linterry's blogger

it has recently dawned upon me that a lot of great songs i hear and love are actually the simplest in terms of arrangement. that is, they don't seem to contain a lot of parts, only what's necessary to make the sound seem complete. i think britney spears music is a perfect example.

sfd (1.5MP3)

comparing to all the other stuff i made, this "demo track" actually sounds the most "professional", yet ironically this is the result of just playing around in sonar for 30 minutes. no forethought or planning, just wanted to play around with some VST's. it only has 6 tracks and the only effect used is a delay on the synths.

i remember in keyboard magainze they interviewed keane and he said something along the lines of "when we make a song, we like to keep things simple. we only put in the parts that are necessary, and we never add any pointless filler". hey, maybe that's a great idea. being used to playing around with "non-professional" samples (ie anything on the SC-8850), I tend to overdo the arrangement when it doesn't sound full enough.

the problem is of course that in order to have a great sound with only a few parts, those few parts have be top notch instruments. with live instruments that's not a problem. but with VST's, it seems the problem is a lot more severe than it should be. top notch instruments are hard to come by. I'd say only 5% of like the 30 gigabytes of sounds available to me are actually "good". the rest are just cheezy filler. anyways for those of you who like to make music at home, the VST's I thought sounded just amazing are the following:

Trilogy (bass - these sound very raw but in a mix they are awesome)
Atmosphere (sampled-based synthesizer sounds)
Realguitar (acoustic guitars - REALLY good stuff)
NI Battery (drum kits)
ABsynth (real-time synthesizer, some very powerful presets if you look around)

Maybe I'd add Stylus RMX to the list, but honestly whenever I start using that the song just ends up sounding like something I didn't make. I guess for some people it might sound better, but on a personal level I don't really like it.

i think one of the most frustrating aspects of making music is that it's not just good enough to come up with a nice melody, some nice chords, a groovy bassline, some beats - put them together and presto! you got something great! well if your expectations are low, even a mediocre song piped through a cheap midi synth will be pleasing, but if you want something that sounds like a commercial hit, you're looking at an inevitable extra hundreds if not thousands of man hours. and if you don't have the right gear, that commercial sound may very well have been out of your reach in the first place.

i read this book about sound engineering that divided a song into the various criteria it can be evaluated upon:

composer side
1. melody
2. harmony
3. rythym
4. overall song structure
5. lyrics

6. arrangement
7. instrumentation

8. recording/effects
9. mix
engineer side

(there were actually 11 criteria but for clarity's sake I've omitted them)

i've actually reordered the list so that it illustrates the difference between composing and engineering: the first five are strictly in the domain of the composer, while the last 2 are in the strictly in the domain of the engineer. the middle two I feel is sort of a common ground that both will most likely be involved in.

an interesting way to look at this is: the composer produces an abstract work that could potentially be soundless. it is simply an overall "blueprint" for a song, and it can be in the form of a draft version or just a musical score (from my expereince however it's far more practical to just produce a draft version). a draft verison typically contains as few tracks as possible in order to "define" the essence of the song. in most cases this will consist of a lead vocal track, a harmony backing track (typically guitar/piano), the bass, and a simple rythym track. you really only need these four elements and you can "define" a song.

however, the mere definition of a song is not enough to please the audience. it will sound empty, unfulfilling, and have no "punch" - even though the underlying musical concepts may be very well thought out. the song has to be arranged and instrumentalized in order to create a full, pleasing sound. this is where your modest 4 track draft balloons into a 32 track monster.

it's not uncommon for a modern arrangements to contain upwards of 20+ tracks, even though you might not be hearing 20 instruments. as an example, you have vocals, doubled vocals, chorus1, chorus2, guitar-left, guitar-right, bass, kick, snare, hihat, tambourine, synth lead1, synthlead2, strings-left, strings-right, sfx1, sfx2...... even the most modest of embellishments calls for a drastic increase in the overall complexity of the song.

instrumentation is also a huge issue. although it would seem that the composer should pick which instruments to use (at the very least, he should make the initial decision) - it's probably best that a producer/sound engineering guy have the final say. getting an instrument to sound good and punchy in a final mix is -oddly enough - a f*cking difficult thing. yet it cannot be avoided. the quality of the instruments in a song is the #1 contributor to the overall feeling of "quality and professionalism". this is the one area where video game tracks suffered the most - thus the songs could not be enjoyed by the masses. you play back a SNES track from your favorite Final Fantasy to your average audience and he will say "hrm, yeah, well it sounds like a video game" and it will have absolutely no impact whatsoever, even though all the other musical aspects may be done extremely well. i personally think certain songs from Final Fantasy Tactics are just mindblowing in terms of composition, but few people are willing to listen to strings and brass rendered on a PSX synthesizer.

now we come to the final step: mastering - aka mixing and effects. this is the part I personally hate the most, because it's tedious and fairly boring. I know lot of people must get a huge kick out of playing with EQ and compressors n shit, because there's like ten times as much information on the internet about mixing and effects than there is on producing a quality arrangement. here's where the song production process really becomes a science rather than art (hence the title audio engineer). frequencies, EQ, compressors, reverb, chorus, cutoffs, resonance, attacks, delays, yadah yadah yadah - the domain is vast, and has as many "tips" as golf. if you pick up any music production magazine you will see tips on how to improve your engineering more than anything else - I assume this is becuase as a science, it can be grasped and executed by just about anyone who's not retarded. but it is not easy to reach a high level in this discipline, and a lot of it is based on gut instinct, so it might be considered an art in some sense.

..

now, one trend I've been seeing in modern music today is pretty much the degradation of composing, and the proliferation of engineering. without distinguishing the two, it's easy to get blindsided by a professionally mixed track that features a gut-wrenching bass with a hot snare that wants to rip your face off. actually, I know such a track, No Doubt's Hella Good. Just listen to that opening kick/snare/hihat. I challenge anybody to make a kick/snare/hihat sound that hot and punchy - unless you've got some seroius equipment and a good deal of engineering knowledge, a sound like that is perpetually out of reach. But what if I just asked you to sequence that drum sequence into your sequencer. All you need is a good ear and you'll be done in less than 10 minutes - more like 10seconds if you have some significant music making expereince. In other words, compositionally it's very bland and uninteresting, but engineering-wise it's very hot.

the most extreme opposite would be classical music. classical music is somewhat of a strange beast, it exists almost purely in the abstract, composer's domain. what is moonlight sonata? it is really just an abstract score arranged for solo piano. there is no mix, there are no effects, these would only exist if the song is rendered into some kind of dance remix. and yet this bodiless, abstract, form is probably why classical music has been able to perpetuate throughout time. the quality of such music is found in the composing, not the rendering. in other words, the magic is in the notes, on the score - not the individual sounds that come out of your speaker.

a lot of classical music will move the average audience - from my point of view that is VERY difficult... almost magical! because you have no bass, you have no drums, you have no vocals, and these are the three elements that drive most modern music to success. therefore, it comes as no coincidence that everytime I try to break down classical music, my mind is simply overwhelmed. I don't understand it. I can jam on my keyboard and figure out something from Maroon 5 in 10 minutes, yet it would probably take me days just to understand the progression behind a relatively simple song like moonlight sonata.

