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My Spot in Shinjuku

Shinjuku, Tokyo–Japan

There’s a place in Shinjuku where I stop by sometimes on my way home from Tokyo.

It’s in front of the LABI building where a giant screen runs advertisements for music and movies. I stand where a crosswalk begins and if followed, would get me a short distance from the Seibu-Shinjuku station—where the train home is.

As I look across, there’s an illuminated red gate that…

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May I Try To Convince You To GO Make Something?

The First of Doors

A huge thank you to everyone who gave the album a listen. This is certainly the longest I have ever spent on a musical project. I am incredibly proud of the work I have put out and I’m so happy that I get to call it finished. ‘The First of Doors’ to me, is exactly what the title indicates, the first of many opportunities: the first big step in a long journey.

If you’re…

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The Pros at Work

I saw a youtube video once of Mark Hoppus from Blink-182 and Mike Shinoda from Linkin Park writing a song in front of a live audience. You can watch the video here. Both Hoppus and Shinoda are accomplished musicians, yet during the live session you could see the difference in their writing styles.

Mark Hoppus

I write very similarly to Mark. The creative process for him takes place quickly and without much thought. In the video, he puts together a very familiar chord progression and skat sings over it–trying to get something to work right away. In the interviews where Hoppus discusses ‘California’, Blink’s new album from 2016, Mark reported that their producer was all about the philosophy of “first idea=best idea”. The band would work with the first idea that came to mind. The songs came together quickly in this way. Ideas were built upon and soon the collection of songs for the album emerged.

This is often how I go about writing my own music. I don’t think about things too much because I want to get a song done. I go over this method more in my article about writing 15 songs a month. I collect ideas, take the time to figure them out (but not too long), and finish them and then record them.

Mike Shinoda

In the video, Mike says that Linkin Park records could take up to 18 months to make. The reason for that is because he likes to take ideas and allow them to grow. He explains that this means trying different chord progressions with the same set of lyrics to see what looks best, or it could also mean things like slowing down or speeding up tempos. Shinoda also discussed how he would go about making different versions of ideas for comparison. All of the developments made were there so that Shinoda, and later–the rest of Linkin Park, could decide on which of the ideas was best.

The New Album

The album so far

Part of the excitement for the record came from this idea that the songs I had weren’t so great. I chose these songs from the catalogue of demos that I had built up since 2015. Most of these songs needed a lot of work before they were ready to record as I had written each of them in separate sessions over the years. Those sessions were 90 minutes in total and my method was to write as many songs as possible in 90 minutes. The challenge of my current project is: if I was to make a record that I am proud of containing these songs, I would have to apply a similar method to Shinoda’s, because essentially, I already have ideas for the songs, but as they are, the songs aren’t the best they can be.

Currently, I have about six songs recorded entirely. What I deemed to be the “final” versions for these songs came after multiple tries and lots of experimentation. I have written and re-written more than I have ever before. As an artist, that excites me because I know I’m out of my comfort zone in trying this new method. I’m excited for you all to hear what I’ve got so far, more demos from the album to follow =)

Feel free to follow me at:

facebook: facebook.com/ktheisle

Twitter: @K_the_isle

Youtube: Kyle Uy

Making an Album like Linkin Park The Pros at Work I saw a youtube video once of Mark Hoppus from Blink-182 and Mike Shinoda from Linkin Park writing a song in front of a live audience.

How Ed Sheeran Helped Me Write 28 Albums in 28 Months

Ed Sheeran Over the last 28 months, I’ve written enough material for 28 albums. Writing in this quantity stemmed from the words Ed Sheeran in his documentary Nine Days and Nights which I watched late in 2014. In the documentary, Ed discussed his early years playing open mics in London and LA. In those days, he was writing 2-3 new songs per week. For me, that meant to get to where Ed is, I have to…

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Songwriter’s Philippines

My first Songwriter’s Philippines Event was late in 2014, when the legendary Sev’s Café was still in full function. The group outlasted the venue and continue to live on today as some of the most prolific artists that I know of. As I scroll through my facebook feed, I can’t go a day without seeing a member of Songwriter’s Philippines excited to be sharing their art.

They simply love what they do.

