Silver Bells

Silver Bells was composed by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans. It was first sung by William Frawley.
I tried to do some improvisation after the 2nd chorus.

Silver Bells

My transcription can be downloaded from here.

Silent Night

 Playing this popular Christmas carol in 3 different ways:-

Fingerstyle:

Silent Night (Fingerstyle)

You can download my fingerstyle arrangement here.

Chord melody:

Silent Night (Chord Melody)

You can download my chord melody arrangement here.

Silent Night (diatonic harmonica)

Silent Night (diatonic harmonica)

Merry Christmas.

Hallelujah (Leonard Cohen)

Practising my single hole notes on the diatonic harmonica using the tune of Hallelujah.

Tried some improvisation in the 3rd chorus.

Backing track: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFrX4AVKq_M

Hallelujah

 

Beautiful Lady

 An original composition: Beautiful Lady

Beautiful Lady

Che Zhan (车站) - Train Station

The original in Fujian (a chinese dialect) is here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mdSbC9d_9Y

I attempted the Mandarin version, with fingerstyle guitar and harmonica.

My arrangement of the fingerstyle version can be downloaded here.

I used this song to practise my 3-draw double bend on the diatonic harp.  Still need practices.

Che Zhan

Something New

 My first attempt to compose something jazzy.  Hope you like it.

Something New

Good Friend Always Be

 An original composition:  Good Friend Always Be

Good Friend Always Be

It's Your Wedding Tonight

 An original composition inspired by my niece's wedding.

It's Your Wedding Tonight

Yong Xin Liang Ku (用心良苦）

Singing for fun : Yong Xin Liang Ku (by Phil Chang)

Yong Xin Liang Ku

Right Here Waiting (by Richard Marx)

 My attempt singing Right Here Waiting, a very popular love ballad.

Right Here Waiting

Amazing Grace

Found a very nice backing track on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCzoupaGBOE

Also attempted to improvise using the diatonic harmonica (which I am learning).  To me, the harp is easy to learn but really difficult to master.

Amazing Grace

Forever Love

My attempt at Forever Love.

Forever Love (GaryBarlow)

Your Cheating Heart (Hank Williams)

 Learning to play the harp.  The fingerstyle guitar part follows the harp.

Your Cheating Heart

You can download my guitar transcription of the song here.

MX Linux

 I had a Toshiba Satellite L500 laptop which I used for many years (cannot even remember how many) and it has Windows 7 installed when I bought it.  However I have installed Ubuntu as I am really a fan of Linux.

Recently the left Shift Key of the keyboard is not working and also the computer seems to be slowing down.  My initial idea was to use the computer as a print server for the home when my current print server (Aus Extenza) gives way (or give up) - recently the bios started emitting beeps indicating memory issues.

However I have decided to be more adventurous and added addition 4GB RAM (from 2 GB) to the Satellite.  I also got rid of the Windows installation (as I hardly use Windows nowadays) and installed MX Linux (64 bit) on the system.  I fell in love with the distro immediately.

It is very responsive and it feels more stable as it is based on the stable release of Debian.  I also like the Xfce desktop, synaptic installer and many more.  I very happy to be able to salvage the computer and can now use it to develop applications (more about this hobby in a later post).

Everything works out-of-the-box except for the Chinese input.  I installed ibus, libpinyin and other Chinese fonts (fonts-arphic-bkai00mp, fonts-arphic-gbsn00lp, fonts-arphic-gkai00mp, xfonts-intl-chinese, xfonts-intl-chinese-big) but still could not get to input Chinese characters.  

As this is Linux, I know the solution is somewhere "out there".  You see, Linux trains the users to be self-dependent and look for solutions themselves.  After some searching on the Internet, I finally installed ibus-gtk and ibus-gtk3 and presto, it works (see this post and this post ).  

As I am using Xfce, I do not have to make any entries in the .bashrc file.

The other thing that bugged me was that the number pad was not turn on (during log in or after).  Though I consider this a slight discomfort, I would prefer it to be turned on by default.  Well, I managed to turn it on by following this.  (Almost - I just did the Xfce part).

I do encourage you to give MX Linux a go (I think Ubuntu 20.04 is not stable).

Now I am waiting for the replacement keyboard to arrive and it is such a joy to be able to "give life" to my "aged" computer.

Something

My transcription of Something (by Beatles).

I also made the drum track.

Something

You can download the transcription from here.

Xiao Ren Wu De Xin Sheng （小人物的心声）

 My fingerstyle arrangement of Xiao Ren Wu De Xin Sheng （小人物的心声), a popular folk song of Singapore.

You can download the transcription here.

Y.M.C.A.

 My arrangement of Y.M.C.A.

Y.M.C.A.

You can download the transcription here.

Improvisation 2

 Improvising to a Latin backing track from Youtube.

Let Love Be Real

This hymn is slightly different from my earlier video.

Let Love Be Real

I do apologize for some background noise (it is the fan).  It is really hot in SG.

You can download my transcription here.

Fly Me To The Moon

My chord melody arrangement of the Jazz standard Fly Me To The Moon.

Fly Me To The Moon

You can download my transcription here.

Polling Blues

Polling time in Singapore and I got the Polling Blues.

Polling Blues

Wo Wen Tian （我 问 天）

Theme song of a Taiwanese drama - Ai (爱).

Wo Wen Tian

You can download my transcription here.

Autumn Leaves

My arrangement of the jazz standard.  Hope you like it.

Autumn Leaves

My transcription is available here.

Georgia On My Mind

My chord melody arrangement of Georgia On My Mind.

Georgia On My Mind

Download my transcription here.

Jamming with my children at home.

Jamming while stuck at home due to Covid 19.

Home

Hai Kuo Tian Kong (海闊天空)

Improvising

Just having fun and improvising over a backing track from Youtube.

Sway

My arrangement of Sway (or Quien Sera).  Again, I did not play exactly as transcribed.

Sway

You can download the transcription at: sway.pdf

我来弹你来唱 (I comp, you sing)

Someone introduced this song to me while I was busking.

You can download my transcription here.

我来弹你来唱 (I comp, you sing)

Imagine No Virus

Just for fun.....

Imagine No Virus

Lunar New Year Songs

Two popular Lunar New Year Songs.

财神到 (Arrival of the god of Wealth)

You can download my transcription here.

拜年 (New Year Visits & Greetings)

You can download my transcription here.

大 地 回 春 Da Di Hui Chun

Wishing everyone a happy and blessed Lunar New Year.

This is one of the song commonly heard during the LNY season.  I have previously posted this song before but I think this is more "accurate".

You can download my transcription here.

大 地 回 春  Da Di Hui Chun

Guitar God

A sketch of Eric Clapton - considered to be a guitar god.