Archive for April 22, 2008

My Compositions: Angel

Angel

Click on song title to listen. Song Duration: 2:45

About the song:
As the title suggests, this song depicts an angel coming down to earth. In the song, we see the angel’s sadness at the sinful things humans do, human’s realisation and the angel finally returning back to heaven.

Music notes:
The starting of the song introduces the angel using high notes. The 7th note B, is heard almost immediately on the 2nd note. The song starts out soft, slow and peacefully to depict the angel in the sky slowly coming down to earth. To emphasize the slow floating movement, triplets are used to lengthen the notes. In the 8th bar, the minor key is brought in to depict sin and the angel’s sadness at human’s downfall. However, in the next few bars, it alternates between the major and minor to show that amidst chaos and sin, there is still hope. In the 20th bar, it’s a start of a new chapter when we see the angel’s bringing God’s message to human, and human’s realisation of their sins in the 24th bar. The pick up to the 28th bar shows human’s repentance. The diminished and minor key is used to show that even after repentance, humans still continue to make mistakes. The departure of the angel starts in the 35th bar, and in the 37th bar, running notes are used to show the angel’s flight back to heaven. The song end, again, with the 7th note B to add the feel of hope and sadness rolled into one. In the whole song, the use of the pedal is very prominent and important to create the floating and heavenly feel using the echoes of different notes and chords.

Composer’s note:
In this song, we see the world through an angel’s eyes. Therefore it is peaceful throughout and although sin is depicted, there is no violent display using loud or dissonant chords. Although punishmnent may be expected when sin is mentioned, it is not depicted in this song, since this song depicts an angel which does not have God’s authority to punish. Unlike some songs, no part of this song is repeated, to show that humans can only live one life, and neither is there repetition of any part of a man’s life.

Angel, composed on 10th May 2007
Copyright © Rachel Kang S.Y. All rights reserved.

Note: If you listen to the song via snapshot, it plays in midi in fast forward (I’m not sure why) but the original song is on the piano and much slower. If you click the link, the connection is unstable sometimes and you may not be able to load the whole song in your browser so just right click and download it.

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Losing Myself to Time

I realise I’m missing so much from not studying anymore. I’m missing on being able to catch up with friends that might have studied in the same school as me and I know this is one part of me which I will never be able to experience. All of them are graduating soon and where does that leave me hanging?

It’s not too bad if you have a lot of people you still keep in touch with. As much as I’d like to believe it, I don’t think I was ever much of a people-person. Maybe it’s just the way I carry myself. Too much pride, some would say. Some people just have it all made for them. They have that natural charisma that draws people to them. Unfortunately, I’m not one of those people. Sure, I can speak well. I articulate well. But I guess that leaves you nowhere if no one bothers about what you’re saying. Hypocrite, they whisper.

I’m not lamenting. I’m happy with the people I keep in contact with. But it’s just too sad looking at friends gathering but you’re not involved. I know it’s not because they didn’t want to invite me (that would have been much worse if I let myself think that), but because we’ve simply just lost touch. And it’s heart wrenching looking at photos of friends that once studied with you, even those you’ve once hated in your childish years. So much feelings just by looking at the screen and staring at those pictures. You want it so much, just to reach out and be able to touch their faces, and tell them say, I’ve really liked you once. To tell them, I’ve disliked you before, but now I want to know you once again.

I miss my friends. I really do. And I hope somewhere and someplace, someone out there is thinking of me. Thinking how good it would be to talk to me again. Maybe it’s because all these times I’ve not experienced someone I would really like to keep with me forever. I’ve once had this feeling, and I want to keep it with me. But it’s slipping through my fingers. I don’t know why it’s becoming harder communicating with people around me. I just want to see someone, hug them and tell them how much I’ve missed them. How much emotions have poured through me, into me and out of me as I sit here typing these out.

Maybe it’s because I’m becoming less adept in using words to communicate. Maybe I’ve never been able to talk about my feelings, or show them. Maybe it’s because I’m too proud to show them. But nothing can materialise the phrase ‘actions speak louder than words’, or in my case, ‘a picture speaks louder than words’, more than looking at them having fun. The joy on their faces. Their lives documented in pictures and videos, but I’m on the other end of a lifeless screen. Nothing more than heat coming out from the desktop. No warmth, no friendliness, no love. Nothing.

And it’s on all these days that I feel worthless. Feel that I’m a total failure. Regret my actions in the past. Why didn’t I do this, or why didn’t I do that. Regret and remorse is multiplied ten, hundred, a thousand fold in these times. The emptiness of nothing eats at you. It devours you till you can’t see yourself anymore.

Looking at those photos may show I’m not someone worth keeping in touch with. It’s not a fact, and I know it, but it proves that human relationships are as fragile as it seems. Maybe even more. I’ve taken granted of all the times I could have made my life a little better, for then, the present or the future. I too, have lost touch with people I want to hold dear to, but sometimes one wonders where the fine line is between keeping in touch and being a bother. I try to tread carefully, too carefully in fact, that maybe I allow others to forget me.

I think it’s because I don’t have enough love in my heart to give. That’s why others don’t find enough love to give to me. Life is very fair, and that is how I want to see it. If I give enough care and concern to someone else without thinking too much about how they would view me, maybe one day I might reap something. I’ve deluded myself all this time in thinking love doesn’t need any kind of reciprocation. You give and expect nothing back. Sure, when I give I don’t expect anything. But when you see others basking in love, you want to be on the receiving end. You want it so much words cannot even begin to describe it.

Friends. You think they are something that comes into your life. You take them for granted. You love them and expect them to stay with you forever. One never expects them to leave. To completely erase you, or vice-versa, from their lives. Not by their will, but by time. One never truly understands the importance of having friendship. It’s too deep a knowledge to quantify or study. I know and I want to believe I have a place in their hearts. As big a place as they can give me. I feel like I’m slowly being squished out of everyone’s life. They are slowly forgetting me, and it’s beginning to look like the only evidence of me ever crossing their paths is my email on their MSN contact list. That thought in itself is totally heart wrenching. Everybody tells you they care, but sometimes one cannot help but doubt the extent of truth in such a superficial statement.

As reality sets in, I can’t see where my place on this earth is. But it’s right here, at the place where I am.

Where I’m standing, I feel like I’m slowly losing myself to time.

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