i really want to focus on the composing side of things. with kaiser kastle's stuff, i usually can. i just use whatever i can find on the SC-8850 and play it raw. i don't have to worry about mixing or effects because they have a real engineering at a studio who will do it for me. instrumentation is still an issue - but since their expecations are not that high, I can use "cheezy" patches and get away with it.

it's only when i want to make my OWN music, I have to start worrying about everything. and it's overwhelming. too overwhelming. there are just too many tasks in the music production process for a single person to handle. while it's doable, it will never be as good as it could have been. two hours spent on finding the right bass sound is two hours lost on making that bass line more interesting. two hours spent on figuring how to make that kick have more bite is two hours lost on making a more interesting ryhtym line. not only that but a great song can really be made when it's only just you and your music and you're lost deep in trance, in feeling. the moment you start to worry about a certain effect or instrument, that's already an unwanted negative feeling tainting the creative process.

Whatever Version 2 (1.7MB mp3)

Wow. What a difference samples make. I was fairly disappointed at the last version of this song, so I hacked at the problem from different angles. The first thing I did was extend the intro and make sure that a beat and rythym were set before the singing began, otherwise it seemed too jarring. I think this is a very important change in terms of building up human emotion, but not the one that most people would notice.

The most important change in this version was offloading the bass and kicks from the old and outdated SC-8850 to more modern VST's... namely, Spectrasonics Atmosphere "Moog Bass" patch and NI's Battery "Best of FM7" Drum Kit. The switch to these two samples produced a significant difference in the overall feel of the "Quality" of the song. As a composer primarily, I tend to downplay the role of samples in producing the overall quality of the song. As it stands, I now rank samples as #1. Samples can easily make or break a song.

I also added two extra hi-hat/shaker tracks to add more high frequency edge. One cheap but useful way of telling when you've hit all the frequencies is to use winamp's frequency analyzer, and see if all the peaks are hitting the top durnig the whole song. . Actually listening to the final mix, they don't even seem to be there, but I'm pretty sure it's one of those "don't know if it's there, but definitely would know if it was missing" affairs.

Another important improvement was using headphones to do the mixing. I realized that the speakers I use (Klipsch something) reproduce music so differnetly from a pair of generic headphones... in particular it seems a certain frequency range is completely "muddied" by the Klipsch's. When I listened to the mix with the headphones, initially it sounded so AWFUL. Parts that I thought were okay through the Klipsch's came out as irritating through the headphones. I had to scale back certain parts that were just too strong.

This song really pushed my PC to the limit, particuarily after I started adding VST after VST. I tried to keep the # effects to a minimum... as a result, there is only reverb where reverb is needed, and there is delay on when delay is needed. Most patches are in fact completely raw. Thank goodness for Sonar's "freeze synth" option. Without it, I would have gone crazy with dropouts and HD thrashing.

I'm very happy with the state of the song as it is. It was a fun learning expereince.Back to Kaiser Kastile work.

Rejoice! You can download my girlfriend's second song "Whatever" here:

Whatever (1.5MP3)

I made this song over the last few days on a self-proclaimed break after producing 25 odd songs for Kaiser Kastle (short songs, so it wasn't that bad, but still). Funny how after I get a break from making music... I.. just make more music.

What I find fascinating about music production is that when you do everything pretty much yourself, the composing part only takes an hour at most, but the arranging, mixing, fine tuning and all the other small details takes DAYS. It's a very odd balance that I find somewhat disturbing. When it's just you and a single instrument (like the piano), it feels so free, so liberating, as you can pretty much play anything and sing anything you want. But if you would like to transform that song you just played into a "globally listenable" piece of work, the amount of work involved is like super exponentially complex. Not only that, but beside the inital arranging - most of the mixing and fine tuning is just hard labor.

It's really hard to say where all those hours go. I had the melody and the chord progression for this track in less than 30 minutes. I was just jamming chords on a piano and then I pieced together two or three good bits into a song. One thing I do differnetly now is that I make sure I blueprint the song before I do a smidgen of arranging. The "blueprint" is simply one track that consist of the chords and another that consists of the melody... the biggest mistake one can do is to start arranging the moment you have one section of the song. The problem is that once your brain goes into "arranging" mode (ie figuring out what parts to add to get a full sound) it's very hard to get back to "composing" mode - and you'll be very discouraged when you realize that everytime you want to extend the song, you need to add like 8 different parts to fill the hole. For those of you who have worked with sequencers before, the idea is to fill the song horizontally first before filling it vertically.

Anyhow the second day was spent just adding even more parts and "filling in the blanks" so to speak. I hadn't even gottten a single vocal take in the song (it's a lot harder than one would imagine to get my girlfriend to sing... she needs to be in the right mood at the right time and so do I)... it was all instrumental at that point. Then finally, just three or four hours ago, my girlfriend sang. She really doens't like singing into the mic, so I tried to make the vocal session as brief as possible. This is why some of the song sounds rough and maybe a little out of tune. But let me just say that I actually think my gf is an above average singer, the quality of her voice may not be outstanding, but technically she sings mostly in tune which is more than you can ask for from the average person. Good singers are just so rare!

After my girlfriend sang into the part I had to play the part of mixing engineer. This is where I am the weaekst... I have little to no knowledge as to how properly mix a song and I think it shows. Sonically, the song sounded fairly awful after my gf sang into the mix - her voice was simply covered up with all the other parts blaring so loudly - and with so much general reverb, you couldn't make anyting that was going on... it was a blurry mess.

So, I fairly reluctantly spent another few hours "toning down" the overall instrumental mix... lowering volume, applying filters to cutoff certain frequencies off "full range" parts - and slowly but surely, my gf's voice gained more presence relative to the rest of the mix. I still don't like the final result... but when you had little knowledge about a discipline, fiddling around blindly can lead you down a deadly spiral of despair and degression. So once I hit somethig listenable, I just stopped. But I'm sure a real mixing engineering could turn what's here into something far more palatable to the human ear.

Now regarding the lyrics, they are all bullshit. My gf made up the japanese lyrics on the spot, singing random shit, and I'm just whispering random shit in the mic.

So yeah, there you go. I'd like to add one thing - whenever you hear something from Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Jay Chow, Utada Hikaru or any big name artist... try to look at the song from a mixing/arrangement point of view. You might not like the song or the artist or the lyrics, but there is no denying that big time artists always come out with big time sound that's crisp, clean and loud. It's no trivial matter... if it was trivial then every other "no name" artist in this world could acheive the same sound, but they can't. I find it intersting that something we take for granted - clean/crisp/sound - is actually something that is nearly impossible for hte average person to produce himself.

OH
MY
FUCKING
GOD

This song is pure brilliance. Pure brilliance. Well, at least from a technical standpoint... this song has a progression I have NEVER seen before. What is totally incredible is that from a passing guess, it's a minor key and there are lots of minor chords.

