Snapped by idiom.

It takes 2 to tango.

Cita-Cita Chila

Cute right?
Maybe you've seen her in TV ad, but lately she becomes the topic again because @poconggg quotes her  words into his book, PJP.
Anyway, she is my niece, Sasya.
Well, kinda distant niece actually, her father and I have the same grand-grandparent.
Next time I meet her, I'm gonna convince her to heal everyone not only her own friends when she becomes a doctor. :))


P.S : Bella (-__-'!!)

Subhanallah

Please kindly watch and listen righteously.

You'll find and you'll realize that how tiny we are.
So, please. Let us remind each others to keep humble always. :)
We're just little tiny creatures.
Subhanallah.

Aditya - Be Mine

I play this song a lot with my guitar recently.
I've known this song couple years ago.
But, I never know what he looks like. So, I browse and search it on youtube.
Frankly, Aditya in my head for this couple years is just like Christian Sugiono or Sandhy Sabtu-Minggu.
Unfortunately-oh-unfortunately ~
Anyway, you got wonderful voice man. :D

Manual Book

Next October, if God has the will. I'm gonna turn 22. Yet, I feel like I haven't live this life to the fullest, nor touch the half bar meter.

Hypothesis

I think whether I misread or skipped some chapters in the manual.

Ergo

I'll reread the manual.

P.S : I don't know Nina Grunfeld, I just googled life manual book and there the pic is. :)

Oh c'mon life let's befriend.

That's Life

Some'd said that life is just like a rounded wheel. Sometimes you're in high up above or down below.
Some'd said that life is just like a lemon. Sometimes it feels sour or rather sweet.
Some'd said that life is just like colours. Sometimes it's blue, yellow, red or grey or even black.

Well for tonight, I'm gonna say that life is...
Life should be beautiful.

'Canon en Ré Majeur' by Johann Pachelbel

Canon en Ré Majeur (Canon in D Major) is a classical music piece that I bet most of you know about it. Well, at least have heard about it, but maybe you don't realize or you simply don't know the name of the piece yet.


Hmm, let me tell you the prologue first please.

Guitar, it is the only music instrument that I am pretty good at, and by "pretty good" I mean average and just so so. I can't play violin, drum, flute, trumpet, let alone the mother of instrument, piano. I once learned to play my friend's violin and I got my neck a cramp. :))


In 2008, I decided to take a classical guitar lesson. Some'd say that "If you're good at classical, you might be good at any musics also". So, twice in a week, I went to my teacher's house to practice and practice. He was also a teacher at Yamaha Music School.


He taught me how to pick the strings righteously, read the musical notes in the scoresheet (which, I already forgot now) and some technical stuffs. What I liked about him, he was always telling the story of the composer before he taught me the song. He also told me the history about European art music. As I recall there are some periods of European art music, but I only remember two of them. Romantic and Baroque.

Romantic is the period time of European art music, where the musics are all about expressing the emotional feeling. The music were usually typical and in a pattern. It was existed at 1815-1910

Here is the video of one remarkable music from Romantic period.

"Romance de Amor"

If you notice the first part is the gloom expression but the second part is the joyful one.

 I can play this piece, but still, imperfect. :)

Baroque is the oldest period time of European art music in common practice (1960 -1760), the composer at that time (that I know) were Johann Sebastian Bach and Johann Pachelbel. Baroque also known as the period of time that produces many hard classical musical pieces. You will see all the lefty fingers are dancing brutally when someone plays a Baroque. Some said that Baroque pieces are created after counting some formulas. I still cannot believe there's relation between math and music.


"Bourrée in E Minor" by Johann Sebastian Bach is the first classical piece that I learned, right until now, I just can only play the first and a half part of it. There are 2 parts of it, the second one is the tough one (for me).

Here is the video, if you (by any chance) want to know. :)

"Bourrée in E Minor" by Johann Sebastian Bach

played by Per-Olov Kindgren

 

Per-Olov Kindgren, the Swedish classical guitarist that I know (that still alive).