Since that day in 2014, I’ve been inspired by the passion and talent of this group of songwriters. In that, I was honored to be on the line-up for last night’s Songwriter’s Phililppines Event at the Conspiracy Garden Café in Quezon City.

Conspiracy Garden

I started off the night with Dexter of Social Exile and The Okay Man on the bass guitar for my second and third song. Many thanks man! I really appreciate you coming all the way from Makati to join me for my set.

The line up included the original songs by John Depp, Herd PH, Bandang Panda, Tian, and Alex Corner and a member of the band Doppler Shift on the saxophone.

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Conspiracy Garden bloomed a fantastic mix of genres. From pop to rock to blues. Solo artists, full bands, and duos took the stage to carry the passion of their art. Conspiracy Garden provides and intimate encounter with the performers, the emotions are real and the music is loud. While beers were being opened, hearts and minds were too. Last night was a celebration of the love songwriters have for what they do and the willingness to share their art with an audience of their brethren.

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It was great to see some familiar faces and meet a host of new songwriters. To everyone who came out last night—I appreciate you all giving your all to us. As we continue our journeys as writers and performers, I hope to see you all again soon. This community has shown great talent, skill and passion. I’m very excited to continue to be a part of it and hear more.

Also, big thanks to Udz who hosted the event last night. It was great talking to you and getting to know you more last night. Congrats on your EP too, thank you for having me!

For Everyone Who Purchased the EP

Thank you so much for your generosity and kindness. I really can’t say that enough. It means the world to me that you have reached out. A million times, thank you, I pray there is something on the album that speaks to you.

Until next time Songwriter’s Philippines !

Worlds Collide at Songwriter’s Philippines–Conspiracy Garden: 4/17/17 Songwriter's Philippines My first Songwriter’s Philippines Event was late in 2014, when the legendary Sev’s Café was still in full function.

It’s Good Friday.

In my last few years here in the Philippines, I’ve found that most businesses are closed on this day—through till the finale of Easter. The exception: Hugot Café hosted its first open mic night of the summer and I was super stoked to be a part of it.

Big thanks to my little brother Keith Uy who went with me to the show. Congrats to him for making Diamond 5 this week in League of Legends.

Open Mic Night 4/14/17

Hugot Café’s corner stage always provides a feeling of intimacy for the performer to easily connect with the audience. Paul mentioned that he liked how close the performer was to the audience and that the venue is great. I encourage local artists to keep an eye out for the upcoming events for Hugot Café Las Piñas and join if you have the chance.The show started around 7:15. A young three-piece band called We Love Music took the stage to start the night off.

The acts that followed were myself, my friend Paul Cabading and some spoken word artists, including a representative from Titik Poetry—a well known arts organization in the South. To follow were more poets, music acts, and for the first time, I got to see a magician perform at one of these open mics.

Paul Cabading

I owe Paul big time for not inviting him sooner to the open mics that I attend in the South. The area is his home, and for a guy who can write songs, sing, free style rap, and beat box—he NEEDS to be heard. Tonight, I’m very thankful to Hugot Café for taking him in and lending him the stage. His originals are heartfelt, my personal favorite being his setlist opener “Aking Prinsesa” which he showed to me a few years earlier. It was awesome seeing him perform it on stage. I can’t wait to see more from him.

Find him on soundcloud here .

You

There’s so much blooming talent in the South. It’s great to see that the arts movement there is alive and well and continuing to grow as I always see new faces when I perform at venues near Las Piñas, most of which are younger artists. Even when I began performing a little more than a year ago, it still amazes me how much talent there is in this area–from great singer/songwriters and poets and now–a magician. It’s such a privilege to see and experience the growth of the scene.

To all artists: please don’t stop what you do!

THANK YOU FOR HAVING ME HUGOT CAFE

Thank you guys!

To the staff: thank you so much again for allowing me time on the stage and for the opportunity to perform the songs on my EP. It’s always really exciting to come back to this friendly venue and perform. A million times, thank you for inviting me to be a part of the arts scene in this area.

I hope you all have a Happy Easter.

I will see you all soon.

4/14/17 Open Mic at Hugot Cafe It’s Good Friday. In my last few years here in the Philippines, I’ve found that most businesses are closed on this day—through till the finale of Easter.