Actually, this song has practically major chords EVERYWHERE. There is NO key for this song. It just goes all over the place. Okay, let's break it down:

Verse

[F#min/A]You know how us cath[F#sus4]olic girls can be

Now I know I'm always suspect when I see an intro that complicated but believe me, that's what the intro is. If you play A,E in the bass and then jam the F#min chord on the right hand you'll nail the first one. The second one play F#,C# in the bass and jam a Bsus2 on your right (which effectively gives you a F#sus4). This intro is nice and colorful but you ain't see nothing yet

a [Emaj] little too late

This is very jarring if you play it on the piano - you can't just play this by itself it will sound odd. But I guarantee you that's what the chord is, and it's only when you play the stuff before does this chord makes sense (ie in context). And then the fun starts.

I [Emaj/B]never, for[Eaug/C]got

Con[C#min/C#]fused as it [Emaj7/D]was

OMFG. I can feel into the mind of the composer. He just wants to get a chormatically rising bassline, and he puts all these crazy ass chords to do so. Even as I'm looking at that, I can't beleive I got this. One year ago, this song would have been impossible unless I used transcribe, and even then I probably would've misread the song because it contains so much distortion.

[Gbmaj]I may as [Amin]well have...

Another huge modulation. This song is throwing chords from like a billion keys.

And now the chorous, which was actually the easiest to figure out, even though by most standards, it has a very unusual progresion.

We all [Dmaj] had our rea[Dbmaj]sons to be

[Dmaj]there, we all, had a [Dbmaj]thing or two....

We [Dmaj] all needed some[Dbmaj]thing to cling

[Bmaj]too, so we [Dbmaj]did

This is HUGE modulation - a total smackering of 100% major chords from various keys. But I have seen something like this before, with spanish music. If you jam Emaj, Fmaj, Gmaj it sounds very spanish.

And then the big-ass bridge or whatever you call it

[Dmaj] What I learned I reje [Emaj] cted, but I believe in

God [Dmaj], , I will suffer the [Dbmin] conseuqnece, of this

inqusition[Dmaj]. If I jump this foun[Emaj]tain, will I be

forgiv[Gbsus4]en.......... [Gbmaj]

The chords are big-time major, big-time modulated, and then go up and down and up. Take heed of the awesome build up as it goes Dmaj, Emaj, and then Gbmaj for the big finale chord - I caught the sus at the last moment.

I still cannot find words to express the shock and awe I am at this song. For a progression so unusual, so exotic, the song manages to sound close and familiar without alientating the audience. That is no trivial matter, I tell you. And once again I feel like I'm reached a new plateau in terms of music understanding. It's like, after this half a year of non stop composing, I can see songs in a wonderful light - it's truly a magnificent feeeling.

I am probably the only person in the circle of people I know that played Phantasy Star 3. PS3 was actually labled a "huge disappointment" by most Phantasy Star fans, and yet I thought it was the best one, because the music was so hauntingly good! The title screen and the town theme were definitely one of my favorites. So, for those of you who have a piano, you can enjoy playing this piece with a bare bones arrangement

Original PS3 town theme captured with Gens emulator (~500K MP3)

Music Score (page 1)
Music Score (page 2)

Listen to the above score rendered as it simply is through a SC-8850 (piano + flute duet)

SC-8850 render of simple arrange (~600k MP3)

This song is so great! Theory wise it is very nice, it goes through two different keys very transparently (they are marked in the score), and in the second section, it does the major/minor modulation on the Bbmin chord, to lead to Ebmaj and then the final third phrase. It's a very simple melody that when even piped through the Genesis' crippled synthesizer, the beauty still shines through. At least for me it does.

alanis morisette's unsent

Dmaj, Cmaj, Gmaj

over and over, until it finally hits a minor chord (you'll know when)

Bmin, Amaj

how many times have we seen this trick. republica's ready to go (Dmaj, Cadd9), aguilera's beautiful (Ebmaj, Ebmaj/Db). Bass goes down by a full tone and modulates into another major chord before returning to the original key in the next chord. Now, come to think of it, Final Fantasy's chocobo theme uses this silly trick over and over (Gmaj, Fmaj, Gmaj, Fmaj). In fact, even i have used this trick unknowinngly in one of my longer works for Kaiser Kastle. It's brilliant... but does it ever get old? Doesn't look like it yet.

It looks to me that if you're looking to make a catchy song, start with that progression. Does it even have a name? Used so often. Another one that is used but not so often is going the other way... instead of going down a full tone you go up a full tone. Like Cmaj, Dmaj. Or even better, Cmaj, Dmaj7/C to keep the bassline still. Just like final fantasy five's overworld theme.

there is always a trick!!

i'm a roll. i really feel like i've reached a new level of understanding with music. i just broke down alanis morisette's head over feet and hands clean in like record time! and the thing is, i'm in such a strange groove right now... i'm a bit tired but somehow after singing beautiful so many times i'm so int othe music.

hit songs always have a trick. okay, exhibit one, hands over feet

verse goes :
I had no choice, but to ? you
Cmaj, Gmaj, Amin, Fmaj

et cetera et cetera. nothing too fancy. but when it hits the chorus, it transposes VERY SNEAKILY into Dmaj. already when you hear "you've already won me over" that is still playing over a recently played Fmaj, but the melody is A,D,E, F#, fleshing out the Dmaj chord. then it goes

You've already won me over, in spite of me
Dmaj7, Amaj, Gmaj, Amaj

And don't be alarmed if I fall head over feet
Dmaj7, Amaj,Gmin, Amaj

AAAA! More dirty tricks! Now the Gmaj goes to Gmin. I caught this one real quick though. My ear picks up these things more readily now! This has been done before in many songs I've been studying recently, like Radiohead's Creep and the final fantasy V (yes five) overworld theme. I didn't figure those out though, I bought the scores to both at a music shop in Okinawa.

Okay, now the chours repeats one more time and I was thinking... okay, how the hell is the song going to get back to Cmaj. This is what I have, but I'm entirely sure:

Bbmaj Fmaj(add9) Gmaj
I couldn't help it, it's all your fault

Yeah I played it again and I think it sounds right. So you see, for this song, which was definitely a hit, two tricks, the big one is the VERY smooth transposition before the chorus. In fact I never realized it transposed before this exercise right here. The other is the alteration of major to minor for Gmaj in the second line of the chorus.


Next exhibit: Hands clean

I couldn't believe how fast i got this one despite it being a nonstandard progression. I was playing with my right hand only and landing the chords. That is incredible stuff (yes I am engaing in narcissim now). Okay, this song uses this progression almost the ENTIRE song

Cmaj, Dmaj, Bmin, Cmaj

I like to play this on the right hand so that the top note reads E, F#, F#, G.

while it looks like a unusual progression that is only true if you think the Cmaj is the tonic chord. it's not. This song is in Emin, and it uses a really popular trick, to start the song on the sixth chord of a minor key. It gives it a sort of a unresolved feeling, but it's really pleasant to the ear. Off the top of my hand I know the braveheart theme song, countless utada hikaru songs (including traveling, sakura drops, hikari, and colors) all use this dirty trick. Usually the song goes six, seven, eight (or one). So in a Emin key you play Cmaj, Dmaj, Emin over and over and it sounds good.

