Far Beyond The Sun

So far this is my best video of me playing guitar. It's a cover of Yngwie Malmsteen's Far Beyond The Sun. I think it's a bit sloppy , got various mistakes and to mention a bit off in timing. Normally I can play this fine but when you're playing for the camera, there's an added pressure to make sure you get it all in one go. But then it's hard to get it right.

To be able to play at this level, it took years of practice. Nothing can achieve without blood, sweat and tears. So if you want to be able to play like this, there's no other option but to practice. Even then I'm not even half as good as where I want to be. I'm not planning to stop playing guitar anytime soon since there's so much to accomplish.

Jason Becker, the greatest musician ever!

The first time I saw Jason Becker's photo on a Guitar World issue, I thought man this guy is a real poser and pufter. I was dead wrong. For he is the greatest musician ever to roam the earth, greater than Yngwie Malmsteen, Steve Vai, Alexi Laiho, Muhammed Suicmez or any other guitarist or musician put together.

He was one talented guitarist. Filled with a bright future, he went on to become one the greatest guitarist ever. His video of him playing "Serrana" proved his technical fluency as well as his superb master over the six-string arpeggios (which is extremely hard even for the best). He joined the band Cacophony while he was 16, along with Marty Friedman and created duelling guitar solos which are out of this world. He then went on to join David Lee Roth's band, replacing the legendary Steve Vai.

Sadly at this time, he was diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's Disease). It is the same type of disease which occur to Stephen Hawking. Doctor's gave him 3 years to live, but he fought on and never gave up. His body started to paralyze, rendering him from playing his guitar. Now he can only move his eyes, but he still composes by using a computer with special device to detect his eye movements. His body might be paralyzed, but his mind is as sharp as ever. Anyone who knows about him will say that his career has just begun.






Jason, you are truly an inspiration to all of us. God gave you a special task, to keep us inspired.

Exam dh dkt!!!

Assalamualaikum smua... haishh terkejut ke... phl plk selama ni aku asyik ckp omputeh tiba2 guna melayu ni... haa kalo korang smua nk tau aku pun dh muak dh asyik ckp english je... ye la kt monash tu org cina smua mne ckp melayu, kalo x reti ckp english mati la hang, dh la byk international students...

Aku rse dh sebulan lbh dh aku x post new entry.. busy beb mmg life jd engineering student ni cm babi je... assignment, report, lab la... cmne x tension....org ckp 1st year pun dh tension? mmg la mentang2 aku lg, cuti 10 bulan otak berkarat gilo2... susah nk guna blk...

Tp aku mmg buat mistake la...1st half sem ni aku mcm main2.. x buat assignment smua, x dtg klas... skrang ni result aku truk, tp xpe aku kena focus smua power aku untuk exam final ni... 3 minggu lg, x byk tu.....

Subject aku plg bimbang is dynamics ngan physics... 2 tu aku mg slalu ponteng lecture, pastu klas tuto dia selang 2 minggu.... aku ni jenis nk phm kena tgk orang lain buat kerja..... kalo nk phm kena klas tuto la.. ngan dynamic tu ramai gile org fail, cmne aku x takut nye.... tp skrang ni aku mmg btol2 bersemangat nk blaja.... aku byk berkawan ngan bangladeshi ni.... pandai tau diorang ko ingat bangla ni bodoh2 ke smua... x semestinye jgn stereotype plk...

Well anyways, aku dh graduate jatuh untuk silat cekak.... hari tu baru ada majlis ijazah... mlm sblm tu kita org buat demo.. ni demo yg pertama skali dlm sejarah untuk persatuan cekak kota damansara.. wah best giler la ramai org dtg... minah2 pun sama dtg tgk kita org beraksi... huahh hah aha..tp ada satu minah ni mmg lawa la... dia ada mse majlis ijazah tu... putih molek ngan rambutnye yg panjang lurus dan ayu muka nye... tu la aku ingat bdk baru nk join bleh la aku show off sikit tunjuk kuat nnti mse training.. rupe2nye dia dh tamat, alaa potong stim btol la.... cmne aku nk show off kalo dia lg senior dr aku... tp aku sedar diri gak sapa aku ni... mne mungkin bdk gemuk mcm aku blh kluar ngan bdk lawa2 mcm dia tu....aku mmg x percaya ngan org yg ckp pompuan ni x tgk badan sgt... sedih sedih...

tu la hikayat hidup aku ni ntuk beberapa bulan yg lepas... mintak maaf ye kepada sapa yg menunggu aku nk post topic baru.... merepek plk bkn nye ada sapa2 pun bace blog aku.... aku tulis ni pun sebab nk lepas kan tension..... tp kdg2 tu ada jgk la harapan org amik mse untuk baca aku pny blog ni... haish sedih la aku ni

I'm Just A NOOB!

