🌱 A Year Of Great Change

Happy new year people!!! Happy 2017!!! 🎊🎉

I don't even know why I took 6 days to finally sit down and type this post but, it's better late than never. 😜 This post is gonna be my new year's resolution for 2017. Here goes!

2017 is gonna contain one of my life's biggest change: Army. Yes, I am enlisting into the army soon. In Singapore, it is compulsory for every male to serve 2 years in the army. And my 2 years is approaching. In about 2 more months, I will be graduating from Polytechnic (hopefully). That will mark the end of my life as a student. University is not on my mind right now so yeah... Graduation ceremony is in May 2017 so I doubt I will enlist before that. 😕

That being said, I would have at least 2 months of nothingness between March to May. I would most probably be working my butt off but I would rather stay at home and play my guitar. Even then, the earliest I will be enlisted might be June and the latest be October. If it really is October, then I'm so gonna spam guitar all day every day. 8 months of nothingness, talk about a gap year man! 😭

And even when I enlist, I would still have some spare time, given the lack of homework and exams. So in a nutshell, 2017 is leaving me no excuses to not play my guitar. And I've got a lot of plans in my mind already.

Maestro Protégé SA1-CE

First things first, I would very well like to explore deeper on my acoustic guitar. I still have much to work on my strumming foundation. I figured it will be tough to record acoustic guitar alone without vocals so I'll probably be looking for someone to do covers with. That said, I am also quite interested in fingerstyle recently so I'll put that at the back of my mind for now.

Squier Classic Vibe Telecaster

Next, we talk electric, oh yeah. 😎 Tons of songs I have yet to cover, I will do so this year. Notable songs are Knockin' on Heaven's Door, Sweet Child of Mine and other secular whatnot. I have only covered Christian songs up till this point and frankly speaking, I'm enjoying enough. But these few secular songs grew up with me so it'll be a little sad if I don't cover them. I'm still gonna do Christian songs, but with an addition of secular songs every now and then.

About electric guitar style, other than covers, I would like to work on my instrumentals. I have fallen in love with ProGuitarShop demos recently. That dude Andy plays so well without any other backup instruments. That's what I always wanted. Pick up a guitar, play some licks and entertain people for good. Oh and I do wanna learn sweeping as well. Sweeping is pretty cool! 😋

Strymon Timeline

Then, I need to talk about my pedalboard. Pedals wise, there isn't much on my mind right now. The board is already complete so I definitely won't be on the desperate hunt for pedals. However, I will still check out pedal demos and if the stars align, I might do some swapping. The OS-2 and Smart Gate on my board isn't really keeping up with the other pedals so those 2 are the first ones to be swapped in my opinion. I may be moving up to boutique pedals when I start earning some money. But till then, I am really really satisfied with my board for now. 😊

Next, I wanna venture into the bass guitar world. I might have a lot of free time, so why not? I know my Ibanez amp is suitable for bass guitars too so might as well right? I don't plan to go crazy into bass guitar so I'll probably just get a decent bass and live with it for life. The one I have in mind is the Ibanez GSR200. Another possible one is the Epiphone Thunderbird. Both looks and sounds pretty decent so I'll get either one when I got the cash. 💵

Vox AC10-C1

Lastly, I really wanna work on my recording and editing skills. I can't possibly rely on my phone camera to record this year's videos, can I? I might need to get a decent video recorder as well as a decent microphone. And of course a decent amplifier. This Ibanez amp is slowly killing me from the inside out. It just goes silent on bad days. Amplifiers on my mind are the Vox AC series (pricey) or the Fender Reverb series (cheaper but still pricey). If all else fails, I'll get the Marshall amps.

Well, let's not plan too much. Most of the time, new year's resolution is something we humans write down but never accomplishes. So I'm not gonna put down too many goals, just these few. I am so eager for the long holiday to arrive so I can hopefully go out to work and earn some cash. Guitaring is an expensive hobby you know! 💸💸💸

My next guitar cover or any other major advancement will come at the end of February because after this post, I'm gonna be very very busy with schoolwork. It's the final 2 months of my Polytechnic life so everything is really crashing down on this 2 months. Forgive me if I don't post! 😣

Edwin Ang
6th January 2017