BUT, this song NEVER touches Emin for almost the entire song. how many times do you know of a song that never hits the tonic chord? It's eerie! But it does touch that chord, and it's when she starts singing

Emin Cmaj Gmaj Dmaj
What part of our history's reinvited blah blah blah

When you first hear that Emin chord, after not hearing the chord for the whole song, it's a feeling of relief almost! Listen carefully and you will feel it.


now last exhibit: ironic

this song baffles me. is it in Gbmaj? whenever i see Gbmaj i shudder in fear... if that's the key then my life has just became super hard. i still can't get the hang of Bmaj (a chord written in sharps) being the subdominant of a flat key. still feels weird.

anyhow, this is the key progression used throughout the verse and chorus (and possibly the intro but the intro colors the chords very nicely and i'm not sure yet what the coloration is)

An old man, turned 98
Gbmaj, Bmaj, Gbmaj, Abmin

It's like rain, on your wedding day
Gbmaj, Bmaj, Gbmaj, Abmin

now the key trick comes at the end of the chorus

and who would've thought, it figures
Amaj, Emaj, Gbmaj

that's some big time modulation there, with the Amaj adding serious spice to the ending of the chorus. like i said, there's always a trick with the hits

now the uhh bridge? whatever it's called

Emaj, Gbmaj7, Emaj, Bmaj7
life has a funny way

great chords. but what's the goddamn key!!!! i'm too tired. time to go to sleep.

for the past hour i have been singing christina aguilera's beautiful non stop. i know this is an old song from an album that was released two years ago. but somehow i got around to downloading the entire stripped album and i felt almost overwhelmed... by how F*CKING AMZING her singing is! now i don't know how it is for everyone, but prior to today i always associated her with britney spears, only with the ability to actually sing (although i think 80% of this was cemented by public opnion). but after listening to this album, i think she is an incredibly talented singer. it's so powerful and soulful.

all the tracks (minus the hip hop oriented ones) are amazing. but beautiful stands out as hauntingly... beautiful. har har har. first of all, here is the progression that i came up with (i'm not sure if it's 100% correct but i've karaoked with the song many times and it sounds good to my ear)

verse:
Ebmaj, Ebmaj/Db, Ebmaj/C, Bmaj

ok this is the main riff throughout the verse and it's partially used again in the chorus. the way i think of it is... keep playing Ebmaj with your right hand for the first three chords with a descending Eb, Db, C bass with your left hand. When you get to Bmaj of course you will have to play a full Bmaj with the right hand. it will sound so great when you hit that chord, because it's modulated into another key (from a flat key to a sharp key no less). technically the Ebmaj/Db is also a modulated chord since Db does not exist in the key of Ebmaj, but this kind of progression is used so often i just think of it as a "alternative" way to descend the bass.

now if you voice the right hand chord so that Eb is the top note, it sounds very smooth because it will stay the top note through all four chords (even through the Bmaj which is in another key... sooooo neat!) now the piano in the real song is not played with Eb as the top note, it's actually G (at the beginning at least), but that arrangement is embellished very nicely so i don't really know what's going on there yet.

chorus (when it goes "(cause) your are beautiful"):

Abmaj, Fmin7,
Ebmaj, Ebmaj/Db, Ebmaj/C

only the first two chords are new, the three chords after that are the same as the verse. i'm not sure about the seventh in Fmin, but if you add the seventh you can keep the Eb as the top note on your right hand. so that means every chord you play in this song will have Eb as the top note on the right hand - which will sound fantastic!

now when the chorus ends i think it ends on a Abmaj again but when i Karaoke with the song it doesn't sound right... something seems to be missing. i'm pretty sure Ab is the bass note but I think the tonality of the chord is something different. hmph.

soar also has a cool progression. i haven't figured this one out fully yet, but the verse is Fmaj, Ebmaj, Bbmaj, Fmaj. and then in the second verse, Fmaj, Abmaj(add9), Ebmaj, Bbmaj. For the last three chords you keep Bb as the top note and it sounds great. the Abmaj(add9) is a huge modulated chord that gives that progression a distinctive spice.

i remembered when i first watched the lyrics to beautiful i nearly cried. yeah i know that sounds unbelievably gay, becuase i would assume the target audience is teenage girls, but hey, that's just me. but like it or not, both males and females face (sometimes incredible) pressure to live up to a society-driven standard of appearance that's just unreasonable... driving people to hate themselves for how they look. having being tormented by acne and looking like a geek for pretty much all my life, i've sort of been in this dark place myself, but i can only being to imagine how much darker this place is for females. the expecations are just that much higher.

well one thing about the video i wasn't really all to happy about was aguilera having knockout makeup on giving her skin perfect complexion and then singing about how everyone is "beautiful". but then again, if the audience was able to see her flawed skin that close, that would ruin the image that the record execs have strived to create. or something like that

hi there iris,
how's your ______

oh hey regina
how's your ______

what's up aurelius
how's your ______

hey hey regis
how's your _____

everytime i read phil jackson's book (i go over bits and pieces again from time to time), i start envisioning my "Dream" basketball game. nothing on the market even comes close, and i don't forsee the situation changing in the future.

all basketball games i have seen to date are "twitch reflex" types, in the sense that they are extremely responsive to user input. you can jiggle the d-pad like crazy and your player will move - unrealistically - like a madman, changing directions three times a second acccording to your input. while the first instinct is to peg responsiveness as a good thing - one should also consider the downside of responsiveness: you cannot recreate fluid human motion because nobody can turn that quickly in real life. just think of prince of persia. the movements in that game were so fluid but the responsiveness of the controls suffered dramatically to accomodate the fluidity.

this type of "responsiveness" is what largely contributes to the unrealistic action we see in many basketball games. eg. hold the turbo button and press random directions with your d-pad, and you get humanly impossible "headless chicken" movement. this is not basketball. in real basketball, every turn, every pivot, every change of pace has it's own beauty and meaning, which is totally lost with this crude "instant response" control system. human movement has strict limitations, and these limitations need to be captured.

so the first thing in my dream basketball game is to eliminate responsive control to the point where it is more in line with our actual movement. i guess you could say it would be very much like prince of persia, except for basketball. if you run in one direction, and make a 180 turn, you will suffer the full inherent delay of making a 180 turn. there will be no more "headless chicken movement".

now in close conjuction is a radical change in the control system. i may have forogtten to mention that this game will be on PC, not consoles, so that the target user control is a keyboard and mouse. now using a mouse to control a basketball player is something we have never seen before, but in fact it bodes very well with a restricted movement scheme. while dribbling casually, you control your player by simply clicking on where you want to go. your player will make his best attempt at getting there (think RTS strategy games). i like this far better than having to dictate at every given moment what direction you should run in, which is the inevtiable case with the d-pad. as humans we pick our destination and our brain automatically figures out how to get there as long as there is no extraneous interference. this should be refelcted in the game. it is about high level controls - not every insignificant detail.