“Steal(ing) Like An Artist” -Austin Kleon

Hitting another dry spell of song ideas yesterday morning, the idea came to me that I could do something like what Dave Grohl did for the Foo Fighters’ eighth studio album Sonic Highways. On that album, Dave got the content for the lyrics from words and phrases from musicians he interviewed.

There were bound to be some great stories out there, even with just the people living on Taft, I grabbed my notebook, found random people living or working on Taft, and asked them questions. I almost felt like the guy from Humans of New York, but I was taking their words instead of their picture.

Questions

After asking questions like “What are you grateful for in our life?, “What’s something that makes you happy?”, and “What are you most excited about in your life right now?”—I wrote down the answers and went back to my room to write some songs. In the end, it was a fruitful experiment–two new songs.

You can watch the video of me making everyone uncomfortable here.

“Alive and Breathing”

This is the first song I wrote during the session. I approached a mother and her child who were standing outside of my building. I asked the mother what she was grateful for. She responded with “That I am alive and breathing”. I centered the song around this phrase and used another phrase that one of the guard’s of my building mentioned after being asked the same question: “I’m thankful for my ambition”, continuing to say that it is his ambition that allows him to work and put his children through school.

“Mission”

While I was talking to more people, a woman asked me “Why don’t you interview me”. And so I did. I asked her about one thing in life that she was happy about. She responded with “Mission”, as in a purpose in life because she was an optometrist and she felt that this was her life’s calling. I took the phrase and focused the theme of the song to be about someone making the decision to live a full life. This second song is my favorite of the two, lyrically it spoke to me and I was happy that a song like that came from this experiment in generating ideas.

I’ll be posting recordings of these songs soon =

Thanks for stopping by =)

Writing Songs about Strangers 4/13/17 "Steal(ing) Like An Artist" -Austin Kleon Hitting another dry spell of song ideas yesterday morning, the idea came to me that I could do something like what Dave Grohl did for the Foo Fighters' eighth studio album Sonic Highways.

Self Awareness 4/11/2017

While I am performing on my own as a singer/songwriter, the end goal is to end up with a band after I graduate and move. The time spent abroad is being spent focusing on developing the skills I need to be valuable to a band. I was able to uncover more of the role I want to play though with some experiences this week. Failing Harder, Or Just a Hard Fail? I spent the hour that I had booked in the…

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Songwriter’s Block

My experience with songwriter’s block is not necessarily the inability to get anything written, but rather a feeling of frustration for whatever it is that’s coming out because the idea, whether it be lyric, melody, or music, isn’t leading anywhere and so I scratch it.

Today is one of those days.

After several attempts at some lines I had written that were dead ends, I decided to head to the Andrew building to eat on the 6th floor and clear my head a little. I brought my yellow pad with me for after I ate.

Cleaning Out my Closet

In recent weeks, I haven’t given much time to getting my phone ideas onto paper, and so they’ve stacked up quite a bit. Today, I pulled out a few and tried to develop them a little to hopefully find something that I liked.

Thankfully in this process I found some more lyrics to add to these one liners and I also found a couple of catchy melodies to go along with them.

On my way back home, I sang the two that I liked the most to myself.

This is what it looks like when I sing ideas to myself in public

Writing “Early Morning Dreams” and “Can’t Go Wrong”

What I sang to myself ended up being the choruses to the two songs. The bulk of the time spent writing today was trying to see which key the songs would be best in and which chords to use and then adding the verses.

I gave myself 45 minutes to write the songs and luckily I was able to finish in time. I’m now at 4/10+ songs for the month of April.

“Songwriter’s Block” 4/10/2017 Songwriter’s Block My experience with songwriter’s block is not necessarily the inability to get anything written, but rather a feeling of frustration for whatever it is that’s coming out because the idea, whether it be lyric, melody, or music, isn’t leading anywhere and so I scratch it.

I’ve never been in a cozier bookstore-made-venue than that of Uno Morato.

Couches occupy the front area where the performers had their turn. Chairs and tables provided seats for the audience in the back but even if you weren’t in the front row like I was—you still felt like the magic of the performances was happening right in front of you.

