12
THE MESSAGE. BRINGING INTO FOCUS FILIPINO PRESENCE IN AUSTRALIA
www.kalatas.com.au | Volume 5 Number 11 | AUGUST 2015
OPINION
HUMMING IN MY UNIVERSE
A songwriter writes
I
was recently interviewed
by some college kids who
are doing a thesis on the
APO Hiking Society, and
I was asked when I wrote
my first song. I answered that I
must have been about 14 or 15
years old.
I was actually stunned by
my answer. Holy cow! That
means I have been writing
songs for almost 50 years now!
It seems not too long ago
when I wrote my very first
song. Looking back now, it was
an amateurish, sophomoric song called Every Minute
of the Day, which I wrote inside the family car on the way
home from school. It felt like
a great achievement at that
time. And once I started, I just
kept writing, up to this day.
Songs are very interesting
creations. They seem to come
from nowhere and create
themselves by using songwriters to bring them to life. What
do songwriters use? A mix of
some 12 notes spread out in
octaves, beats, and time signatures. They put words into
them and voila! A song is born.
It is a magical process. It is
astonishing that practically all
songs are made this way but
each one has different permutations and combinations.
Every week I receive mail
from young songwriters asking me to listen to their stuff. I
ADOBO
sometimes do, but most of the
time, I don’t. It is tiring to listen
to songs that are not made or
recorded well. Besides, I never
got free advice from songwriters I admired when I was starting and it was probably a good
thing. I worked my own mojo.
But for those who aspire to
be songwriters, here are some
tips you may find useful.
driven either by very recallable, haunting tunes, or lyrics
that move you. Be able to take
notice and understand why
you like the songs you like.
It will help you as you create
your own stuff.
4. Most good songs climb
melodically and make you feel
like they are taking the listener somewhere. Imagine an air-
Cole Porter, the Beatles, Michelle Legrand, Alan and Marilyn Bergman, to name a few. I
learned to play all the Beatles
songs and I credit them with
about 70 percent of my musical education. It’s good to
develop a wide reference in
many genres.
7. Imagine your songs in
different styles. You may have
DO
not judge your work too harshly. Don’t beat yourself
up because of what you think is “bad” work. Remember
that whatever you do, you are doing your best under
whatever circumstances you are in. Just enjoy it.
1. Write as often as you can.
Be determined. Do not wait to
be inspired. Write because a
songwriter writes songs. It is
as simple as that. Look at what
you do as both art and craft.
2. Follow three or four artists you like, and listen to everything they have recorded. It
is important to know that the
best ones have written songs
that are good, bad, mediocre
and brilliant. They also have
songs that never became hits.
Follow them initially as a fan
and later as a critic.
3. Great songs have wonderful melodies, lyrics, arrangements and vocals. Mostly though, you will notice that
many of the good ones are
plane on a runway. Your compositions should not stay too
long on the runway. These
days, listeners have a shorter
attention span than their parents did. So try to climb and
take off within 15 seconds if
you can so they don’t lose interest.
5. Probably 98 percent
of pop songs are about love.
Therefore, avoid clichéd melodic lines and lyrics. There are
ways to express love that have
not been explored yet. Discover them. Write from the heart.
6. Listen to old recordings from the ‘40s to the ‘70s.
You will learn a lot of chords,
progressions and great lyric writing. Listen to Jim Webb,
written it in a certain genre.
Try to play it in different ways
and styles and beats. You may
discover that it sounds better
when you play around with it.
8. Do not fall in love too
much with your work. From its
inception to final mix, think of
every part of it as still a work in
progress. You may have to re-
write a few lyrics, or alter the
melody. You may even discover that you have written something better in the past that
works better with your current
project.
9. Learn to accept rejection. I have joined many songwriting contests only to be told
that I did not make the grade.
I have submitted songs to artists and record companies and
have been turned down as
well. That’s life.
But do not let rejection
leaden your heart or kill your
spirit. Some songs are made
to be played in the future under new and different circumstances. My rejected songs
eventually did become hits —
as recordings with APO.
Lastly, do not judge your
work too harshly. Don’t beat
yourself up because of what
you think is “bad” work. Remember that whatever you do,
you are doing your best under
whatever circumstances you
are in. Just enjoy it.
JIM PAREDES
is a multifaceted creative. He sings, composes,
writes articles and books, teaches at the
Ateneo De Manila University, designs and
facilitates workshops. He is a writer of books,
a widely read columnist for the Sunday Life
section of Philippine Star, and a well-known photographer.
(A Dose of Brown Opinion)
The Philippine budget: Boon or bane?