of course, when there is extraneous interference from the defence, then it will be up to the player to decide a specific counter-move, such as changing directions or changing pace. much like the PC version of splinter cell, i envision the mouse wheel controlling "pace". roll up, your player dribbles at a faster pace, roll down, and he moves at a casual pace. one must be careful though, the faster you dribble, the longer it takes to change directions and stop. more speed = less agility.

the control scheme is all about high level decisions. it does not concern itself with all the small petty details which our brain automatically deals with without thinking on the court anyhow.

i would envision the right mouse button as the "Attack mode" button. that is, if you hold it down, your player will face up the defender where he stands. rotating the mouse at this point will pivot your player to the angle you desire (this is how post up can be initiated from a face up scenario). at this point, the cursor disappears so you no longer have the RTS control scheme. while holding this button down, two keys on the keyboard (say Q and E) will be "drive left" and "drive right". tapping these keys will initiate a jab step in said directions. holding them down will initiate a drive in said directions. tapping one and then holding the other will initiate a crossover. if you are in a "post up position", these will back down the opponent in the respective direction.

yes, driving to the hoop is a COMMAND, not a simple movement. this is because when we play ball, a drive is significant decision on the part of the attacker. it does not share the same space as casual movement around the court. why should the controls mix them together?

shooting is accomplished by press the left mouse button while in attack mode. a tap is a shot fake, holding it goes up for the jump shot, releasing shoots the ball. this is no different from basketball games we see today. what will be different however, is the fact that you will NEED to hold down the attack button (face up) before you shoot. this will eliminate the unreliastic "running away from net -> instant jump shot" that plagues all modern basketball games. in my game, if you are running away from net and decide to face up, it will take your player a long time to reposition. thus the "running away from net -> jump shot" will take a LONG time, as it should.

there will be an appropraite delay for jump shooting depending on momentum. as a shooter i know i have better rythym in my shot if i spot up with 0 momentum, or if i drive to one side and go up for the shot. these should be reflected in the game.

passing: i haven't figured this out yet. what i have in mind... hold left click on a player to signal a pass, and then right click to pass it. the longer you hold left click, the higher chance you have of completing the pass especially if it is a tricky one. of course, this is only good for passing out of statinoary dribbles. some good system needs to be developed for passing on the run or under duress.

ok, servers are back up. i'll cover defence some other time maybe

yesterday i saw collateral. that movie where tom cruise is a killer and yada yada yada. holy shit it was good. i got into the theatre 40 minutes late so we missed like the first half of the movie. but it didn't matter. the atmosphere was totally gripping. the stark, bleak shots of the LA slums is what enamored me most. ATTENTION SUCCESSFULLY CAPTURED. no shifting in my seat for the next hour, i was totally in the movie.

then when i got home, i caught intolerable cruelty on tv. now hitherto, i wasn't even aware of the existence of this movie, but there was something about the picture that was so attractive. i can't put it into words... on reflection it seems like some kind of dirty cinematography trick to enahnce the picture - tones were more sepia (color filters?) but also it had a more grainy, filmy look to it. ATTENTION SUCCESSFULY CAPTURED. it turned out to be a goddamn hilarious movie. the dialogue was so sharp and witty i needed to pay full attention to make sure i didn't miss a single word.

although making music and making a movie are very different ventures, the one thing that is similar is that they both contain a fair amount of "transparent elements" that are key to making the movie rise above the others. what is so interesting is that the average audience never really notices these elements when they are present, but take them away, and they will feel something is missing. for filmmaking it could be things like subtle use of color filters or post production effects to subtly enhance the atsomphere, the shooting angles and the speed of cuts.... for music it could be using the maximizer to enhance the sound, using ample backing tracks to thicken the harmony, etc. etc. before i started to make music i never appreicated stuff like this. but now i think all these "transparent elements" are essential for making a great piece of work.

yesterday i saw collateral. that movie where tom cruise is a killer and yada yada yada. holy shit it was good. i got into the theatre 40 minutes late so we missed like the first half of the movie. but it didn't matter. the atmosphere was totally gripping. the stark, bleak shots of the LA slums is what enamored me most. ATTENTION SUCCESSFULLY CAPTURED. no shifting in my seat for the next hour, i was totally in the movie.

then when i got home, i caught intolerable cruelty on tv. now hitherto, i wasn't even aware of the existence of this movie, but there was something about the picture that was so attractive. i can't put it into words... on reflection it seems like some kind of dirty cinematography trick to enahnce the picture - tones were more sepia (color filters?) but also it had a more grainy, filmy look to it. ATTENTION SUCCESSFULY CAPTURED. it turned out to be a goddamn hilarious movie. the dialogue was so sharp and witty i needed to pay full attention to make sure i didn't miss a single word.

although making music and making a movie are very different ventures, the one thing that is similar is that they both contain a fair amount of "transparent elements" that are key to making the movie rise above the others. what is so interesting is that the average audience never really notices these elements when they are present, but take them away, and they will feel something is missing. for filmmaking it could be things like subtle use of color filters or post production effects to subtly enhance the atsomphere, the shooting angles and the speed of cuts.... for music it could be using the maximizer to enhance the sound, using ample backing tracks to thicken the harmony, etc. etc. before i started to make music i never appreicated stuff like this. but now i think all these "transparent elements" are essential for making a great piece of work.

an interesting thing about composing music is figuring out, after I'm done, just how good of a job I did. I actually have a very good benchmark for this. there are three telltale signs that i have made a hit:

1. during the production phase, while i'm playing around with the arrangement... and then bam. i dig up something golden, and all of a sudden the tune starts to shine through. i get so excited i jump around the house like a giddy five year old and do lame dances to the music.

2. after i've finalized the song, i can't stop listening to it for hours (like I am right now with my latest hit, "the king is in town")

3. if i don't even feel like passing the final mix through a "maximizer", because it already sounds so great from it's abstract musical ideas

of course, it does little good to have a song which I think is good, but the rest of the world think it stinks. fortunately, in the line of music i produce, there is very little "automatic discrimination". when i make a hit song, everyone thinks it a hit too. my gf will suddenly turn around and say "hey that's a pretty good song". instead of the usual "ok", or "good" e-mail, my boss will say "wow, i love this tune!".

which leads me to believe: there is a type of "universal musical appreciation" that exists in human beings, regardless of personal taste. just like attractive people all seem to share a certain set of common physical traits, great music also has a set of common charactersitics. things like the quick A-B variation i mentioned before re: greenday's american idiot. things like tasteful usage of modulated chords that transparently add flavor and spice to the music (most used in jazzy music) things like smooth descending basslines, or melody lines that hold the same note over a bed of chord changes (linkin park).

what is fascinating is that while we all recognize a great song with little effort, when asked to produce a similiarly attractive song, the problem is exponentially difficult. (this reminds me of same difference between P and NP in computer science). i've been trying to write tunes for ages, and it's only now that i can even begin to get a feeling for what makes a song sound great.

