Did you?

Woah.. 

Today was the day of my performance for a classical piece call Gran Vals. It was previously used for the 2007-2011 year exam if I'm not mistaken. It was a challenging song, and one that I could hardly handle. And I managed to got past it. Though, my teacher still harps me on the mistakes I made here and there.

He's my teacher after all. :)

See. This group of people is assembled by today. Only 3 of us turned up for a sudden call to perform the day before. 29th. After I registered in HELP for my future studies, I went on to my teacher's guitar shop to meet the drummer and the guitarist which later I know them by the name Timothy and Kim Yeon Wan. Yesh, a korean. A cute kid, and a pure heavy drummer which are both one year younger than me. Great. Now we got 2 guitarists and an absent vocal, with no bass. What now?

So after I reached there, I was quickly briefed by Jack, our guitar teacher, the songs we would be playing.

Greenday - Holiday (Ended up as Deep Purple- Smoke On The Water)

Paramore- Renegade

So there, we started practice.

Kim taught me the riffs and what should I play during the concert and I was guiding them through the rhythm and progression of songs. Tim there was just drumming away. Then, we have a little talk about each other, getting know each others personality and dig in about our vocalist from Kim. Joked with a little. According to him, the vocalist is good and true that, on the day of the performance, during the rehearsal, I was simply amazed at her voice. Oh our vocalist's name is Kareshma.

Well, we didn't have a bassist until Jack decided to call one of his students to help out. His name is Mok Tsui Sean. We decided to call him Mok anyways. So his bass line was pretty sick, but earlier on our rehearsal, he hit the wrong notes. So we revamped it later on.

So basically our full members gathered on the day of performance. We got to know each other quick and everyone fitted in quickly. Really out of my expectation. Somehow, I could build a connection with Kim. Our drummer and bassist fits in quite well too.

We were up for the intro performance, they call it "start with a bang". So, I ushered everyone out and got ready. After reading the signals, I started with the famous rock riff by Deep Purple which goes "Dat Dat Dat.. Dat Dat Dattt Dat..." and everybody started clapping their hands along the rhythm. Wow the feeling was incredible man. After 2 bars, Kim started playing and both the sounds of our guitar entwined in the melody. Slowly, the next 2 bars, Tim started smashing on the hi hats and Mok came in with a groovy bass line, which personally got me fired up as the bass line was simply sick man! 

And then, there goes Karishma. "We all came down to Montreal.."

Wow, at that moment, I looked at Kim on the opposite side of the stage, we both smiled. Before the performance, we tend to mess up our riffs but this time we got it right.

So, everything was okay until the solo part. The day before, Kim told me that he didn't know the whole solo for Smoke On The Water. So I had to think of something to switch in for him. So, I spent the last night composing a self improvised solo to fit in. And God, today our solos fit in near-perfection and we managed to finish the song at last with a bang. Wow man.. wahaha

Everyone came into the room smiling and couldn't wait for our next performance. Renegade.

In between that, I had my classical piece. I can't even look up at the crowd as I struggled badly to hit the notes at perfect pitch. My hands are not durable and using pure strength to hold barre chords at perfect tuning and do stretches up to four to five frets, its really killing me. Not to mention that I had to repeat parts of the song. After I ended, I thought I did okay, with mistakes here and there. But my teacher didn't seem satisfied as he told me there were mistakes here and there. 

It's a grade 8 song man, I haven't even pass my grade 8 yet. Get real.

Then my brother performed 3 songs, Gangnam Style, River Flows In You and Haru Haru on acoustic guitar. I mean, he always used these 3 songs to show people how good he is. And he uses this 3 songs to kao lui. It is pretty successful as he plays these 3 songs to pure perfection. However, that's the only thing he can do, to copy but unable to improvise. Nothing out of the box. 

I ask for pure speed and improvisation. He ask for Pop and Acoustic and Mainstream. 

So, when two of us argue, there's always be a big mess.

Well, for the song Paramore-Renegade. You should listen if you haven't listen to it before. It's a rock song, and a pretty nice one. I didn't know it only until Kim introduced it to me. Now it became my addict.

And whoops, we actually messed up the beats for Renegade and I dropped my pick halfway haha. Epic fail for me ><

Well, after we got back home, we actually added each other into a group conversation. And we were discussing about jamming again. Hahaha.. What a life. Didn't expect this band thing to turn out successful and so fun. :) 

Oh yeah, btw our band name is called Sushi. Thanks to Tim. I actually wanted to call it KimChi since Kim is a korean. But everybody just laughed off the idea. Hahaha..

Well great fun knowing these guys.

Our instantly assembled band:

Vocalist : Kareshma

Guitar 1 : Kim Yeon Wan (Kim)

Guitar 2: Jayden

Bass Guitar: Mok Tsui Sean (Mok)

Drummer: Timothy Wong (Tim)

Though, that doesn't mean I gave up on my buddies here. Still waiting for the chance to Seize The Day.. :)