After approximately one year of playing the electric guitar, with hours of practicing everyday, ranging from alternative picking to various sweep-picked arpeggios, I realize that I am no more than just a noob guitarist. Why is that? I couldn't put the scales to practical application.

When I started playing,the only thing I know what to do is just open the Guitar Pro and just read the tabs. That's all I could do, do as instructed. I couldn't come out with my own riff or shred blast on a song I don't know. I could use some pentatonic scales but it's not good enough. All those hours of practicing sweep-picking, tapping is useless if I cannot put it to good use. Aaargh, the horrible truth about music. Once you taught that you know, you actually know shit.

The Subgenre's of Metal

I've been wanting to write about this for a long time but I find it hard to categorize some of the bands. Well, some people think that metal is a division of rock music. Based on my experience plus words from those who knows better than me, I say that metal is a genre on its own. Sure Metal has the same components as rock music, such as the use of guitars, drums and bass, but so does jazz, blues or even hip-hop. But due to the harsh vocals and foul language used, metal is not accepted by the society, even if the subjects talked about is serious and concerning issues ( compared to rap & r&b who only talk about sex and drugs). Anyways lets just skip that part a moment and focus on categorizing what we call metal:

• Early Metal : The early days of metal. Pioneered by the most important metal band of all time, Black Sabbath. Compared to today's metal, this is for wimps. But don't be fooled by the slow tempo and simple chord progression, without them there could possibly be no metal at all. It is then continued by bands such as Judas Priest and Iron Maiden. After that the flow of metal is smooth and it quickly spreads out by itself.
• Thrash metal: This is possibly the softest form of metal available today. A firm example would have to be Metallica. The riffs are pretty much easy due to the slower tempo but people seem to go with this because the vocals are pretty much comprehensible but at the same time they can get a bit of the energy and anger generated from metal. But let me tell you, if you say that you're a metal fan but only listens to the likes of Metallica or Megadeth, then you're nothing but a poser. Dont' stop here, continue on. Thrash metal bands I actually like is Slayer and Five Finger Death Punch.
• Groove Metal: I don't really know about this one but people seem to mention it a lot. I do know that bands like Pantera or Lamb of God resides in this subgenre. I guess it's another genre that receive huge attention and bands people actually know about.
  

• Nu metal: New age metal, as the name suggests. The metal community doesn’t really accept this form of metal. I don’t know why, but maybe it’s because they tried to fuse elements of rap and hip-hop into it. Band such as Slipknot or Korn, they definitely sound different from other stuff but for Slipknot, I kinda like them. A band featuring a lineup of 9 definitely is something different. Plus the wearing of creepy masks help gain their notorious reputation. The vocals is harsh, just like usual, but this time the tone itself is very angry and changing, different from the death growls of death metal or high pitched grunts from black metal. I like both the guitarist, Jim Root and Mick Thomson. Definitely shredders since they can play so well.
• Metalcore: This is the subgenre of metal that has been receiving a lot of attention lately. Don't know what is metalcore? Think of Trivium, Atreyu and Bullet for my Valentine. One think that I realized from metalcore is that they have heavy sreaming in their songs but the chorus part is switched to singing. It's quite pretty straightforward, the chord usage is relatively simple and the solo section doesn't involve heavy use of arpeggios or complex structures, just alternate picking with a bit of sweep pick or tapping added to it. Then it is usually paired with a simple guitar duel before getting to the breakdown.
• Death Metal: This is my favorite subgenre of metal. Why? Simply because my all time favorite metal band is in it, Children of Bodom. They are just wonderful, very melodic, super guitar solos, keyboard duel, I mean it's everything you can ask for. After listening to every song Alexi Laiho has to offer, I started to get a bit bored and went to search other bands in the same subgenre. Bands like In Flames, Cannibal Corpse and Necrophagist caught my attention. It involved complex riffs and very heavy drum beating and not to mention dark death grunts ( it's different for COB and In Flames). Necrophagist for instance, involves the most complicated riffs I've ever seen and extensive usage of sweep picking and heavy arpeggios, but when comes to soloing, Muhammed Suicmez is a Yngwie Malmsteen clone. He downright copies Malmsteen's licks, style and technique of playing. Some other death metal band to take note are Carcass and Ensiferum.
  
• Black metal: I don't know much about this because I dare not get close to it. One reasons it's because they diss religion and worships satan. Come on how crazy is that, satan should be your no. 1 enemy not the other way around. Anyways the theme and atmosphere generated from Black metal bands is very dark and trecherous. It doesn't involve as much of technical skills or complex riffing as death metal, since they put a focus on satan. If you still want to check em out, go with Cradle of Filth, Behemoth or Gorgoroth. But I warn you, once you enter this road, you can never go back. Don't say i didn't warned you.

