Art and my baby

I am a musician. I happen to be a graphic artist too. I love to write poetry, short stories, and articles on worship. But in all these, there is a connection. And that is a pen. You need to be a calligrapher to experience the beauty of writing. The Chinese say that a good swordsman has the ability to wield his sword at the stroke of his pen.

Alright, enough of the artistic words… bottom line, I love to write! And my love for nice penmanship has also dug up a passion for great fonts, lettering and the sort. I recently got married, and in our budget constraints, I decided to write all my invitations. And write them I did. I took the strength out of me! Man, it took days to do those invitations! I remember buying a calligrapher’s pen, and also ink, so I practiced all my known fonts and started writing on semi-finished invitations. And trust me, after that, they were gorgeous! It added a personal touch because all were handmade! But then again, I was drained of all my energies!

A good solution to this problem of getting tired is the simple printing! Ha, next time, coz the next step after my wedding is making invitations to our possible baby’s dedication! His or her birthday invitations or any baby announcements we would send out must be done lovingly and beautifully! Well, there’s no baby yet but I’m sure I’m hiring a letterpress printing company to do all the work for me. Now with my taste for calligraphy, I need someone to do it my way. Someone to write it as if I did it myself… hopefully it comes soon!

The Musicians' Paradise!

If you're a musician, you have got to check out this website! Well, I hope you could visit this asap so coz I've been looking for music sheets all over the net, and so far this is the best. You need lyrics? From Ron Kenoly's Sing Out, to Red Hot Chilli Peppers Lyrics, you can download them all!

Aside from being a singer and cellist, i really love the bass... and my influences are basically Jaco Pastorius, Abraham Laboriel, Jackie Street, Don Harris, and yes, Flea. This site also has tabs for the songs of red hot chilli Peppers bass tabs.

Ha, not only am i interested in the four stringers, but also am a guitarist myself! I remember learning by ear Harem Scarem's Honestly, Something to Say, White Lion's You're All I need, and even the guitar tabs of Red Hot Chilli Peppers Under the Bridge. It's really cool!

Man, learning new stuff for me is the best way to express your music. Like a language, you need to be well versed so you could communicate better. Likewise in music, you need to learn more music, secular and gospel, so you could understand your music more. And the best road to take is learn to read music! If not, collect tabs, lyrics, bass charts, they're all available in the net! Thank God for technology! Go info age!

I LEARNED ABOUT THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH

My mom came home one day with a bottle of sweet tasting juice. She asked me to take some sips and I asked her immediately what it was. My mom enthusiastically answered it's the fountain of youth!

I asked her how in the world could that be, when it is just a myth? The answer is simple... GOJI juice. It comes from a plant called goji, found in the himalayas, and it was used by Chinese emperors to preserve their health. One evidence is that they actually lived longer than their contemporaries! My mom put it to the test, and she found for herself that she really grew stronger, she felt less tired, her immune system was boosted,(it was when she was taking Goji was when she had the longest time of wellness and disease free), and less grey hair grew, and out of the ordinary: her hair in her armpits grew again! She had smooth, hairless armpits for the longest time!

It is sort of funny, but to buy goji juice or gochi juice would certainly boost your life, and health. It's really a fountain of youth!

HEROES MUSICIANS-2nd RATE

What do I mean second place? Here's the reason: we were first counselors and servants, before we are musicians. I remember during our earlier camps, we were rock stars and an elite group of people who scooted out of the sanctuary every time we were finished with the music part of the worship time. We walked around the camp site saying Hi to everyone and signing autographs and we were literally stars!

I wont be a hypocrite, I loved the feeling. It felt good to be respected, appreciated and even revered. But this year we were different. Pastor Jeff (the camp director) instructed us to be 2nd Rate Musicians, and first rate counselors (understand the context?). We had to build relationships with the campers (we were assigned a group of young people that we were responsible with), and spend time with them, eat with them, play games with them, pray with them, share the Word to them, and basically be a big brother to them. At first we were apprehensive and wanted to group ourselves together, but after a while we understood the importance of investing time in the lost kids' lives.

Many of us shared after the camp that we were able to share the gospel more this camp than the whole year combined! We had stories of lost hope renewed, rededication of lives, repentance of sins, and a transformation of lives! And on top of that, we had the greatest influence on them because they see us on stage! Maybe that's why the Praise team was assigned to the most notorious group of guys... hmm, now it makes sense. It was indeed the right choice, and an honor, to be 2nd Rate musicians in the Heroes Camp.

HEROES CAMP WAS THE COOLEST!

