Everyone and their pet tauntaun has written something about the new Star Wars The Force Awakens trailer, so here I’ll be regurgitating some thoughts about the musical score used for it: BUT FIRST, here’s the trailer, released earlier today. There are two familiar cues in the trailer, the Han Solo and the Princess cue and the Force theme. BUT SECOND, a disclaimer: The Han Solo and the Princess theme is my favourite theme ever in Star Wars, and why I think Rebel Fleet – End Titles in The Empire Strikes Back is the best of all Star Wars end titles score, surpassing even Caravan of Courage. Before the music go on to the full-blown new orchestration of the Han Solo and the Princess cue in the trailer, they play a four-note melody thrice. The first iteration was played on piano – the first notes being the one we hear when […]
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25 Random Songs
Gary writes on Facebook: This is another one of those Facebook memes. You turn your music player to random and write down the first 25 songs it spits out. I’m not a big tagger, but if you want to do it, go for it. [[popup:amarok-feb2009.jpg:(thumbnail):AmaroK!:right:1]]Okay, Gary. I will go for it. There’s The Girl – Heart Central America – Bear McCreary Can’t Fight This Feeling – REO Speedwagon The Weaver’s Answer – Family Kissing You – Des’ree Atomic Al’s Merry Melody – Bear McCreary Lovefool – Cardigans Two Boomers – Bear McCreary Softly Whispering I Love You – The Congregation Streets of London – Ralph McTell Cold As Ice – Foreigner Me and You and a Dog Named Boo – Lobo Us and Them – Pink Floyd Small World (Part One) – Huey Lewis and the News Got to Get You Into My Life – The Beatles Private Army – […]
Continue readingThey’re Really Just Form Five Schoolkids
For a single glorious moment in time, the song Diamond Crevasse, as sung by May Nakabayashi the singing voice of Sheryl Nome in Macross Frontier, became the most heartbreaking song in the whole universe. Thrice I’ve seen the ending of episode 20 and thrice I teared up… though it might just be the damn conjunctivitis. [[image:diamondcrevasse01.jpg:The galactic fairy:center:0]] There’s so many bait-and-switches in this story, you just can’t predict who lives and who dies. You kind of know someone will buy it, and you sort of figure out which ones would, but you think, “No, maybe it’s another bait-and-switch.” Then wham! When it happens, it happens right in the middle of that song which had stood for something else when you heard it in previous episodes, and was sung in this episode for a totally different reason. But the melody and the timing of it just interposes with each other […]
Continue readingPictures of Lily
[[image:lily06.jpg:Lily in the fruit bowl:center:0]] Pictures of Lily By The Who: I used to wake up in the morningI used to feel so badI got so sick of having sleepless nightsI went and told my dad He said, ‘Son now here’s some little something’And stuck them on my wallAnd now my nights ain’t quite so lonelyIn fact I, I don’t feel bad at all Pictures of Lily made my life so wonderfulPictures of Lily helped me sleep at nightPitcures of Lily solved my childhood problemsPictures of Lily helped me feel alright Pictures of LilyLily, oh LilyLily, oh LilyPictures of Lily And then one day things weren’t quite so fineI fell in love with LilyI asked my dad where Lily I could findHe said, ‘Son, now don’t be silly’ ‘She’s been dead since 1929’Oh, how I cried that nightIf only I’d been born in Lily’s timeIt would have been alright Pictures […]
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Finally! Transformers: The Score!