Gethsemane by Logos

It was a night of artists taking the stage and giving their hearts to you on a silver platter with nothing held back. Spoken word poetry and songwriters with a ukulele, a cajón, a guitar, or a mallet for the glockenspiel in hand—the artists gave it their all.

Powered by some dynamic microphones and an Orange amplifier (damn, I gotta get me one of those) Gethsemane started soon after I signed in.

Spoken Word Artists

Some of last night’s spoken word line up included Marlo Cabrera, Abby Elbambo, Jeff Bago, and Jedd Ong

They tackled topics like tragedies that hit close to home, current political and cultural issues, struggles among friends, personal struggle with identity, nationalistic views, and faith with tones sadness, comedy, or pure heart.

I hope it doesn’t come off as mere flattery when I say that last night I got to see some of the most passionate spoken word artists I have ever seen since beginning to perform as a singer/songwriter.

Like I said, hearts were carved out and handed over to the audience—still beating, still bleeding. Each poem, honesty–pure and simple. I salute you poets for your craft—may you never stop.

Singer/Songwriters

It was great to see both Aned and Frankie again as Ellie and the Elephant (2/5 of the band Stories Told) who kicked off the night with “Check Yes Juliet” by We The Kings (I haven’t heard that song in FOREVER). Other acts included the upbeat and rhythmic vibe of the duo who represented Keilem, the catchy hooks brought by Meg D and her ukulele, and the man, the myth, the legend: Jegs Benedict who took the room by storm with his incredible voice and his songs and finally Aned Samson (solo) with a looper pedal, a glockenspiel and his guitar to end the night.

To my fellow songwriters, thank you for bringing your stories. It was so great meeting so many of you last night, I look forward to hearing more.

I want to thank Logos for giving me an opportunity to perform as well. It was said that they hope to make this gathering a monthly event—and I’m stoked for that. The arts movement in this city is definitely alive and breathing with young artists and I’m excited to be performing more up North.

…..

I also want to thank everyone who purchased a copy of the EP =) it means the world to me, I’m also living on a college budget, and the fact that you all were willing to spend some of yours on my little home project is truly a sign of the generosity in your hearts. I can’t thank you enough for your help.

I pray that there’s something on that CD that you enjoy.

To Logos, and to all those at Uno Morato last night—please continue your inspiring work. Thank you again for a wonderful evening of new friends and stories.

All Hearts out at “Gethsemane” at Uno Morato by Logos 4/8/2017 I’ve never been in a cozier bookstore-made-venue than that of Uno Morato. Couches occupy the front area where the performers had their turn.

Thank you to Sleepless Productions for hosting us at the Naked Turtle Sports Diner.

It has been a few weeks since I’ve been out gigging with my guitar and due to the vast amount of talent and creativity that I ran into last night at the Sleepless’ Typo Event: it was great to be reminded again of why I love doing what I do so much.

Venue: The Naked Turtle Sports Diner

The Naked Turtle Sports Diner provides a space for an intimate performance between the performer and the audience. There are tables around the squarish room and couches towards the back. The stage is a designated area near the front door; indicated last night by a couple of stools and mic stands and microphones.

I got there relatively early and was greeted by a great host and a friendly atmosphere of fellow performers.

The ‘Typo’ Event

More performers trickled in as the night went on and the show began around 7:30pm. Indie artist BEN was the first one up with some of as ‘Sad Songs’, a few of which will be released on his upcoming EP on Spotify (Congrats BEN).

BEN

I was second to go and then I was excited to see my cousin Katrina perform later on that night and it was nice to see her, her siblings, and my aunt along with her very supportive friends and sit with them as we listened to the other lined up artists.

I find one of the nice things about being one of the first to perform is being able to listen to the other performers without having any of your thoughts travel to your upcoming set. Last night after I played, I was able to just sit and listen to the other songwriters and be taken away by their music.

“You’ll Find I’m Full of Surprises” -Luke Skywalker:

Since starting to perform at Open Mics a year or so ago, I’ve been constantly blown away by the variety of talent that exists in Manila’s music and arts scene.

