--- I ---

My father is in a damn bad mood.

My eleven-year-old brother pissed him off this morning by refusing to take his studies seriously. He has his end-of-term papers tomorrow, yet today he was still lazing around, doing unnecessary things - in other words, doing anything and everything that is not related to revision.

So he pissed my mother off first, then my father.

The thing is that, my mother recovers from her fit of anger more easily and more rapidly than my father. The burning fire can take a week to extinguish.

He's shown his temper in a variety of ways:

1. Slamming the newspapers onto the table after reading them

2. Sitting in the toilet for hours not to shit, but just to read the papers

3. Not touching his lunch at all (as I write this, it's close to dinnertime)

4. Refusing to pass me the kettle of water even as I put my hand forward as a sign that I want it

Sometimes I think my brother doesn't realise what he is doing is pissing people off. I can possibly throw a long list of misdeeds, which includes acting like Power Rangers or some action figure EVEN ON THE STREETS (embarrassing us in the process); standing in front of the television and blocking everyone behind it; being picky about food; running all over a public place while fuck-caring whoever is looking after him . . . the list goes on.

Then again, ironically, my parents still pamper him with treats here and there. I think it is a new direction in "Spare the Rod, Spoil the Child".

No, it should be re-phrased: "Spare the Rod while Spoiling the Child"

--- II ---

I've been digging at the score of "Red-Threaded Hearts". Megan and I have talked about a revival of the musical in the near future, possibly to be staged at the University Cultural Centre when we're all studying in NUS. Actually I shouldn't even use the word "revival", as the musical was banished even before it could appear on the stage.

I've been re-orchestrating all the existing songs. Flipping through the score that was to have been played on 27 March 2004 I realise that my writing really sucks. I could have been more adventurous. The instrument parts are fucking too simplistic. For instance, there are plenty of sustained notes. Boring. Now some of the songs are beginning to receive more "garang" orchestration, like "Girl from Bedok South". The old orchestration was never standardised. It was often in ambiguity as I struggled to find musicians while writing for a blind orchestra simultaneously. Now, I've created a template for all numbers in the musical:

1 Flute
1 Oboe
1 Clarinet
1 Alto Saxophone
1 Bassoon

1 Trumpet

2 Percussion (instruments of choice being: suspended cymbals, drum set, xylophone, vibraphone, tambourine, Chinese gong, Conga)

1 Classical Guitar/Electric Guitar
1 Bass Guitar/Electric Bass Guitar

1 Pianist

4 Violins
2 Violas
2 Violoncellos
1 Contrabassist

At the same time, I've been composing new songs. I feel there is a lack of songs in the original conception of the musical. In fact, much too little. Some of the soliloquies can be expressed through music, where the accompaniment and the melody can push out the feelings and the colours of the characters at that exact moment. One of the new songs I've finished writing and orchestrating is "Why", sung at the moment when Nana the Tiger Beer Girl creeps up to the coffin when nobody is at the wake and speaks to the late Uncle Kwok, telling him of her anguish that so many bad things have befallen upon her. Sometimes I realise I often place the wrong tunes for the wrong purposes. The tune for "Why" is taken from the third movement of "Temasek Symphonica", which I wrote for the TJC Kronos software. There, it is simply titled "Relationship". I don't know why, but there is some sad air surrounding the piece. Perhaps it's because the second part of the chorus switches to the minor mode, mirroring the major mode of the first part:

Harmonic structure of the chorus of "Why":

G Bm C/E Am7 C/D D Cm/D D7
Gm Bb F F7/Eb Dm Cm D7 G

And perhaps, like "Girl from Bedok South", it is representative of myself. Both songs have a poignant air to them. I don’t know how, but I seem to have a penchant for writing such pieces that tremble between sadness and happiness. I cannot write music that is absolutely sad; neither can I write pieces that are absolutely happy. Everything is somewhere in the middle. A word to use is probably "muted". Take "Xin Chao" for example. Yes, you can get high with it, but only till a certain degree that is still quite far from the top. The furthest of happiness I can ever get is probably the section on the Theatre Ship in the first movement of "Final Fantasy IX: A Symphonic Portrait".

Back to the musical: whether we will ever get to stage it in the near future, I don't know. I don't thing anybody really knows that I'm revising - or rather, re-writing the entire score - of the musical, and harbouring the dream to have it perform in a proper auditorium with a proper orchestra pit, and proper stage lighting and a proper sound system. Would anybody really be interested in it? It seems like I'm the only one interested in working on it. Almost all times my mind is set on how the music should go. I pondered over the orchestration of "Why" for almost one month, writing almost four versions before settling on the latest, confirmed one. Time and again, I keep going back to the already-written scores and then changing some instrument parts, or taking or adding notes here and there, or even rewriting how the climax should sound, as in the case for "I Tried".

I don't know if I'm a fool to work on a currently-defunct musical, with no affirmed plans for the future. But honestly, after entering the army I seem to have lost the penchant for dreaming up new themes - and themes that are interesting and memorable. In fact I take fucking long to write a score now. One is that being in a combat unit offers you insufficient quality time to sit down and really write a score. Mostly I have to do planning for new pieces in the camp, and only write when I return home during the weekends. That is what I look forward to when I book out of camp on a Saturday morning / afternoon or a Friday night.

Second, the constant bombardment of duple-time army songs threaten to kill my musical language. In fact, it's on its way to degradation. My MP3s and the CDs I own are morphine. To borrow a CD of music I rarely listen to, or never have heard before, is ecstasy. It's the only way to nourish my writing. When I see a score or listen to music, I am motivated to write. In fact, that's what drove me into composition when I was young, although I was never serious about this line of work then. I am threatened by an overflow of new ideas that rush through now and then, even while training. New pieces are being piled up on my waiting list like unsettled debt for the bank.

Why am I filling my blog now? I've written my scores to the point that I don't know I want to continue or not, because very soon I'll be returning to camp, which means that the score will not be touched for another few days more.