crystal sent me the link to this youtube vid that really inspired me. its on Victor Wooten - one of the best bassist on the face of this earth. His skills are awesome and he's a really young chap compared to all the other legendary bassist that are still alive and kicking. or plucking in this case. i remember seeing this vid of him doing the hymn Amazing Grace a year back and it was stunning. i never knew you could play a bass like that. the rhythm, the harmonics and even at times the speed was...WOAH! They did this interview with him and he mentioned that from young he actually studied songs. studied them the way we would with geography or biology. he'd pick a song which he'd find challenging and really go in depth to study the song itself. how and why each and every note is played. and trust me, that can be really tough cos there're like a hundred ways to play the same note on a bass. and i bet if i really got down to do the permutation, the figured would be higher. anyway, the vids made me feel really lousy about my skills but on the other hand, it made me really wanna improve. the fact that most of the renown bassist are self-taught makes me even wanna try harder. a mentor would help a lot though. oh and i managed to chance upon this vid of Stanley Clarke, Marcus Miller and Victor Wooten jamming together on the bass. three bassists and one drummer. powerful stuff. in fact stanley actually made victor look human.

and so for the next two hours following that, i found myself reading into chord charts, arpeggios and scales. you know, with a lil hard work, this may actually pay off. i need new strings.

now that i'm done with what good musicians did to me today, i can move on to good authors. was reading this jeffery deaver book on the bus home. i got so hooked that after i alighted, i was still trying to read on. so here i was holding a book really close to my face, straining to read the text cos it was really dark, while walking. but then i got really frustrated cos it was really hard to read anything without illumination. so i walked right back to the bus stop, sat my tight arse down on the bench and started reading till i finished the story. that's what a powerful author can do to people. wicked.

i wanna be so much more.