He's so amazing, right? I could only play until 00:46, well, not to mention the countless flaws and the 'klatak-klutuk' sounds. :))

This is the 'crazy' person who originally created the piece

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 - 1750)

And now, back to the context of this post. You can see a name that appeared in this post title, Johann Pachelbel. Just like Bach, he's also a German Baroque composer, he's also an organist and a teacher. Canon in D Major is the most famous piece of music by Johann Pachelbel. It might be his masterpiece because right until now, for about more than 300 years, Canon in D Major is oftenly played everywhere, let's say in a movie, TV ads, wedding reception, or even mobile ringtones. :)


Like I told you before, It is a classical music piece that I bet most of you know about it. Well, at least have heard about it, but maybe you don't realize or you simply don't know the name of the piece yet.

And, FYUI (for your unimportant information). I am learning this piece now, yeah the pretentious "Canon in D Major" by Johann Pachelbel. After about 3 years of the absence of classical guitar playing, I intend to mastering at least one of the most famous classical music piece. And by "mastering" I mean I can play it from the first part until the last part, although I'll ignore if it's played perfectly or not. :)


The other reason is, there's this movie. Well, it's an old movie, it first released about 10 years ago, but I happened to watched it again several days ago. So in the movie "Canon in D Major" was played over and over, it made me think, it might be cool if I could play it.


Well, I know it way much cooler if I could play it with piano (in that movie the music piece was played on a piano). However, since the only instrument that I can play is guitar. Well, what else to choose.

So, this is the video of "Canon in D Major" piano version which I don't learn.

And this is the video of "Canon in D Major" classical guitar version which I learn. :)

"Canon in D Major" by Johann Pachelbel

played by Per-Olov Kindgren

Again the piece was played by the amazing Per-Olov Kindgren

Right until just now I can only play until 01.10, ~still a long way to go :(

And this is another 'crazy' person.

Johann Pachelbel (1653 - 1706)

Usually I never finished a classical music piece, especially the long one, like "Bourrée in E Minor", I haven't mastered it yet, though my teacher said that Bourrée is an easy one. Bite me!

The reason I always gave up because I think my hand is too small, that make the forming of hard chord is quite impossible. Moreover, the chord that needs to lengthen my finger range into 4 or 5 frets. 

But, my friend once said that it can't be my excuse, no matter how small someone hands are, if they do much fingering training, every hard chords will be possible.

Well, I think he's right, I'm gonna look from the bright side now. :)

So I think that would be all  all, my only expectation is, I do really wish that I can finally complete "Canon in D Major", wish me luck everyone.

Cheers!!

Here's the scoresheet, if you guys want to learn it too. There are the tabulatures also.

~I just finished the first page.

PS :
Thanks to Achmad Sulthoni for patiently teaching me playing guitar from zero. Really appreciate it mate. :)
Thanks to Jimmy for kindly teaching and telling me the classical music. You're a good teacher.

Peppi Kamadhatu

Today I came into my friend's room. His winamp was playing 'Can't smile without you' by Barry Manilow. Yeah, most people must know this song, this song even 'seldomly' played on the TV ads. :)
Right after the song ended, the next song was also 'Can't smile without you' covered by woman. It sounds more jazzy and rather swingy.

It was Peppi Kamadhatu, her name was Peppi and Kamadhatu was the name of her former band. And you know what? She's Indonesian.
I googled her and it turned out that her last album was released in 2006, hahaha, where have I been? It was 5 years ago, and I've never heard any about her or hers.

She had 3 albums, she covers many popular songs into swing jazzy ones. Not that jazzy that has many transitions in every chords, they are very easy listening instead. but still, it doesn't reduce the intimate ambient of modern jazz essentially.

Michael Buble's, Jamie Cullum's, Teddy Pendergrass', James Morrison's have been stuck in my playlist these days. Mostly, I play them at night. After all the day I share the laughter with my college and flat friends, I sometimes turn my night time into some kind of a sentimental, intimate, ~or any adjective that has relative with the word 'quiet'~ one.

But for tonight let me temporarily delete all you guys from my playlist. I'm gonna have Peppi Kamadhatu's 'do' me. Anyhow, out of the context, she's beautiful also, just like her voice.. :)

You should listen some of her songs sometime, or just try 'Can't smile without you' by her as a teaser.
TTFN, cheers everyone!!
:)

Doofus Quote

I just watched an oldschool TV series, "That '70 Show". And I found a quote that still lingering in my mind. A pretty darn dumb one.