I know I missed out some other genres of metal such as power metal or speed metal, but I'm putting this down based on my experience and my knowledge. Keep in mind that this may not be 100% accepted by the metal community, so you might just wanna keep it as a guideline to yourself.

I can already imagine some people asking me why I left out Dragonforce right? Well it's simple they are nerd metal. Stupid worthless and wasting of time. They are not actually metal but try to disguise it with heavy guitar battles which they can't actually repeat in a live environment. That's why they are called Studioforce. If it wasn't for Guitar Hero 3, none of us would have ever heard of them.

My life at Monash!

So I have finally begun my journey as a Monash student. Wow, I have been waiting for this moment for months, and I have to say it feels so good being able to study again. I've already completed 2 weeks at Monash, and I've already having trouble with the lectures. Damn it, that's what happens after staying home for 10 months without opening a single book, your brain becomes so rusty it's hard to accept information.

The first week was boring. It was an orientation week. Even my first day at Monash caused me so many problems. My name was not in the list during registration so I have to meet a few people to get it sorted out. Some Petronas scholars also have this problems. Look I know we are poor people because we are sponsored students, but that doesn't mean we should be treated as second class citizens. In fact we should receive more attention since we're the kind of people whose going to lift the university's reputation. So later I found out my name was not in the system. What the fuck man I've already submitted everything including the guarantee letter from Sime Darby. I have to fill out the whole application form again and submit it by hand, again. Shit this supposed to be a prestigious school. How can they mess up with such a simple thing like this.

Last week I started on my classes. Shit most of the lectures are boring. Especially my materials lecturer, he's an Indian who graduated from Indian Institute of Technology ( big deal man). I mean I'm fine with his accent even though it's a bit hard to catch but the problem is he started to use engineering terms out of nowhere without explaining about it. For example, stress, strain, true strain all this are completely alien to us but he assumes we already know about it. If we already knew about it why the hell would we be taking this subject. Anyways math is really confusing. We started learning about vectors which was the subject I hated most and got me a B for math. Physics was good, the lecturer, Dr Lan Boon Leong is very funny and cheerful. He made physics fun, just like Cikgu Subki.

All and all I'm quite satisfied with Monash University. A bit dissappointed with their system though. Also I found that my biggest problem here is trying to find new friends. Sure I made some but I culdn't fit in properly. I realized over here I am the minority and I've already forgotten how to mix and interact with other races. Being in SAS and matriculation really doesn't help my interracial communication. I remembered when I was in seaport, I made a lot of chinese and indian friends, now I found it hard to replicate that action.

Tagged by an angel!!!

Remove 1 question from below and add in a personal question, make it a total of 20 questions. Then tag 8 people in your list, list them out at the end of this post. Notify them in their chat box that he/she has been tagged.

1. If you could spend one Ringgit in 5 minutes, what would you spend on?
-Kopi O' Kaw

What is your most favourite thing to do?
-Playing my guitar

who do you miss ryte now??
-Allah ngan Nabi Muhammad...

4. What would you give up in return to eat all you want in the world and not get fat?
-Nothing... I'm already fat... Should change the question to "What would you give up in return to eat all you want in the world and not get fatter?"

5. Is there someone in your heart right now?
-There is... a crush... but it is unrequited

6. Do you believe you can survive without money?
-Maybe in the woods... but in the city, virtually impossible.

7. Do you know your BMI (Body Mass Index)?
-32 kot... yeah I'm fat alrite... happy now?

8. What do you feel like doing right now?
-Fap??? ha ha

9. If there’s someone that you love, would you confess to him/her?
- Going to war is much easier than this.... I mean it....

10. List out 3 good points of the person who tagged you.
-Extremely beautiful.... funny.... worth dying for

11.What is the thing that will make you thing he/she is kind?
- how she helps those in need

12. What is the thing that will make you think he/she is bad?
- Backstab and hypocrite

13. Are you left-handed or right-handed?
- Right handed..

14. If you had to eat one thing for the rest of your life, what would it be?
- Nasi Lemak dan Ayam Goreng...

15. If you had a choice to be rich or happy, which one would you pick?
- happy..

16. If you have a chance, which part of your character you would like to change?
- Low-self esteem

17. How would you like to die?
- In a very honorable way like syahid or dying while sujud. I am very scared of dying in a horrible manner where you can't even tell apart your arms or legs. I truly believe how a person dies reflects his or her life.

18. Cats or Dogs?
-of coz cats..

19. What is the one thing you love about yourself?
- I love Islam more than anything else??

20. If you have a million ringgit,what would you do?
- Invest mah, buy properties and stocks...

I'm tagging Amin, Wari, Emir, Naim and Nazrin.