Last April, I got to serve the Lord and the young people of this generation by being part of the Music team of the HEROES youth camp. This year, we had a great band! Namely, the instruments we used were awesome, the set up of the sound system and monitoring systems were really great, miking and mixing was very up to par with the demands of a "rock" concert. It was really cool, since this year, I was the over all in-charge of music including sound set-up.

From the transport of equipment from different churches, coordinating the people to be in places on time, getting the same people to load and unload equipment, encouraging them to work hard (remember, none of us are paid to do this), set up the sound system, instruments, miking, monitoring, and house sounds, whew! All of those! But it was great because I had a great team of musicians and servants (of the Lord), who were basically hard workers and excited to serve God. My team was composed of, directly under me was Russel Surigao, a very talented young man who became the apprentice of Harry White, a sound engineer while he held his week long sound seminars here in the Philippines. Russel was really interested in setting the hi-tech equipment up. By the way, included in my line of work was the responsibility of making sure the equipment to be brought was working, three weeks ahead!

Russel studies electronics in a vocational college and he is pretty good in those electronics kit kats. He works hard, cleanly, and professionally, and his work ethics are very good. Anyway, he was basically responsible for setting all the equipment up at camp, and Praise God, we had ZERO problems during the two-week camp. I admire that young man.

Also with the team are able and equally talented musicians, who helped carry stuff, set up the hardware, and industriously worked to perfect their craft. Jeff, Ryan, Kenneth, Jerry, Momon, Kaye, Paulene, Maxinne, Aubrey, Rachel, Herschelle, David, Charisse, Kurt, Christine, Micah, Sheila and Ashley. Man all of them were awesome! They rehearsed hard, and played very well! On top of those, they really were worshiping, and they love the Lord with all their heart.

I seriously love serving with them, and that is why I consider this camp: THE COOLEST!

WEB PAYMENTS MADE SAFER, EASIER AND MORE SECURE

I’m a new comer in the web based business environment, and yet I do enjoy the quick, easy processes of web banking. Many of you who might read my blog may notice that I am a music service provider and I get paid through bank, or fund transfer, and not always cash. But as we all know, on-line marketing is booming, and the fashion trend for this technologically advanced age is surely leaning on the web based payments, and e fund transfers.
A good solution to many of our fund transfer (e payments) is Payoneer. Not Pah-yo-neer, but Pehy-yoh-neer. They are veterans of the financially and technologically related realms of businesses, and their services basically involves Mastercard. If you are a Mastercard holder, you can make payments all around the world for traveling, online payments, and for web based businesses to make payments to their workers, vendors, etc. It’s a great solution indeed to cover all our payment needs! By the way the card is PRE PAID, so the limit is up to you!
They offer the Prepaid MasterCard®. Which can be used worldwide, just as long as MasterCards® is accepted! Really cool huh? They also assure the customers that they are able to use their cards easily, safely and responsibly.
Now, the dangers of on-line fund transfer is also high risk. But if you log on to their website, you can be assured that they offer one of the best customer service in the world! Not only that, they are partners with reputable financial institutions worldwide, and they place high priority on investing on the top-notch secure technology! Oh, maybe you can check them out as soon as you finish reading my blog!

To be able to know more about the company, you can go to their website at payoneer.com.

I LOVE MY BLOG

Yes I do! I'm so happy with my blog because of the income I get out of it! Yeah, nasty as it may seem, but who would say "no" to income!? It's really great since I started last february, I was able to generate much income, which may probably not be big for you, but for me it is!

I started out writing my thoughts on worship, about my love for my wife, the church, etc., but I felt led to advertise my services (music services) through free blogging! What makes me excited is that if you go to the google search engine, type "string quartet for hire manila", my blog would probably be in the top 5 WORLDWIDE! And many times, I do top the list!!! Since february my clients grew to about 8-10, and it covers weddings, to small events, to graduations, and an upcoming Corporate event in Prudential life to be held at sofitel. What makes me more excited is that this is my first client to hire a 10pc string orchestra! My biggest so far. Hopefully, this would grow into even bigger shows, and by God's grace alone, I would love to work with concerts, tv shows, recordings, etc.

Now, for all of these, I bless the name of the Lord, from whom all blessings flow. And God doesnt just give me blessings, He makes sure I work hard for them. He doesnt want to spoil me you know. But if do look at the minute details of life, how He richly blesses ALL of us, we are kinda spoiled...

But that's because He is my Dad. He loves to provide for me, and take care of me. This blog has ultimately brought back glory to the One who deserves it all, Jesus! That's why I LOve My BLOG!