One of the things that I looked for immediately after watching Transformers was the soundtrack CD. I was disappointed that there was only Transformers: The Album released which had, you know – a bunch of songs. The Linkin Park song What I’ve Done wasn’t too bad. So were the songs from Goo Goo Dolls and Smashing Pumpkins. But there was not one track released that had the movie’s orchestral score as composed by Steve Jablonsky. In fact there was no score soundtrack album at all. I’ve been monitoring the online news about the status of the score soundtrack. On or off? There was an online petition, but would it work? Sifting through a ton of information in the internet I found only an mp3 of Jablonsky’s Decepticon theme on the web. And there was nothing on Amazon.com… until last month or so. And as of last week, it’s been released. […]
Continue readingHari Merdeka ke-50
Kami yang merantau jauh mengingatimu di hari kemerdekaan yang ke lima puluh. Lima puluh tahun kami rakyat Malaysia tidak perlu tunduk kepada penjajah. Lima puluh tahun, Merdeka! Walau jauh di mata, namun tidak di hati. Selamat Hari Merdeka, Malaysia! [[image:malaysia_flag.gif:Flag image obtained from google image:center:0]] *chewah – boleh tahan tak? berkurun tak pakai Bahasa Malaysia standard 😉 Dan, sebagai penutup, lagu Tanah Pusaka. Satu-satunya lagu patriotik kesukaan saya: Sungguh gemilang negerikuYang kupuja oh tanah MalaysiaDi merata duniaHarum semerbak namamu oh Malaysia Aman makmur kaya-rayaSelama-lama hidup maju jayaOh tanah pusakaNegaraku yang berdaulat dan merdeka Tanah pusaka bertuahBerbagai bangsa didalamnyaHidup aman dan berjagaBertekun kerja dan berjasa Musuh melanggarku gempurSungguh rela kugugur keranaKau tanah pusakaBiar putih tulang jangan putih mata [Translation: We who are journeying far remember you on this your Fiftieth Independence day. Fifty years that we Malaysians did not bow to any conquerors. Fifty years, free! Although we are far away, […]
Continue readingCan Anyone Guess This Tune?
[[popup:aota.jpg:(thumbnail):I hope I remember the music theory:left:1]]So my keyboard, an old Yamaha PSR-300, has been out of commission for a while since the power adapter died a glorious death. Then, there was a movie score tune that has been playing incessantly in my mind, so I decided to write it down somewhere. But since the keyboard is non-functional, there was no way I could play the tune on it. So yesterday I thought why not search the net for a virtual keyboard. Bingo. Then playing the tune, I thought… why not write it down. So I wrote it down. Click on the thumbnail to see if: I still remember my music theory and notes and symbols and whatnots. You can identify the tune. P.S. I don’t think I have a category for this type of crap on the blog. Oh well. P.P.S. Playing a virtual keyboard using a graphics tablet […]
Continue readingFantastic Four: Meme Redux
Another meme arrives and since my fellow bloggenstein who happens to also be my sister has tagged me… Wait, are there any rules about tagging your fellow blogmate based in the same weblogsite? No matter. I shall give this meme a whatfor like it’s never been given a whatfor before. A blog whatfor! A blorgthwthfor! Four Jobs I’ve Had In My Life Piano Man – Quite a fun job. There was an old man sitting next to me making love to his tonic and gin, John at the bar, Paul the real estate novelist, Davy who’s still in the Navy, and not to mention the waitress and the businessman sharing a drink they call loneliness. The manager gives me a smile cause he knows they all come to see me to forget about life for a while. Starman – As A starman, what I did was I waited in the […]
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Straight From The Bear’s Mouth
Bear McCreary has become my favourite composer for soundtracks. I love what he did throughout Battlestar Galactica. The music isn’t a traditional symphonic orchestral score, although it is in some places. I can’t quite categorize listening to the score as a whole. It has string quartet, Japanese tako drums, Armenian duduk, bagpipes, gamelan, erhu…. a hodge-podge of traditional instruments being used to make the music of the Battlestar Galactica universe. Lyrics are sung in languages like Latin, Sinhalese, Sanskrit and Italian. Modern earth music even make their way into the episodes as source music, such as Philip Glass’ “Metamorphosis Five” (played by Starbuck at her Caprica apartment) and the super spoiler full-blown music which rocks the closing scenes of the recent third season finale, which broke my mind in half. Anyway, Bear McCreary’s website has a blog and the blog has entries pertaining to his work on Galactica, which also […]
Continue readingMusic Of My Choice In The Car Again
The cassette player in my car hasn’t been functioning for quite a long time, and I don’t have a CD player aboard. So I have been at the mercy of whatever the radio stations been churning out should I want to listen to music in the car. But from yesterday, all that have changed. I am now able to listen to stuff I want to whenever I want to. Yesterday, tunes like Gilbert O’Sullivan’s upbeat “Alone Again, Naturally” and Zager & Evan’s optimistic “In The Year 2525” were blaring from my speakers and I felt so much alive driving alone than I’ve ever been in quite awhile. And it’s all thanks to a little tube I plugged into the lighter socket. The tube transmits the music over a selection of radio frequencies. The car radio receives the signal on the set frequency and plays the music. And the tunes are […]
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Pachelbel Rocks!
Pachelbel’s Canon in D. Electric Guitar. A skilled guitarist & comedian. All kinds of awesome. Gave me goosebumps. Fantastic sudden minor key shift in the middle. Check it out.
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