Listen And You Become

Asian Culture, the rich get richer. The poor Gets more poor.

I read a book that i should have read years ago.

Rich Dad, poor dad. by Robert Kiyosaki

Makes me realized some very critical point in my life.

Last 3 years ago.......

I'm earning more than i should have but i don't feel rich.

I can save more than 60% of my income even i spend them overly. I do the usual.

I work a day job and have a second. Put effort in the second and get a raise on the first.

I sacrifice My time. I sleep less. My family time was cut. I don't have time to do what i enjoy doing which is playing the guitar and recording my music.

Ok, i can be consider rich.

BUT................ I dont feel rich.

I felt the same, i still drive the same car. I still live the same life.

Later on, i get stressed out. I hated my life. I hate to work all the time.

WHERE IS MY TIME?

I spend money on beers and hanging out in clubs. I than spend money like running water out the tap.

After a few years. I realize 1 time. I don't feel rich because i don't consider myself rich.

That's all. Even i have money, i still am a poor guy. That's what i am inside. My mindset.

Poor Guy's mind.

So...?

To be rich , you first need to think rich. That's all.

Think......

Then the action.

Think......

Only can you feel rich when you get there.

Think......

Why i dont have that mindset?

I'm a chinese guy from a working class family. My parents. I love them very much but still they have poor money education. They struggle with money all their life.

They are poor in mind. I'm from that family, what else that i'm programmed to think?

If i listen to them, i'll end up like them.

To be great you listen to the great.

To be a Great guitarist playing the Lydian scale, you listen to Steve Vai.

It's Simple.

Everything is simple now.

I just need to listen to rich people.

And most importantly. I use my brain.

I think, i make differences, i now dont just follow.

I make decisions. Everyday. Either to be rich or poor with every Ringgit i have.

I dont wanna do the " Study hard and get a job"

I wanna " study smart and get money working for you"

Traditional Way don't applied in this time. The ways are already more than 200 years old.

2011.

Internet is here, everything change. So as the way people should live their life.

The way they think about money.

Money = currency.

Currency = you don't own all the ringgit you have.

It's always own by someone to someone

The Balance > Of Life > In this Time

Balance......

simple 7 alphabet word that means everysides are of equal value.

It's easy to understand yet so hard to do.

I'm a musician trap in a corporate rat race life. Why i was in the company in the first place?

MONEY

Another trap from the world. Money keeps you IN the rat race.

Money let you think of security.

Everyone seeks security, the world trap people by letting them seek security.

Weak point.

Because balance is hard to obtain and being kept, people lessen the sides of balance.

Basic life balance pattern.

Work Vs Life

8 hours vs 16 hours(9 hours assumed that sleeping cost you 7 hours)

High life balance pattern.

Morning work vs Second job vs family life vs social life vs own life

8 hours vs 3 hours vs 3 hours vs 2 hours vs 1 hour vs 7hours(sleep)

The more you break it, the complex it's going to be.

Notice that after the breaking, all effort are mainly focus on making money.

Later social life can be cut and put to second job, and later own life's 1 hour. Then we will use the 7 hours of sleep.

Who is selfish one in this picture?

WOrk

Work time never gets cut.

Why?

Why everyone is afraid of cutting work's time.

That is like the main object's that slowing you down, making you can't do any other things.

Because of Security?

Cutting Work time is A big Challenge.

I like BIG challenges.

Do you?

I'm in a real world.

I hate gray answers.

I hate Gray areas.

I hate Phonies

FATE > Your own Destiny?

DO you believe in Fate? Not faith. FATE.

Means everything is written, your life IS Written.

Everything you do is pre-done. You just walk the life that is designed for you.

I thought about this when i was 16, come to a point i ask myself. So what i really want to do with my life, i can't do it if it's not written in my FATE? No wonder lots of teenager commit suicide after asking themselves this question. For me that time, i once thought of suicide but i got another side of me that seems to have another point of view. That side of me is furious, I'm 120% angry at this so called FATE. Fated to be, or what ever stuffs they say.

Lucky i got a book from a temple, Liao Fan's 4 lessons to change and decide your own destiny.

I started reading it and glad that there are people that concern about this FATE thing and try to analyse it and come up with solutions.

The whole idea behind the book is that everyone determine his or hers fate/destiny. It seems that human normally blame everything that they can't achieve because of first try or lack of effort given to FATE. Human created this FATE to answer all that they don't understand or lazy to know. It's easy and comfortable to blame it on fate and blind ourselves.

After reading i made a lot of thinking.

Ok, if FATE is something/rule. Meaning it can always be break. So i set my life differently that day, i do and think only what i think i true and make senses to my brain. I don't go for life counting, meaning reading your future or stuffs that is similar. I make my own life, i walk it i plan it like a man from the future.

FATE , i look at the sky and tell him in my thoughts. " What you design i will break to what i want personally" "Try Me!"

Moods in Modes

I have trouble learning what they called modes on the guitar, i know they are essential in my playing simply because i don't want to sound like the others cause i ran out of cool things that others can't do. So i came across the word modes in guitar playing. I know i was to apply while playing through changes in a Jazz concept and i learn and memorized the names and fingering and octaves on the fretboard but i failed to understand them. I somply don't know what to you with them.

I tried so many ways learning them, with Frank Gambale's Modes no more Mystery . It became worst. After 2 years of study i decided to drop them modes and would just play solo's with the major and minor scales that i knew. Frankly , i felt bad. Every time when someone ask me about modes i felt my heart crying that i failed to understand them. Well, as always my desire kept me facing my failures. I decided to learn again, i say to myself " I will use up all the ways that end up won't work and then i'll find out the ways that will behind" inspired by Thomas Edison's Quote.