one thing i am focusing on is the "horizontal development" that i mentioned before... how a song develops and evolves over time. it's not some kind of super complicated thing... but it requires a "macroscopic view" of the song that I'm working on. if i'm too focused on the details of the song, such as what register this instrument should be playing in or whether i should use this kind of panning or what not... i lose focus on the big picture. i will forget to place key elements of the song... like a break, or a sudden variation, and the song will fall the risk of turning out to be ... average. this is why i am not enamored by the idea of collecting a crapload of samples or always looking out for the 'next big VST synth'. yes your sounds have to be good, but as a composer the more mental energy you consume fiddling with samples, the less energy you have to keep focus on keeping your song interesting compositionally. that's why i've stuck with the roland sc-8850 for almost everything except acoustic guitar (which i don't even like to use since it's too easy and cliched). i know this machine very well, it produces decent sounds, and when i want a certain sound i practically know the name of the patch that i should load up.

republica's ready to go (chrous/intro):

Dmaj, Cadd9, Bbmaj, Cadd9 (repeat)

i'm so proud i came up with this myself. one thing i love doing is loading up winamp with EVERY song loaded in the playlist, turn shuffle on, and keep hitting "next song" until something good catches my ear. it's a lot more fun that always having exact control over what song you want to listen to next.

this song was so catchy back in this day. i still remember some dude in earl haig who would play chess at lunch while listening to this song on his walkman and nodding his head up and down in sheer gratification like it was goddamn crack or something.

so anyone who knows a bit of music theory will notice that the above progression is quite cool. it's some kind of modulation trick, playing major chords all the way down and then back up, while keeping D as the high note and having a descending bass. hit songs always incorporate some neat theory trick to keep the songs fresh and spicy, but without it sounding too alien.

何かね。。。
もう朝だけどまだ眠れないんだ。。。
いつも遅い時間にコーヒーを飲んでずっと眠れなくて
とても悪い習慣だな。。。

幸せって何？
いつもバカな質問って言われるけど
簡単な事じゃない。
好きな人と一緒にいて、好きな食べ物を食べて、好きなことをして。。
でもやっぱり、人間はそれだけで満足にならない。
辛いも必要なんだ。

いや、日本語で何でも書いても嬉しいね。

while i was reading xanga pages again i spotted an entry that sorta stuck in my head for quite a while. it's from scorpy27's site... i glanced over the details but i totally empathize with the essence of what scorpy is saying. i guess i have been there done that before. even though i have successfully plugged this gaping hole in my life, that post reminded me once more of the feelings that were in me when the hole existed.

yes, while i cannot speak for everyone, i will say that personally, i cannot imagine life without a strong attachment to someone else. it seems to go against common wisdom: that being too attached to something is a bad thing becuase it makes you weak or puts you at great risk of heartbreak. the flipside is of course, is that fulfilling attachment makes us into complete human beings. without it, life is nothing but a perpetual state of longing and wishing for... something intangible. tragically, this seems to be more of the norm than the exception in developed countries nowadays.

while the key to happiness is elusive and ethereal - it is not fundmentally complex. after basic physical needs are met, people need a attachment to a significant other (or others, although in this monogamous world i don't think i'll ever know what that feels like) - preferably with a minimum of outside interference. nowadays though there are just about a zillion sources outside interference - career locational needs is probably one of the biggest - that prevent the fulfillment of said attachment.

no, the key to happiness is not very complex in my mind. what is complex - is the type of self-defensive or pretensive behavior that is borne from being denied a consistent stream of attachment. i have seen all kinds of eccentric/pretensive/questionable behavior and the more i analyze it the more i feel that it all comes back an incapacity to satisfy their attachment needs. the most telling tale would be those people who come off as "fakes". i don't forsake them, rather i feel sympathy almost (as long as they don't piss me off too much) that they have somehow ended up this way.

what i find strange is that while society accepts the need for attachment as children, after we grow into young adults we are expected to be "fundamentally independent and self-sufficient". this means: while you can count on your buddies to "watch your back", if you ask for tender loving care you will be jeered at. i think this is one of the most harmful and misdirected lies to be propogated through the mass media nowadays. it represents an unhealthy movement of "individualism", where everyone is now expected to only trust and rely on one person: yourself. i personally believe that humans beings can only blossom when they are involved in deep, fulfilling, relationships. to be satsified with "just yourself" is just one big, airy, illusion.

hahah. Here's a new way to gank with style. rogues get safe fall (passive) at 40. next time you gank somebody look around to see if there's a cliff or some kind of a drop. of course what you need to do is get him to fight back, so make sure it's a good fight by keeping it close. then when he thinks he can win, burst dmg him with two SS's, then pretend to run in terror and jump.

LOL.

ok this post is for those who play WoW so if you don't play WoW then, don't read.

the rogue is undoubtedly once of the most interesting classes, thanks to its extremely well done talent tree and variety of skills. if you go to any WoW message board, there are always twice as many posts on rogues than other classes (eg. here).

seal fate is going to be nerfed next patch. well, I guess it had to happen someday, I enjoyed a 5/5 SF for less and a week and although it was nice to have (was specced 31/2/0 at lv42) it wasn't overly mindblowing. basically when you go assassination it's all about buliding up combo points as quickly as possible for the huge "CB evis". so if you're lucky with crits you will get staggering dps. the best talents in assassination are cold blood, lethality, malice, and remorseless attacks. all the other talents, including the ultimate talent "vigor", don't seem to make a huge difference (the only good thing about vigor is that it lets you open with CS, SS, SS, KS one tick faster than without. hooray)

today i tried the "100% crit ambush" spec. key talents: imp.ambush (+45% crit chance), opportunity (+20% base dmg), lethality (+30% crit dmg), malice (+5% crit chance), remorseless attacks (+40% crit chance after killing an opponent within 15 secs)

you add all those up and you pretty much get a 100% crit chance on a HUGE ambush with remorseless. if remorseless is not up then the crit chance is around 60% (still pretty damn good). at lvl 42 using a green 1.80 speed dagger ambush crits for 700-800 on cloth users and 500-600 ish on heavy armor. i have to say remorseless is pretty much useless for pvp but it's totally imba when grinding. opening for 100% crit ambush with +20% base dmg and +30% crit dmg mob after mob does wonders for your overall dps. on cloth caster mobs i easily can sustain ~200dps if i land the remorseless ambush, at lv42!

i've stopped using cheap shot in pvp. the only time i'll ever use it is when i'm doing "highwayman ganking". this is when you go to places like redridge or duskwood (where nobody expects to get ganked), stand next to the main road and wait for some unsuspecting alliance traveler to pass by. here cheap shot is golden because it gives you time for the crippling poison proc to land. without it there's a possibility that the victim has enough time to run down the road for assistance and maybe even into town where you might be seen by a lv60 gestapo.

however, in any other case, i will open with ambush, particuarily if somebody is fighting a mob. this has more to do with the fact that humans are not like computers, they do not react immediately to being ganked thus you are pretty much guaranteed 2-4 seconds of free attacks while they try to decide what to do about you. instead of expending 60 energy for 0 damage and a stun you would pretty much get for free "psychologically", you instead use 60 energy to frontload a shitload of dmg at the cost of one or two seconds of "virtual stun" time. not to mention that a lot of people do not play well when their life bar suddenly drops to less than 50%. this applies mostly to cloth users, who depending on their level drop within 5 seconds of a crit ambush. (i know this because after they die my stealth still hasn't even cooled down halfway yet)

most bastardly pvp trick = gouge + restealth. as long as you are not aggroed by a mob or DoT, you can gouge, run, deselect your target, and restealth after the 3 sec combat timer wears off, thus "resetting" the fight.