" Women are like muffins, okay?

And once you've had a muffin, man...

You will put up with anything to have another muffin."

-- Danny Masterson as Steven Hyde

Well, it's not like I'm in the same page with Hyde. *SMH

However, He's not completely wrong though.

So guys..

Be good..  

:))

London Boulevard (2010) || The Mechanic (2011)

London Boulevard (2010)

directed by William Monahan

It's a UK movie about a man (Colin Farrel) that just newly freed from jail. He falls in love with an unsociable young movie star (Keira Knightley). He get some unfinished problems from his past and find himself into a fight with a ferocious gangster.

It's a decent crime romance movie, the only thing I like about this movie because the ending was kinda twisted.
My humble rate is 7 out of 10.
:D

--------------------------------

The Mechanic (2011)

directed by Simon West

 

It's an action crime movie with a bit of thriller touch that tells about an elite assassin (Jason Statham) who kills his victims by making the crime scene like a clean coincidence set. He has a apprentice (Ben Foster) that has a connection with his previous victim.

I'm gonna give 7,5 out of 10.

:D

Well, it's Jason Statham anyway, no wonder the movie looks good ~most of my friend suggest me to watch this movie~. He's becoming a symbol of action movie nowadays.

Hmm, there was a good quote tough...

"Amat Victoria Curam"

means

"Victory Loves Preparation"

That would be all.. cheers!!

Kampoeng Jazz 2011 ~But mostly, Dira Sugandi~

Kampoeng Jazz 2011

Kampoeng Jazz, like the name implies. It must be something about jazz. Yeah, it's an event that presents music performance by some jazz musicians.

The performer of KJ'11 were Sabrina, Tahiti 80, Dira Sugandi, Syaharani & Queen Fireworks, Yovie Widianto Fusion and many others.

Sabrina and Tahiti 80 were their aces of this event, even though ~for me~ their musics are barely jazz. But who cares, in fact they were the (biggest) magnet of thousands people who came.

In these past years, I've been learning and following about jazz music. Well, not the pure and fully jazz maybe, but I'm just really into it. So for me personally, Sabrina and Dira Sugandi were the reason I came for, though there was an unmusical reason also.

Sabrina is a female musician from Philippines. Amongst youngster she's so famous because of her 'creativity' to recycles and covers the popular songs in acoustic.

She transforms R&B, Soul, Pop, Rock and many other songs into a wonderful and easy listening acoustic songs. It's a good way to appreciate the joy of the genres you're not really into.

Dira Sugandi, oh, I hope I'm not exaggerating this, but... Indonesia is blessed and grateful to have such a talent like her. Dira is gifted the voice like the great black woman powerful voice. Ironically, most of Indonesian listeners ~including me~ had just known her recently.  

Well, she's maybe a new player in Indonesian music industry, but she's definitely not in music industry itself.  She had started her career in USA. Well, from what I read, the reason she chose USA instead of Indonesia because of her music and some financial issues for recording stuffs.

Dira's music is created for specified listeners. As all we know in Indonesia, if you want to be a successful (read : rich) musician, sometimes you have to put aside your idealism in the trunk then steer your music wheel right where to the market wants.

In the mean time, she wasn't able to afford the cost of recording things and stuffs in Indonesia. Here we can see the irony, in her own country she couldn't do anything because of Rupiahs but in USA she was doing great just with her talent without concerning about Dollars.

So, 'Something About The Girl' is her first album, it contains 11 songs. And in my inexpert opinion, I could sense the modern jazz blended with a bold thick soulful voice of her in this album, and if I'm not wrong there's even a Balinese touch in one of her song in this album.

We can tell that even her music will barely be the unconscious humming of most Indonesian people, she still weaves the Balinese touch in her music. She loves her country, doesn't she? :)

'Inside Love', 'Time Out of Time', 'Essentially Yours', 'Hand on Your Heart' and 'Won't You Come with Me' are Dira's songs that I always put in my playlist for these past nights. They are relaxing. They really are.

Those songs are also sung by Dira in Kampoeng Jazz last night. Well, I haven't memorized the whole lyrics yet so I only sang in the chorus parts.

