boarding school. He likes photography too. He owned a Yashica FX-7 while I had the FX-3. Re* and Sal* had bigger budgeted Nikon FA and FM2.

Zai*, was a kampong boy transposed to a city. We called him Zorro because he walks with a limp as a result of childhood polio. He has a good heart and was always on the receiving ends of our cruel jokes. We were pigs, we know. He almost never followed us during weekends or to hangouts because he stayed quite a distance away from school.

I have kept in touch with everyone now except Zai* whom still in JB. Everyone is married and with kids.


Nothing much has changed except for a few grey hairs.

A muse..

Real poetry is to lead a beautiful life,

To live poetry is better than to write it.

- Basho