I keep a “journal” that holds all passing thoughts or ideas I encounter during my on-air sessions. I organize them by the hour marks. Last session (Sunday, 15 March), I got five pages full of them. I managed to keep them readable enough, although in-between the readable writings, there were the unreadables and weird drawings.

The First Hour

This is usually filled with pieces that are aired. I comment on the unusual (and sometimes downright weird) titles, moving or funny lyrics (like Andy Narell and Relator’s “Food Prices”), the beat and rhythm. I mostly write about the layperson view of a musical piece.

Yesterday, it was about John Coltrane’s “My Favorite Things”, a very long piece (13 minutes) and one of my favourite rendition of the song as well. I remember, years ago, that I listened to this version first before I ever watched “The Sound of Music”. Then, I was lost reading some analysis on the piece (like a thesis by Scott Anderson).

The Second Hour

While observation on musical pieces is still dominant, in the second hour my thoughts run to the outside world. First of all of course is the weather. The rain came.

While browsing for lyrics for Lisa Ekdahl’s “Rivers of Love”, I found an interesting read: “Here’s Why Pop Lyrics Tend to Make You So Sad”. Another click to the daily mail article that it referred, I was quite suprised to see that the research put my native language, Indonesian, in top five happiest languages.

The hour note: read more on the research.

The Third Hour

The virtual break commences as the Adzan for Maghrib is aired. This is the time for sholat and dinner.

I did a little maths for the calorie intake so far and decided against a dinner. Besides I brought along two cans of soy milk that is supposed to be a “healthier” choice.

The Fourth Hour

This is the hour when I go inside my head and let out whatever is inside.

This time it was the “Kill Me, Heal Me” afterthoughts I have been trying to pen down all week and planned to publish at OWL’s. Did a little diagram/visualization of it, on how to approach the subject from the mystery bit. At these moments I stayed away from browsing for other reviews because I wanted to get my own journey fleshed out without influence or interference, or at least with as little as possible. I did not get far as I seemed to get stuck with rants on excessive “music video” approach in parts of it.

There was also thoughts on how to get rid of unwanted thoughts.

You know, when you are trying to shake off an image or memory of someone, you recall their negative traits, why you won’t like them… C’est moi

The Fifth Hour

My goodness, The craving for food begins! I start making plans, of routes I would take, whether I should stop by the nearest junkfood joint’s drive-in and get a burger or pizzas, for example, or storm into a convenient store and grab crisps, snacks and drink. Or should I just pick up the phone and order a delivery?

The temptation was too much, I needed to think of appetite killers! I went back to observation on musical pieces of the hour as a Piazzolla’s piece performed by Al di Meola, “Tangata del Alba” was playing. I was trying to break down the performance and trace the “sonata” form in it (Tangata = Tango + Sonata).

The Last Hour

While the observation continued, time-keeping mode was on alert. Another Monday is coming which means the week’s task and assignments has been lining up on my to-do lists. As always, I tried to trick myself to really believe that I need to conform to that timetable and meet deadlines.

Cleaning up! Pens and pencils were wrapped, books and papers tucked away.

***

And there endeth another Sunday.

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