I
Opinion pieces
are all welcome.
Ang Kalatas does not
necessarily share the
views of the writers.
t is budget time in the Philippines, and the national
government budget as
contained in the 2016 General Appropriations Bill (GAB) is said to total around
three trillion pesos! It is the biggest budget ever proposed
by any President of the country.
The GAB will be submitted to
Congress for deliberations. After
its approval (normally before the
end of the year), it becomes the
General Appropriations Act (GAA)
for the national government's operations for the 2016 calendar year.
The money will be used to
pay for personal services, maintenance and other operating expenses, capital outlays, and debt
service/interest payments.
With a gargantuan budget like
this, the economic implications are
wide and far-reaching. And so are
its political ramifications.
If spent properly, it can have
a great impact on the economy
with its multiplier effect. The people consume, increasing demand,
spurring producers and service
providers to produce and supply
more goods and services. The government embarks on infrastructure building, and this would have
a stimulatory effect as it utilizes
more labour (therefore easing unemployment), materials, and services.
As for the 2015 GAA, Senator Panfilo Lacson has identified
lumpsum items to
the tune of "424 billion pesos, and
counting." Budget Secretary Abad
predictably replied that these
lumpsums have already been "disaggregated."
[Lu mpsums, like the DAP and
PDAF in the past, have been the
source of funding for alleged questionable projects and activities of
the government. One example:
the Napoles-tainted bogus organisations used as conduits of certain
lawmakers to funnel money in exchange for commissions, kickbacks,
and other inducements, creating a
bandwagon for corruption. ]
Ang Kalatas is published every first Saturday of the month circulated in various
parts of NSW. News articles, opinions, syndication and columnists do not necessarily reflect the views and opinion of the publisher and editors of Ang Kalatas
and are solely theirs. All editorial and advertising materials submitted by the advertisers are subject to the paper’s advertising and editorial standards and discretion. All rights reserved.
[Then there
was the realignment of unobligated appropriations
("savings") for purposes that they
were not originally intended for. The
Supreme Court has
since ruled these
unconstitutional. I personally believe therefore that
these illegal realignments and/or
reallocations were
tantamount to
technical malversation.]
Now, lumpsums are suspected to be included yet again in the
2016 budget, inserted in clever ways so as to obfuscate their real intent. It is easy
to assume that these lumpsums
have been resurrected in various
guises and shades - despite official
denials - to serve but one purpose:
as a kitty for the coming elections
in May 2016. They will be used as a
source of largesse for pork barrel.
And what is pork barrel? One
dictionary defines it as "a government appropriation that supplies
funds for local improvements designed to ingratiate legislators
with their constituents." The operative word here is "ingratiate."
Pork barrel will be used to secure
MILLIE MARCIAL-PHILLIPS
Publisher/Managing Editor
TITUS FILIO
Copy Editor
the vote of the voter in what may
be akin to indirect vote-buying or
bribe.
There is one view that pork
barrel exacerbates patronage politics. But there is another view
that it may be beneficial to a local
government unit (LGU) that has
missed out in the regular GAA. The
pork barrel can serve as a special or
supplemental budget.
However, the problem starts
when, during the implementation
of the project, demands for commissions and kickbacks are made sometimes not surreptitiously but
blatantly, so I heard. It has therefore become a hotbed for corruption. There are reportedly so many
fingers dipping in any pork barrel, and accountability is prone to
question.
The national budget is the
people's money as it comes mostly from taxes, plus borrowings that
will be paid for by the people.
I am therefore incensed that
a slice of the people's money is always ending up in some politician's pocket, or in some unscrupulous contractor's bank account
due to graft and corruption.
Corruption must be addressed
now. The civil service ranks must
be cleansed, the LGUs expurgated, erring politicians jailed, and dynasties curtailed to end the cycle of
corruption that has now seemed
imprinted in their DNA.
There must be a shift in attitude and return to our morals and
right conduct. This shift must restart in our homes and reinforced
by the community through the
school system and through good
examples shown by our community's institutions.
The national budget must
be used for the good of the country and her people. It must benefit
all, not just a few. It must be wisely spent and not end up in someone's personal coffers. Every one
must safeguard it.
DANNY DINGLE holds a degree in
Economics from San Sebastian College, Manila,
where he became the The Sebastinian’s first
editor-in-chief during martial law. He was a
Philippine government scholar to the UP School
of Economics, Diliman, and Harvard University,
Cambridge, MA, USA. He also worked at the
Department of Budget and Management for 13 years before
migrating to Australia. He was a budget specialist and served as
Assistant to Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno.
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