I didn't know how young I am when I started to love playing musical instruments like flute, harmonica or guitar. All I can remember was when I was in primary grade, I already know how to play several of these instruments even though I don't know how to read notes. Just listening to the tone and then play it the same way I listened to it. My father bought me a ukelele (just the local one, made of pieces of wood and four nylon strings) and taught me how the fingers will be in place to make the tune sound like the major and minor chords of the standard keys. I learned a lot on that and then I level-up like I can now play acoustic and electric guitar, bass guitar, keyboard and drums. Thanks to the people and the community around me when I was growing up because they contributed a lot on my learning process. These includes my family, the school (where I joined a choral group, a drum & lyre group, and friends with much interest to guitar playing), my church community (choral group) and now at my work (band member).
It was in college days when my friends and I where having a jamming session with a guitar and a beat box, and after one of them finished singing a song started to ask why not make a group and show our talents to the public. Everybody agreed to the idea and I was assigned to handle the drums. I was very excited. This is my first band and I have to review my knowledge on drums because playing it on the church is with a little difference with the common songs played on the radio and MTV's. Not all drum beats are the same. Some are fast, some are slow. Some are easy on listening but a lot difficult when you play the beat on actual drums.
We joined several band fest. Sometimes we win, sometimes we lose. Then comes a time where one of us needs to quit. Our bassist was called by his employer to report on duty. He was a seafarer. Our vocalist followed, entered the army with the same reason: work. We're disbanded!
Our vocalist and I did not wasted our time to find replacement for our two members, because I find it hard performing with other musicians. As time passes, I tried other musical instruments to play. My brother bought himself an acoustic guitar for his birthday. A friend of mine sold his keyboard to me for he doesn't know how to use it. I and my brother is sharing the same room so we played together very often.
The company that I work with has this chapel where mass celebration is held. They purchased an acoustic guitar to be used by the choir. I was chosen to play it during the holy mass. Somebody asked me if I wanted to join a band group because they needed a bassist. I then said I'll try because it's not really my forte, but I can play the bass. We practice after work. There was a time I mentioned that I had a keyboard at home, and he said that they also need a keyboard player, so there I was.
We performed on several occasions, parties, birthday celebrations, anniversaries, festivals. There is this time that we joined competitions like battle of the bands. Unlike the other, performing on competition is a mixture of embarrassment and excitement specially when the host announces the winners, you know how it feels, right?
There is these competition that I was challenged by writing a song about our cultures. Never did I do writing a song my whole entire life. How to compose a song? How will I start the lyrics?
I started researching for a topic, in my case, for the history of our place, the people, the cultures. When I learned about it, I re-write the vital words needed for the song, I thought that making the lyrics rhyme like a poem will make the musical arrangement and timing a lot easier to divide. First try, not good. Lot's of words, I have to make it short and simple, summarized. After I was contented with the words, there is another problem how to apply the music, what key, what genre?
Reading the lyrics I wrote gives me the idea of making the music like a native one, a local tribe, like western style so I end up with folk song style of music. Like I said a while ago, I do not know how to read notes and make musical pieces, so what I did was write the chords of the song on top of the lyrics (like the one they do with the chord songbooks). The problem is the tone, but given the chords, I come up with the melody which is not far from the chords. I then recorded the melody of the song (because if you don't, it will be mixed-up on your mind and mislead you). After that, I shared the recorded song to them to familiarize and make riffs and styles and ad lib. Then together, we played the song repeatedly, while sharing ideas, adding styles, adjusting the correct timing. We end up with a good song, we are all happy, because like me its also their first time making a song. You too can do it!
