Novena -James Swearingen

I watched Brokeback Mountain yest and had a good conversation with Reggie over dinner about it. Wanted to blog about it initially but then I didn't felt like it in the end. Plus the fact that I bumped into lulu balls on the train home. He's my band junior who's really so bubbly that he filled up our time on the train with anedoctes about his life and all. What he did (which he didn't realise) is to make me reminisence about my sec sch Band days. So much so, that I went to find those songs that I really enjoyed playing back then. Of cos, being one of those guys who loved to show off on the drums (despite not being tt good), my top 3 drumset songs would be: Abba Gold, Beatles Forever and Big Fun in the Sun. Esp love the last one cos it's just SO full of drums! However, I realised that a lot of the songs I liked weren't drumset pieces as well, and my pick of the lot is Novena by James Swearingen. I know this sounds damn silly to most of u but it's my first solo, and it was just the Chimes that I played. Super simple. I guess in a way that song showed my progession in the band as well, from Chimes to mallets to Timpani which is what I kinda ended up with (esp SYF competition '97). There's another song I liked - Where the River Flows - which I rem my conductor, Lin Ah Leck, read out the whole story behind the song and I was just so taken in that when I played the song, I actually felt it. The percussion parts are also very dynamic. I wonder whether I will ever hear tt song again. I also wonder about our instructor whom we gave a really hard time but he's a great instructor. When he took over, we were a bronze band, the next competition we got a silver (of cos I cried!) and then my bro's batch managed to get a gold. I think ah lin really worked his balls off to get us bunch of ill-disciplined slackers to work on our skills n all. Also found out that two of my band juniors have kinda turned pro. Not that it's unexpected cos they had the talent since then. One of them I rem more clearly cos his dad actually called me up to scold me cos "my son has talent! he should be playing the drums! Why are you wasting his time?" Oh well, I guess the answer to that is "I'm the senior and I want to play the FREAKING drums!" Thanks to lulu balls for reminding me about it. heh.

So here ending off with my fav song for the moment...Novena...

(there's no lyrics you dumbo!)