She performed right after Sabrina. Well, it must be hard on her to made a good performance right after the main guest star performance. But, from what I saw, she could bring back the intimate atmosphere of jazz music by the thick voice of hers that waving stealthily into the air amongst us.

Hmm, I almost forget to tell about the aces.

Tahiti 80, well I don't really know much about this Paris indie band. And I hardly watched their performances that night, I got dilstracted when they performed. They were up right after Dira's. All I can tell that their sound engineer was the greatest that night. He (or she maybe) could manage to produce the perfect proportion of sounds. The guitars and bass sounded just right.

Sabrina. Even though some of my friends told me that her performance was great. But, I kinda felt disappointed. Because, I, myself (or maybe you too), we know and feel the joy of her music because of one thing : "Acoustic".

Yeah, she did, she played her acoustic guitar. However, ahh, there was also the band. Let me describe in my humble perspective (I hope). The sound of the keyboard and violin almost covered the sound of her guitar. The drummers played like in a berserker mode.

Was it all because of her sound engineer? Maybe.

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is, why the songs had to be played in a full band way? 

Isn't she an acoustic musician? 

Didn't we knew her because of her acoustic playing?

Well anyhow, enough with my 'yotos' talking. :p

Overall, although, not as good as last year, Kampoeng Jazz this year was pretty good. Salute for the committee.

The only good thing of Kampoeng Jazz this year than the last year was..
I happened to spent it with one of the God's masterpieces. :)

So my closure line would be...

"Sabrina barely rocks the night but Dira Sugandi does!!"

Feel free to correct my bad english..

And kindly give me your comments..

:D

Ex (2010)

Ex (2010)
directed by Heiward Mak

It's a Hong Kong comedy romance film. Like its title, the director that also the writer will serve us a movie about exes. Sounds cliche? Well, I know there's a lot movies that rise the exes issue. However this one is happened to be a good cliche movie, ~IMHO though.~

Beside that, aren't we rarely watching HK movies? Why don't we take a look and tell, are theirs any good? As all we know, Asian drama movies have their own spell to make women (and men) viewers shed their tear(s).

Here it goes..

There were this couple, Zhou Yi (Gillian Chung) and Woody (Lawrence Chou). They were gonna took off from HK and having holiday together. But, because one and another things that derailed the conversation, the holiday were called off.

They were split up right before Ping (William Chan) ~Zhou Yi's ex-boyfriend~ very eyes. Ping just arrived from a holiday with his girlfriend, Cee (Michelle Wai).

It later turned out that Zhou Yi's passport and stuffs were in the bag that Woody carried out. Not to mention, she were dumped before by her apartment landlord because of some attitude issues.

It really made Zhou Yi were edged in an unfortunate situation. However, with Cee's (dumb) sympathy, Zhou Yi were invited home. She was allowed to sleep at Ping's study room. Actually, it was Ping's apartment and Cee was just bunking in. Zhou Yi was gonna stay with them for couple days.

Yeah, in this very part you'll find it's a very interesting movie. You'll see if a man could handle having two women that he loves and love(d) are gonna be surrounded him for couple days.

And we'll also witness how a train of memories gonna collides with another train of future promises.

This is maybe the first HK drama movie I ever saw. And it turns out that it's a good movie. If I may say this movie is an inch better than those Thai dramas. As all we know that Thai dramas are having a good popularity these days.

Ex has the great pictures. The taking of the picture just feels right. Like the timing, focused object, contrast and other stuffs that common people (like me) can tell that "The picture is just wonderful".

The music's also well played. Well, I know nothing about the meaning (even a word) of those songs. Those are mandarins, but I bet that you all can tell that the music is beautiful. It comes in and fades out at the right moments.

Well, that would be all, It's a great movie to watch. And my inexpert verdict is.....

7,5 out of 10

------the slices of life note------

Most of us definitely have ex or exes. So, let us play and just randomly imagine if we were ever in the Ping's shoes.

See, you are a man that has a wonderful and kind woman, but with whatsoever problems or reasons. In the mean time, your ex has to stay in your apartment for couple days. And there will be moments that you and your ex happened to be alone in the home.