After a few dozen open mics, you start to run into some of the same people and think “alright, I’ve seen at least most of it”, but then soon, another event opens is created—you attend—and you find more and more creatives of all kinds who you weren’t aware of.

You think that Jazz might be the majority of the scene’s preferred style, but then you sign up for an open mic that consists of people who play alternative rock or emo music, other times rappers, comedians, and spoken word artists perform too–all at the same event.

While I’ve taken the last few weeks to record my EP—this idea of the wide expanse of creativity that exists here had slipped my mind as I was just listening to my own music day in and day out.

“If You’re Listening–Sing it Back” (Thank You!)

Last night, I was inspired by my fellow performers.

These are the kinds of people who, after you’re done listening to them, you want to go home and write a song, or discover some new music like theirs or collaborate with them. You just feel like even though you’ve covered some ground, you want to keep going and never want to stop writing, creating, and performing. At least that’s how I feel =)

First autograph I’ve ever signed =)

I want to thank Sleepless again for the opportunity again to perform and distribute my EP— a big thank you to anyone who purchased the EP last night—it means the world to me, and I also want to thank them for allowing me an opportunity to tune in the constantly inspiring group of musicians that are here in the Philippines.

I hope to see you all again soon.

Inspiration Kickstart at ‘Typo’ by Sleepless Productions 4/7/2017 Thank you to Sleepless Productions for hosting us at the Naked Turtle Sports Diner. It has been a few weeks since I’ve been out gigging with my guitar and due to the vast amount of talent and creativity that I ran into last night at the Sleepless’ Typo Event: it was great to be reminded again of why I love doing what I do so much.

Today the mixing and mastering of my new EP got finished and now, it is time to play some shows. This project’s purpose was primarily to help my girlfriend, the added benefit was that it was an opportunity to apply my skills as a songwriter, singer, musician, and producer.

This is what I look like when I mix EPs

Now I warn you before reading ahead, these are mindsets and not technical know-how as I’m still learning too but I wanted to share a little bit of the philosophy that I’ve picked up and applied with making this EP and in the last months of recording.

“Indie” Attitude

This means don’t be afraid to go and try to do things yourself and learn along the way. One of the best seminars I attended last year about music was the FILSCAP Caravan event with Raimun Marasigan and Rico Blanco. You can read about what I learned here.

One of the biggest takeaways I had from the duo was that: with laptops, cellphones and gear readily available to every musician: there is no excuse to not be making music.

This to me also means that there is no excuse to not be learning skills and honing them to make yourself valuable as a musician. The knowledge and information exists, it’s just a matter of getting to it and not letting the lack of knowledge stop you.

Raimund even talked about how he accepted a gig as a DJ when he had no idea how to–but he researched on youtube how to do it, which brings me to my next point.

Google Everything (Learn From Youtube/Online Sources)

Anything I’ve ever had a question about in regards to recording had some kind of tutorial on youtube or the answer was just a Google search away. There are tons of producers, who make videos about how they go about their craft and who want to share their knowledge. Take advantage of this.

Whatever you want to get into, chances are there’s someone on youtube or someone with a blog somewhere who can answer your questions either directly or through their content. Find those people and take what you need. We live today in an incredible age, don’t let not knowing everything stop you—especially in the field of music making where there are literally millions of people willing to share information.

The Gear You Use Doesn’t Matter

Singer/songwriter and producer Graham Cochrane said it, Tom Morello of the band Rage Against the Machine said it, Casey Neistat, one of the biggest vloggers on youtube, said it too.

When we think of music recording and production, we think of fancy music studios with huge sound consoles, recording booths, fancy pants microphones and computers. Before my youtube education, I thought these things were necessary to make a record.

The aforementioned titans in their fields all accounted that your gear does not matter. They all attest to not having the prettiest equipment but they are known in their fields to achieving at a high level.

If better gear was all you needed, anyone who is rich could be a great producer, photographer, vlogger, musician etc.

To make this EP, I used a laptop with Garageband and an Audio Technica USB Condenser Microphone. That’s it. I recorded the songs in my bedroom with no special acoustic treatment. What I want you to know is that if I can do it–you can do it too. Even if you don’t have the equipment I have.

