Welcome to one of my article-type blogs. Enjoy.

Music and Inspiration by Az A. Samad

What inspires music? Or better yet, what is the purpose of music? What is the purpose of any art? Or better yet, when can we claim something is art?

Like many of the wonderful things in life. I really don't know. What I do realise helps me understand these things is my own perspective on these things.

I'm just gonna name song titles of pieces that I've written over these past few years and then relate a portion of the story or events that led to the composition of the songs.

"Acoustic Gestures", circa mid 1999 approx.

This song is something I don't play so much in my live shows of late but was one of the earliest songs that came about with strong contrasting sections. It was a very emotional piece for me in the sense that it came about out of unrequited love at that point in time. 

A friend heard me playing it and then suggested the title really since she realised that my main musical expression was on the acoustic. I didn't think much of the title back then, but later on I realised that the title captured the gracefulness of the piece as well as part of my personality by having "acoustic" in the title.

The development of the song came about when Encik Rosdan Abbas, (my future guitar mentor) heard it and offered suggestions in extending the piece via some reharmonisations and an ending that I don't think I would have thought otherwise. Rather interesting because the piece was basically kind of in C Lydian and the final chord that close the piece is D Major7.

"Echoes Of Bangsar", circa late 2002 approx.

I remember performing this piece for the first Viva Voce show back in October 2002, and at that time I think the piece was already fully formed. I remember when I was working on the piece that I initially got the introduction which is basically harmonics on the 5th, 7th and 12th fret. The main attraction for me was the rhythm that made up the harmonic section.

It was later on that I figured out the A section and the B section which I like very much. This piece remains a fixture of my live sets. Very fun to play, plus it starts with harmonics.

"Antartika", original circa 2001-2002 (new version reworked November 2003) 

This is definitely a piece that owes a lot to Tommy Emmanuel in a way. This song is my attempt in trying to make a happy,pop Tommy type song minus the altenating bass stuff. There's a lot of concepts that I explore in this piece though it actually just goes to making the piece sound cool.

For example the piece uses a decending bassline in both the A and B sections and there the use of paralel minor7 voicings over a static pedal top-note melody in the B section.

Another guitaristic thing I used was the theoratically wrong DMajor voicing with an added natural 4th. Thing is, these things sound great on guitar when voiced in context. It's amazing how the coolest sounding things contradict conventional theory.

One thing I realised for the longest time was that although I really loved playing this song, it always seemed to short for me, it was something like a minute plus and it was only when I met Eric (Roche) that I finally got some ideas on extending the piece. About a month plus after the meeting I finally settled on the version that I play now, whereupon there are some modulations and all. Thank you Eric.

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I need to go off now but I reckon this piece will have a second part to it with more songs disected. Comments people!

Cheers.