If I was him, ~well, it's really easy to say~ but, I guess I won't tempt nor be tempted.

It's true that you had some stories with her, but it is through, it is over, it is off. Don't be swayed away by the waves of some stupid flashback scenes in your head.

Flashback scene only shows the good and sweet memories, and it barely shows the hurtful ones.

Well, I won't talk too much about some stuffs of romance. I'm so not an expert in this field.

Anyway, the movie's good, I think the writer was trying to tell us...

"If it's not meant to be, then it's not meant to be."

Feel free to comment and find some errors or typos.. :)

Arina Ephipania

A few of good things were coming to me in these past days.

Yesterday, I got photographed together with Arina Ephipania.

For you who don't know her. She is the vocalist of Mocca. ~one of my favorite local bands.~

I also got a calendar from her and had a little chat. 

That was a small gig that took place in Dago Plaza foodcourt. The event name was 9coustic, held by 99ers Radio Bandung. The artists were Utopia, Cokelat, Mocca, (the rising star) Raisa Andriana, and the other 'kroco's. :p

Mocca's musics are written in story-telling lyrics. With Arina's beautiful voice the musics become just great.

You should listen to their musics or watch their gigs. Beside that, Arina is just sooo adorable.

The 2nd most adorable girl.. :)

First Post for Chloe (2010)

My name is Muhammad Mukti Pradana. I am 21 years, 6 months and 8 days old when making this post.

And yes, this is my first post.. :)

~I love watching movies a lot, and I'd like to share to you guys about (almost) every movie as I will have seen. Whether if it's good or kinda good..

So this is my first movie review..

Chloe (2010)
directed by Atom Egoyan

One of -if I may say- drama, romance, psychological, simple puzzle, and a slight of thriller touch movie.

It was telling about a middle twenty woman named Chloe (Amanda Seyfried) who played her role as a hooker. And there was this three-persons little family; Mr. David Stewart (Liam Neeson), Mrs. Catherine Stewart (Julianne Moore) and their son named Michael Stewart (Somebody :p)

Anyway, it began with Mr. Stewart that happened to be a cool and charming middle-forty professor who teaches at one of New York universities.

There was that day when Mr. Stewart was having his birthday and his wife were holding a surprise party for him at home, their home was in a pretty small town that (I assume) pretty far from New York. ~it's because Mr. Stewart had to flight to New York every time he was going to teaches.

However, it turned out that Mr. Stewart didn't either want or need that surprise party. So, that day he decided to intentionally missed his flight to his home.

As we can guess, Mrs. Stewart got disappointed easily even though she covered it and played I'm-okay card. The next day this early-forty lady accidentally checked her husband's phone inbox. She found a picture of her husband and one of his girl student in a frame.

Couldn't believe her so-beloved husband cheated on her, one (silly) thing crossed her mind --> She hired a hooker to teased and tempted his charming hubby and had her gave the report after that. She desperately wanted to know if her husband would having an affair or not.

And yes! It was that Chloe whom she hired. 

Yap, this is the point of the movie I think.. Let me put it between quotes and have it typed in italic like those awesome reviewers would always do.. 
 

 

"If the one you love was lying to you, how far would you go to find out the truth?"

Okay, so where the psychological, puzzle, and thrilling parts that I mentioned earlier? All I've been blabbering about is a cliché drama story that has been filmed in some movies in these past years.

Well, I can tell you it's not really a love drama movie you and your boy/girlfriend want to spent the Saturday nite with. Believe me, cuddling won't be necessary.. :p

The proportion of drama plus romance is about 10% only ~IMO~

Anyhow, it continued that Chloe was doing her job as she was told by Mrs. Steward. But, about a quarter before the movie ends, it turned out that Chloe was manipulating her report to Mrs. Stewart (You'll smell a little puzzle here). You would sense more about the psychological and the thrilling parts afterward.

It's better that I don't spoil the rest of the story, you should watch it sometimes. It was a pretty good movie.

Well, like some kind of an IMDB expert reviewers, I'll give 7 out of 10 for Chloe..

So, this will be my closure line, feel free to comment and find some typos.. :)

P.S. : Amanda Seyfried was very beautiful in this movie, and sexy too (or too sexy) :p