Hastang of Yesteryears

Mark has always wanted to give the song “Plot of My Revenge” a hard rocking treatment but for some time, we haven’t been able to find the perfect mix of chord progressions, guitar riffs and vocal melodies. So one weekend, Mark, Jayson, Tessa and I decided to sit down and get right on it or die trying.

We began the session by letting Tessa read the lyrics aloud to grasp its full meaning and at the same time find out which words needed emphasis. Then I grabbed the acoustic guitar and played some random riffs—fishing out comments from Mark who seems to have a rare talent for detecting riffs that work. After a few minutes, I came up with a Zeppelin-cum-Claytonesque G sharp minor riff and continued exploring other chord options.

Tessa, who has been doing some melody exploring of her own, then told me to keep repeating the riff until she can find a way to belt out the verses. A few trials and errors here and there, and she was able to cook up various vocal acrobatics—leaving me a little frantic trying to keep up with the chord changes to match her singing (occasionally I’d get the stink-eye when I strike a wrong chord, (kihkkhihkkihkhi).

She proved to be an adept songwriter anyway. After two hours, we found ourselves a little weary but nonetheless proud as we silently agreed that the basic structure of “Plot of My Revenge” is done. We made a crude recording of the song for reference purposes.

At long last, we have sculpted a fitting form for “Plot of My Revenge”. Now we just needed someone to polish it.

That someone came in the form of guitar-einstein Roy Tutor who I’m glad to say has finally agreed to be the official lead guitar player for Hastang. A week after the song’s birth, we sat down with Roy to work out its lead guitar parts. Armed with his near-infinite bag of tricks, he has spiced up the song with lick after lick of delicious notes and guitar arpeggios. If not for his right-handedness, I’d say he was Jimi reborn. Before night’s end, we had made a multi-track demo recording of the song.

Now, we just have to deal with the next part—how the song will fare live. Looks like I’m going to have some fair share of finger calluses in my left hand in the coming sessions. Oh well.

~ Guile

guile loves his girlfriend, adores (er, adored) Michael Jackson, and wants "to be complete". When he's not playing bass for Hastang, he creates thingamajigs for icomm and writes gibberish in his not-so-secret diary.
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