The additional materials are just a boom microphone stand and a pop filter and the instruments which I either own or I borrowed. Even if you don’t have a Mac, you can download free recording software online like Audacity. If you lack a microphone, smartphone mics can work and so can stock laptop mics, it’s just a matter of knowing where to position them.

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Thank you for staying with me all throughout the making of the EP. I’m very excited to be playing it at the upcoming shows I have lined up. I really appreciate everyone’s love and support. See you guys out there =)

Mindsets in Making The “My Favorite Flower” EP Today the mixing and mastering of my new EP got finished and now, it is time to play some shows.

The band came in today to work on our song “Ethereal Moon”. Originally I thought it would be a live recording of the song like I have been doing with my upcoming EP, but it turns out the band wanted to do a full on recording by overdubbing.

As soon as this was decided, I began to think about mic placement in my room, which instrument (since we had no drum set) should start first, where the person tracking should sit and how all of us could hear what was being recorded.

It dawned on me that I had begun to think like a producer–a role in which I thought would just be an extra set of skills in supplement to being a singer/songwriter and a drummer.

With that though, the experience I had today of just being the guy at the controls and not playing gave me a few insights.

You Can Learn A Lot By Doing It Yourself

In the months of having this laptop (thank you Mom and Dad) and just using this software to record myself and trying to mix what’s recorded, you pick up skills. How to mute and control tracks, how to edit if you need to, how to add in a click track, how to add reverb. By just spending time with the software you’ll figure out how to use it and this is a great place to start.

For the process today, the only things I needed to know were how to skip around in the track, mute tracks, create new tracks, record, add a click track and how to split a track.

I also used some very basic microphone positioning knowledge, that both came from experience with my microphone and youtube.

Most of what I’ve learned about mixing and recording has either come from my friend Tyler McClellan or from videos from people like Graham Cochrane of the recordingrevolution. If you want to get started with your own home recording, I’ve learned a lot from his channel.

Let Them Play

When Weezer was describing their experience with Ric Ocasek (the producer for their first album) they mentioned that Ric, although from the legendary band The Cars, was more of just a facilitator and someone who guided them rather than taking control of the sound. He made sure that the band liked the music and when they needed it, he offered his ideas and opinions.

As I was sitting in the chair and Dani and Rodney were messing with the amplifier, I didn’t want to interfere with the ideas they were having.

For one thing, I don’t play the guitar for the band and I should be more concerned about the drum sound–and secondly, these takes were their parts of the song. I wanted them to like what they were hearing and as they described the sound, I tried to move the mic or adjust whatever else I could to help them get there.

Why Do We Fall Bruce?

When my band Red Tape went in studio with Bay Area legend Seth Chapla, I listened to my drum tracks and questioned my existence when I heard that all of my takes (which were being used as final) had issues with keeping the tempo steady. A big “you had ONE JOB” sign flashed through my mind.

When working on our EP together, Tyler would have to remind me constantly were the notes I was trying to sing were–and these were songs that I wrote.

With these in mind, I wanted to also help my bandmates through what can be a frustrating process. The truth is, not playing in time, not singing in key, messing up on a part that you wrote–these are all things that happen to every musician in recording. I wanted to assure my bandmates that when they messed up or when they wanted to try again that it was alright and we could try as many times as they wanted to.

……………….

And so, we ended the day with a scratch guitar track that the rest of the band could follow in the later recording sessions as well as two drafts of the lead guitar part that we will continue to tinker with.

I’m excited to continue this process and also get into it when I go to record the drums for it.

I want to thank my bandmates for trusting me with the recording of our song. To Dani and Rodney:

we’re off to a great start =)

What I Learned Being The Producer For The Day 4/4/17 The band came in today to work on our song “Ethereal Moon”. Originally I thought it would be a live recording of the song like I have been doing with my upcoming EP, but it turns out the band wanted to do a full on recording by overdubbing.

Poppin' Bottles....of Soda (I Promise)

Poppin’ Bottles….of Soda (I Promise)

The title of this blog is no joke. After dinner, Keith and I made an escapade to our neighborhood 7-11 (it’s built into our building) and to our surprise, we were given three bottles of soda for the price of two. Taken last Sunday… I wanted to reward myself for two reasons: the first is that today marks the end of all assignments to be submitted for this school term and the second is that as the…

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I was pulling my hair out to figure out what to do for this one.