I soon discovered that the modes are in the major scales , they share all the same notes. SO what the heck that made them different? This time i'm investigating rather than learning what is given. Modes are about moods. Each modes gives you a different emotion when played. Ah ha...

Now i'm beginning to see the purpose of modes.

The overall mode of one gives you a different story. Lydian is mysterious , Ionian is happy and bright, Dorian is lazy and after that i completely understand the whole concept of modes in a snap.

Playing music is about expressing oneself, i failed to be sensitive on my musical side yet i uses my way of learning in academics to understand it. Music is natural, what you feel is music.

Cheers....!

Widen my Guitar Persona

I was holding a 100plus can walking and taking sips. My friend, was too walking but he had a bag with a bass drum pedal in it and a small bass drum made out from milk can. WE were headed to his house, it's a small room in the flats. Old flats. All this while i was staying in land houses, so i got the experiences of how people behave when they share a rooftop. The stairs was ultimately dirty and the smells or urine everywhere. I was wondering, how can anyone stand leaving here? Cost of life increased, to stay in a land house the rent is at least RM400/month that time. It was 1999.

The flat look some-kinda like this in the photo but not this one. walk climbed up to the 4th floor. He opened one of the doors and enters the house, i followed. I followed him home because he said his father wants to meet us, he told his father that we started playing music and his father happens to be a great drummer for some police band. He was a driver to some lawyer then. He was interested to meet us to offer some advise. At that time i don't think i need advise, cause i'm covering Metallica's tunes and i'm already learning to solo HEAVY METAL style, how cool was that? Ego runs through me every minute.

His father, long face with curly hair. I shake his hand and introduce myself.

Without hesitation, he ask me "How do you play over a min7 chord?" . I was first stunned because no one have ever questioned me any music related question all this time except for grade 4 music lessons in school where they would ask about crochets and semi quavers. Secondly, I don't have an idea , even a hint or clue what a min7 is. Pawned to my root i kinda mumble a bit. to save my cool cause i was wearing an Iron Maiden T and black nails. After the mumble moment he knew i know nothing about his question. He told me, by playing only power chords and looking cool you only represent a guitar player from "Kampung". The word Kampung is from a Malay word, it means rural or redneck. Meaning to be, you are not going to go anywhere with that knowledge. "Frog underneath a Coconut shell"

He then got up and went to his room, i was still feeling very bad. Because for all this time, music and the guitar have been my life achievement, now everything i did and put effort on are just worth 10 cents?

Later he came out and showed me this book.

But at that time, it was a photocopied version.

JAZZ GUITAR.

I never thought of Jazz to be a genre i would step into, it's old mans music. An excuse i made up because i really don't understand and don't take time to understand it.

Do you think only Open chords and power chords you know is enough? ok then tell me what constructed the major chord/ minor chord / what is a dominant 9th? Everything strike me as a lightning. I don't know. I really don't know. It seems that the world is so big. IT"S HUGE.

There are so many stuff than Metallica. He then told me, "Son, i proud of what you showed here to me, you didn't convinced me anything that you know. Heck you don't even make a sound. You just sit there with your brain full of question" Normally a teenager would fight back about Jazz being boring and I don't need to listen to you, I own my music." "You sit there showing me that your now realized that what you know now is enough, there's more, And i'm here to teach you how. I might not be a guitarist but i can show you how to be a musician. With your humbleness i know you will be a great one"

For some reason, i smile back at him. I now know music is a journey, an aventure in my life.

As long as i'm living, i'm learning music everyday if i kept my secret weapon on. My humbleness in knowledge. I was never a showoff.

TIME - Enough is 24hours/day?

Time flies? So many things to do, so little time? 24 hours a day not enough?

I always heard about time, not enough time. Always so much thing to do, to me i realize that we are in complete control of time. Time doesn't wait but we can plan ahead right? Invest a little time to plan then we can utilize time to it's fullest. The problems always start within ourself and as nature do we blame them problems on others. There are always excuses about anything that we do wrong. It's time to take all the blame, embrace all of it and improve ourself. Time is always there to teach us, teach us to appreciate , teach us to be consistent and effective and help us improve and realize that life is too short to go on lying ourself and wasting it.

Time is mind sucking, the more you worry about time you waste time worrying. We only have afew years to live , why not using it to it's fullest? doing only what matters to us most, cherish our love ones, and find ourself without regrets during our deathbed. Happy to leave this world with our legacy.

80% of results comes from 20% of your actions, i always respected time. I honor them, i will go early for classes or gathering even i know if the others will be late, i don't do it to impress the others, i do it because i respect time. In the end it's only you and time. Others don't matters anymore.

With no particular reason i wanted to start back on my own blog posting, really, no particular reasons. I just wanted to blog. As i now spend more time blogging my companies' blog, now i wanted to have another side of where i can post just about anything, that's what the blog's intended to be right? okok.

Why catcher in the Rye cover as my image on this returning post? Just come to think about it that the whole corporate thing is a phony. "Phony" that's what Holden said, being not mature. They said of him. Everything he don't understand or dislike, he phony they. Not mature thinking? maybe. But i guess he is ok. Adults are mostly phonies to me, since i'm in a whole full of adults now. I started of respected them, you know how they brain wash you when you're little. I always thought of them to be very capable in their own fields. But it's a fantasy.

Yes i agree. Phonies. God Damn Phonies. Maybe not all of them but a 80% full of crap phonies that pretend to know something but actually knowing crap about it.

OMG, i can't help to think about god damn phoners. They infest all the positions in the corporate ladder and make the real ones work their ass off.

If i have a chance, just 1 bloody chance. I will burn all of them.

BURN.