Neither Here Nor There

I am nowhere near being a full-time mugger, like Hanzhi and Raj, nor anything like a full-time slacker who can leave everything to the last minute and yet do well for tests and exams. I am just here, thinking far too much about things that I should not be bothered about, opening my mouth when I am better off shutting up and doing irrelevant things which are of no benefit at all. What a sad university life I have, it totally rots to the core, this entire routine I am sticking with.

I learnt something new at Ge Yao today. It was an enriching session for me, really! I am going to write it here as a reference, just in case I forget what was taught today. Okay, I need to consolidate what I heard and remembered. Now, here it goes.

A keyboard consists of black and white keys. The black keys come as a set of 2 then 3. The white keys come as a set of 3 then 4. The white keys are C, D, E, F, G, A, B and the cycle goes on. What we are interested in is to do Pop Progression where we can play chords to accompany a Mandarin Pop song. There are a total of 16 ways to do so in Pop Progression and they all follow the rule:

I(root) VIm(6th minor) IV(4th) V(5th)

I learnt the most basic stuff which is C major and it looks like this:

C D E F G A B
M m m M M m m with a subscript m, meaning minor.

The very first of the 16 includes playing C Major, which is the chords of C Am F G. When playing C, the left hand plays the C note using the last finger and the right plays 3 notes of C using the thumb, middle finger and last finger. The 3 notes are determined in this way.

C -- C E G
D -- D F A
E -- E G B
F -- F A C
G -- G B D
A -- A C E
B -- B D F in fact, just take alternate notes after the left hand note played.

The notes played by the right hand can be permuted. For example, the notes on the right hand for C could be C E G, E G C or G C E. This minimises the gap in between the notes. The left hand note is played on the first count while the right hand notes are played throughout the 4 counts. There can also be variation in the rhythm, tempo and beat, depending on the type of song played. Another way to play notes on the left hand is to include the following notes:

C -- C G C G
D -- D A D A
E -- E B E B
F -- F C F C
G -- G D G D
A -- A E A E
B -- B F B F

The right hand blends in on the first and third notes. Then again, there can be variations according to each song.

Next up will be the time signature which I have always marvelled at as I have no idea what it meant before today. A time signature of 4 4 means 4 counts of 1 beat each in a bar as indicated by the upper 4 and each of the counts is a-quarter of the bar as indicated by the lower 4. That was the best I could make out of the brief introduction to time signature.

I know a little of such stuff, not enough for me to do anything, but enough for me as some basic knowledge. I at times know what I am doing, whether I am procrastinating or not and yet sometimes, I just let time pass. I know I need to get things done but I don't do it. I am always at this cross road.

I am neither here nor there.