‘Flowers’

This is the song ‘Flowers’ that I plan to put on the EP. I love this song, and the great debate that occurred in my mind was if I should re-record the song to simplify it. The song consists of two guitar parts and two or three vocals tracks.

The spirit of the album is in simplifying the songs. With this track though, I feel there is a need for some of those extra parts to exist. The sections in the song are bigger sounding and to fill the space in the bridge and to bring home the choruses, those back up vocals and the extra guitar are necessary.

The final decision was to just re-do the primary vocal track. Before, I recorded the song one section at a time. This time around, I did one much more connected vocal track and kept the original too to double up on the sound. You can listen to the original recording of my song ‘Flowers’ here

Tonight ends the recording of the vocals.

Tomorrow and the coming days are about some violin, mixing, mastering, and burning CD’s. I hope you guys have a had a great start to your weekend =)

In other news, I’m on the bill for the Sleepless Productions event “Typo” happening on April 7th. Hope to see you guys there and shout out to my cousin Katrina Escolar and my friend MJ Legaspi! Really excited to be performing on the same stage =)

4/1/2017 “These Flowers Are For You” I was pulling my hair out to figure out what to do for this one. This is the song 'Flowers' that I plan to put on the EP.

(3) K(31)Th Uy (2017)

Happy Birthday Keith. Thank you for always volunteering to wash the dishes, cook french toast, make a pot of coffee, or wanting to be there to make a late night run with me for fast food and a/or a good conversation. I hope this country has ben growing on you and you feel more at home here now. Happy 19th birthday buddy, thanks for everything. I wish you success as you continue to dominate in…

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I like to give myself deadlines.

Gotta change that calendar I had…

By the Parkinson’s Law: work will expand to fit the time allotted for its completion.

In my songwriting method of giving myself 90 minutes to write as many songs as I can in deep focus, I’ve found a safety in that I can reap great rewards within this law. If I give myself a timeframe, I’ll do what it takes to finish what I must in the given time. This goes for school work, and other non-musical related activity.

As I planned the making of this EP, I wanted to be finished with all of the recording and the mixing by this weekend and then I could begin burning CDs and going to play shows. With that at the back of my mind though, the recent recording that I have been doing has been difficult. I find myself less willing to try another take, frustrated with how the mix sounds, and relentless in spotting only what I don’t like in a given take.

I feel like Hailey Williams #paramore #allweknowisfalling who once declared, “I can feel the pressure…” because I want to do a really good job with this EP. This is something I want to do for my girlfriend as a service to her and as a service to those who support me. While these things in themselves are not bad, this internal pressure has been creeping up on me and it has been turning into stress.

I spoke about how I was feeling with Hanna last night. She reminded me that she liked the songs when I originally showed them to her and that she would rather me enjoy the process of making the EP even if it means extending the deadlines I have set for myself.

“I want you to have fun.” She told me.

My older brother Kris once told me “You can’t enjoy performing if you’re under intense pressure.” Although the context was of Taekwondo–Hanna’s advice and this advice from Kris that I got back in 2013 brought back to my attention that the only way you can do good work is by doing work that you love. Some people can still get great work done under the conditions of high pressure, for me though–especially when trying to be creative, I find it difficult to enjoy the experience.

It’s hard to listen to a take and ask myself “Is this good enough?”, “Is anyone going to like this?”.

I am reminded that the important thing is that I like what I’m hearing and I’m enjoying what I’m doing.

To clear my head, tonight I am declaring the Emperor’s New Day of EP Recording. I’m going to do my best not to think about the remaining work that has to be done and get my mind off the whole project so I can better prepare for the coming days with fresh eyes and fresh ears.

Thank you all for staying with me =) Though the EP will be out a few more days into April than I had originally hoped, I really appreciate you guys supporting my content and joining me on my journey.

Thanks for stopping by.

Hope you’re all having a great week.

Poise and Rationality: The Emperor’s New Night of EP Recording 3/30/17 I like to give myself deadlines. By the Parkinson's Law: work will expand to fit the time allotted for its completion.

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