Star-Studded Chinese New Year

This is a song my cousin sister (Sandhya) and I recorded this weekend.

We recently practiced Iktara for an Open Mic and were planning to record that, when we decided to add in another song related to stars and make a medley of it. Hope you enjoy it. Do let me know what you guys think :)

Post Absentia

After a long leave of absence from this blog, I am back (if only briefly) to share my hopes and aspirations for 2016. I look forward to year filled with long walks while listening to music from known and unknown artists, more jamming with friends and family and more music practice. I hope your new year wishes are fulfilled beyond your expectations. (It is Chinese New Year, hence the random new year sentiments, I suppose)

I recently acquired a second hand bass guitar and recorded these songs :)  I would love to hear what you think about them.

Once

I recently watched the movie Once, which has a lot of acoustic songs by the Swell Season. It introduced to me Glen Hansard and the Frames. Anyways, after seeing it, I felt like recording something, and this is what I came up with :)

Across the Offi-verse

This is one of my favourite Beatles tunes. Weaseled in an Office-reference too. +1 if you can spot it. Pun intended :D

Activity Detected

I recently got back to playing my guitar and recorded some new songs.

The first one I was just using some C and F chord voicings I recently learned, and added a few layers on Garageband.



I recorded the second one, when I was trying to learn the Garageband Smart Strings feature in iPad to record something for a friend. There are no guitar tracks on this one, it's all done in Garageband. Thanks to some cool woodwind loops in Garageband, I thought it turned out quite interesting :)




If you're interested in learning about Smart strings (and I recommend it) check out this link.

Happy Return

I nicked the blog-post title from Steven Wilson's new (unreleased) song, which I heard live in Leipzig. It sounds awesome ; it's got an amazing 'real' vibe and I loved Steven's voice and the vocal harmonies involved. and I am really looking forward to hearing it in in recorded form. I just got back from a 16-day conference leave/vacation. While it was an amazing experience and I loved every minute of it, I am also glad to be back in Singapore. I am travel-lagged and am looking forward to some good old monotony to spice things up. On the long flight home, I recorded this song on Garage band titled 'Page 16'.

Page 16 by aytida88

It reminds me of the last few awesome days and the amazing peeps I met and hung out with. If I was active on Facebook, I'd have uploaded this tune there with a status containing the phrase 'feeling blessed'. And while I was at it, I'd crush some of your candy. Let me know what you think of it.

Pretend - Nat King Cole Cover

I attempted a different type of song to cover this time. A classic from Nat King Cole called "Pretend".

Pretend you're happy when you're blue, It isn't very hard to do,
And you'll find happiness without an end, whenever you pretend.


Pretend Nat King Cole Cover by aytida88

I hope you like it. Let me know what you think.