2nd most bastardly pvp trick = distract. this is most useful when you are in stealth and you are chasing a runner. hard to believe, but distract works on human opponents extremely well. they will stop moving even if they are still holding the up key, they will have to reorient themselves, release the up key and press it again to keep running. this often buys you enough time to land the CS opener + crippling proc.

3rd most bastardly pvp trick = discombobulator. if you are an engineer you can make these with a recipe from gnomeregan. non-engineeers can use it too since it has no eng lvl requirement. this tool is so frickin imba i see a nerf in the near future. this is basically a free insta cast snare that also dismounts opponents. you can use it to chase or escape. amazing utility for a non-class speicfic item (hunters would absolutely dominate if they had a simliar ability in their spellbook)

about the combat tree, basically the most points you put in here is 8, for imp SS (FIRST TWO POINTS GO HERE), imp gouge (useful), and imp backstab (if you have a crazy good dagger and duel/pvp exclusively). backstab is not good for pve and you will always get better dps out of SS, because unlike human opponents you will never get "free positional backstabs". without "free positional backstabs" you can only backstab off CS/KS/gouge, which is not good enough. endgame backstab can easily crit over 50% of the time for 1000 dmg with a good dagger so it makes more sense to spec for it at the end of a rogue's career.

if anyone puts 31 points into combat on a pvp server they should reroll. not only is it totally boring it removes a rogue from it's essence: to assasinate single targets as quickly as possible.

now a brief rundown on rogue matchups

warrior
these guys are mostly hopeless. the only time they are dangerous is when they use retaliation. if they do you'd better run. but since it's on a one hour cooldown most warriors don't even bother. more than 90% of the time, i just circle strafe and spam SS+evis until they are dead. if the fight isn't going well then gouge+restealth, or if cripping procs, you can even kite them. kiting really hurts a warrior because every second you are not fighting, you gain energy while he is losing precious rage. but most of the time circle strafing does the trick. as long as you get your opener and catch him by surprise, it should be an easy fight. generally i will take on any warrior but i will be very mindful if it's a red level (they will easily outmelee you esp. if they have a decent amount of rage)

paladins
this can be very ugly depending on how much the paladin is willing to fight. some pallies use the immunity shields to heal (CORRECT), while others use it to escape (WRONG). if a pally is nimble enough to deal with circle strafing and uses both immunity shields correctly, the rogue will most definitely lose to an equal level pally. when he has the 5min immunity shield up and starts to heal you should back off and apply a bandage to even the odds. still, the pally will have the advantage. the good news is that he can't dot you thus you have a billion ways to get away from the fight. just don't wait until you are at 5% health when a hammer of justice stun is enough to finish you off. generally i will only take on green lvl pallies, others i just stay away from becuase it's just not fun to fight pallies.

hunters
these guys are total cake, as long as you gank *them*. if they gank you then it's pretty much curtains (not always, but a good hunter shoudn't lose if he catches a rogue fighting a mob). but if you gank a hunter, these guys are just hopeless. make sure you have crippling on your weapons, because once it procs the hunter is dead. scatter shot will not help them escape. ignore their pets, they do insignificantdamage. even if the hunter is giving you a good fight, you can always pop evasion to even the odds. i will gank on any hunter, even reds, as long as it's not more than +8 or so.

mages
the fight revolves around one important fact: whether or not they can polymorph you before you kill them. if they polymorph you, and they are cool headed to prepare themselves mentally (they can repoly you another two times before it even breaks), the odds are certainly NOT in your favor. they will then be allowed to open at range with their favorite spells and treat you just like any other mob. fireball/pyro has a DoT component = no vanish. frostbolt is a 50% snare = rogue running around doing no damage. even if you get close, they have frost nova and blink. mages are very slippery and it's a very challenging fight for a rogue to be engaged in a full duel with them.

HOWEVER, if you are looking to gank a mage fighting a mob, it's often a 5 sec affair. if you crit on ambush and smack him hard with a few SS he will often die before he can even find his blink button. even if he blinks mages do not deal with adds very well. don't open with CS if you can help it. it only gives the mage time to hit that blink button. yes you get two CP's, but you might never get to use them, because he might poly you, then finish off the mob with his unscathed health, repoly you, and game over. hit em hard and fast, and you will come out victiours more often than not.

priest
if you are undead this fight is one of the easiest next to warlocks. if you are not undead then god help you. the priests only saving grace in pvp is psychic scream. without it, they are very easy fights. their dots and shield are not enough to outdamage a rogue running around them spamming SS and evis. now, if you are undead, the way to fight is to land your opener, IMMEDIATELY use will of the forsaken, and continue fighting. do not wait until you are feared - prevention is much better than the cure. you want to be in the priest's face the whole fight. do not be intimidated by the shiled, it will fall soon enough. one thing you have to watch out for is to never use up all your energy, leave enough so you can kick. KS, or gouge, his heals at a moment's notice. if you let a priest heal during the fight, then you WILL lose.

warlocks
once again, WotF for the win. it single handedly deals with both the succubus' mez and the warlock's fear, which are his only methods of controlling the fight. (if you didn't roll undead, now's the time) with WotF, warlocks are TOTAL fodder for undead rogues. I will take on any warlock, even +10 (although I never had the chance to) - they simply have no method to control the fight. being cloth, they also die fast.

rogue
ahh, rogue vs. rogue. generally it's about who ganks who. if you're the ganker, MAKE SURE YOU LAND A DOT. either you rupture immediately after the opener or you use garrote. if you don't and they gouge+restealth/sprint+restealth/vanish... you will then have to face a long drawn out hide and seek game. remember to use evasion if you have it... if the other rogue uses it and you don't, you have a good chance of losing the fight even if you were the ganker.

today i went to ntu to play a bit of basketball. seeing as how i no longer have the passion to be a Iverson-like slasher who can beat anyone off the dribble, i pretty much went cuz my friend Allen said he wanted to go.

actually it was a good chance for me to try a couple of things. i bought Phil Jackson's book "the last season" just a couple of days ago. it was so good i finished the damn thing in two days. now i'm a little suspicious of the nature of the content. yes it's brutally honest but it also feels too good to be true sometimes. some of the things he says about kobe and league are so juicy it feels like somebody doctored the material to please the reader (as opposed to just "well, that's what jackson really wrote, boring or not, here it is").

btw, seeing as how i'm not a nba pundit in any way, it came as a shock to me just how much jackson hates kobe and how much he's buddies with shaq. some of the stuff he writes about kobe in this book makes it seem like he is the worst behaved kid in sports history, yelling profanities and insults and throwing tamper tantrums at will. obviously this has a degree of truth to it, but the way he colors Kobe in the book is just too one-dimensional.

right, so the things i wanted to try. the "back pick". jackson mentions this play a bit, and i thought this is just the shit i'd like to try. i think i raved about this play a long time ago, rip hamilton and reggie miller are the two guys who do this a lot. pf or centre sets screen in the low post, shooter run flashes across the baseline, screening his defender in the process, comes back to the top to receive pass for catch and shoot.

first two possessions, we executed this to perfection. the first time was just too obvious, allen was looking to run the play with me, he screened my guy hard, and first shot i took on the wing wide open, bam, score. second possession, same story, except it was more of a double screen as i curled around the passer for the shot. semi-open, bam, score.

but then because i was at the top of the key, it was my implied turn to check. uhh, it's been so long since i played, so after i inbounded the pass, i had no fucking clue what to do. i tried curling around again but no dice, the play went on without me and we scored somehow. after that, everything just settled to the same old story again... i had no goddamn clue what to do on offense. didn't matter, allen and the other guy took over and we swept this team 6-1 with little effort.

in the next game, for some reason i could not execute the play again. 1/3 the time it was because i didn't get the pass at the right time. the other 1/3 was becuase i was checking the ball and it only really works when i can start the play at the baseline. the last 1/3 was when allen was checking the ball, the third guy wouldn't set the back pick for me.

of course, i still got some shots, but they were semi contested, and i airballed all three of them. player that can create his own shot, i am not. then fatigue and loss of confidence took over, i stopped playing soon after. my shot only works when i KNOW i am supposed to take the shot. whenever there is the slighest indecisiveness in my head about whether i should pass it off or put the ball on the floor, i tend to miss really often. fascinating.

recently expereinces like this have got me thinking about group dynamics. a one on one game seems to be radically different from a three on three. but three on three is not as different as five on five. as soon as you add the element that players have to work together to score, the game's complexity starts to magnify exponentially. suddenly, people are faced with the problem of what to do without the ball. do they have the requisite teamwork and telepathy to coordinate attacks with their teammtes?

most of the time, in pickup games, i notice that it's just a round robin one on one contest. people only pass when they get trapped or have no more options. you get the occasional team that really knows how to work together and those are a joy to watch. you could have a team that probably has three players with half the indivudal ability as the other team, but because they work together really well they still end up on top.

this is best exemplified by watching a team of seniors play. a team of seniors you say!!! yep, a bunch of old men who used to play for the school team or something, playing pickup with young playground guys. happens all the time at ntu or most big basketball courts here in taiwan. surprisingly, it turns out to be a clinic. the older guys have unbelievable ball movment, the ball is never in one place for too long, and they always seem to get a really nice shot. it's like textbook basketball. the young team however, you see a lot of indivudal dribbling and driving and difficult layups. they make some, but they eventually lose out to teamwork. it's just fascinating. on defense it's really hard to cover these old guys because they're all over the place. of course, some young team with a superstar comes in and individual talent sometimes prevails, but this is the exception more than the norm. these old guys hold the court for eight, nine games a stretch before losing once to a super aggressive team.

you get the same idea in world of warcraft. i've played in some instance groups where there's a definite leader, who tells everybody what their role is, who pulls, who heals, who tanks, and these groups always breeze through the instance without a hitch. then there's other groups where everyone just seems to be in a rush to kill everything, and not surprisingly, we will wipe so many times that the group just disbands in short time. even when the opponent is a computerized one, group dynamics play an important role.

i guess i have always been a indivdually focused person - focused on myself, what I can do, what I can accomplish. but recently the idea of synergy really appeals to me. that two average people can combine together and become something greater than two talented indidivudals. you can see this kind of pattern all over the world, but mostly in sports. like Real Madrid. they have so many superstars and yet the wins don't come as easily as you would expected. last year's Lakers, same story. you cannot just add up the individuals and get a result, you have to look at how these indivduals work together, and that's exponentially complex.

as i progress in my humble music career i've started to realize just how deep music is. from a composer's standpoint everytime i make a new song it seems i learn something new about music, something wonderful and fascinating. yeah as crude and grotesque i may be, the one thing i will always regard in the highest beauty is music. not music in it's physical, consumable form but in its abstract idea form.

okay take for instance the song "american idiot" by greenday. it's been a fair mystery why this song remains so catchy. unlike radiohead's music this song does not make use of eccentric chord progressions to pique your interest, it's just your standard power chord riffs. usually songs using this cliched arrangement are totally lost on me, i'd rather listen to silence.

yet something about this song just makes it so catchy. and i think i've figured it out, and it's something that i've started to use in my own compositions. it's not something i think the average person picks out when listening to music, yet as a composer it's my duty to understand these brilliant tricks so i can make my music better.

i call it the "Sudden Variation". if you notice in the verse every two bars there's a sudden variation in both rythym, layering, and vocals. two bars of heavy guitar layering, canned drum patterns, and then bam, "Sudden Variation", lyrics and a straight quarter beat bass drum. what's remarkable is not each of these sections individually, but that these sections folllow each other in rapid succession to create this heavy-light-heavy-light pattern that piques your interest. whereas most "forgettable" songs in the same genre do not use this trick, they just predictably go light all the way in verse and heavy in chorus.

the brilliant thing is that it occurs on several levels. the verse follows this heavy-light-heavy-light pattern, but once it hits the chorus it's heavy all the way. this creates another A-B-A-B pattern but on a more macrospoic level (let A=heavy-light-heavy-light B=heavy-heavy-heavy-heavy).

and then after the guitar solo, it becomes light-light-light-light... and you're just waiting in total anticiaptin for the heavy. that in itself is not a new thing, but it lends itself to variation on different levels.

this song seems so cliched and cheap but the more i listen to it the more i believe there is sheer hidden brilliance in the song that makes it so great to listen to. it's a type of "horizontal complexity" in music that is not easy to grasp - how a song should develop over time. when i first started music i was always hooked on getting the "vertical complexity" correct... mixing the right amount of bass, harmonic filler, counterpoint, etc. etc. to create a pleasant sound, but that's only part of the picture. the other thing a composer must excel at is using interesting ways of creating contrast over time.

another song that uses the same trick, but is a totally different genre, is the final fantasy 9 (for psx1) battle music. i like this track a lot and once again it always eluded me why this one always seemed to stand out above the others. if you have this track, notice that in the verse, it goes light-heavy-light-heavy with a drastically alterating bass+drum pattern. you got the cliched bass distortion going straight sixteenths in the heavy, and thena totally different sparse rythym in the light. and once it gets past the verse, it's semi-heavy all the way. very similar to american idiot.