Rowan Atkinson - 'The Piano Player'

This is just brilliant. I love this. I wish I could play as well as he can!

Just Passing Time on a (Super Fun) beat!

Hey there guys!

This video was inspired by one of my long time favourite YouTube musicians, Ronald Jenkees. I am absolutely in love with his song "Super-Fun" and I decided to cover it.

HOWEVER

When I was trying to recreate his beat on my computer, I sort of started fooling around and came up with my own super-fun beat! I did, however, opt to keep the chords from Super-Fun. Not that the chords are strikingly original, it's just that they ARE super fun!

Forgive my lame moves :) I know it's geeky but I'm a total geek for music!

I designed that biting, nasty, dirty, crunchy, driving lead sound from a mere sine wave myself, and I really like it.

Hope you guys enjoy yourselves!

~ Advait

Bangalore Airport Customs - blithering, inefficient, unprofessional idiots.

Dear readers,

I am furious. So furious that anger is too small a word to describe what I'm feeling right now. And it's all the fault of the horrible, slow, annoying, pathetic customs process at the Bangalore airport.

This is what has gone down:

In an earlier post, I described how since January I've been trying to get a new keyboard - a Korg M50 - into India. Half a year I've waited. If that's not patience, I don't know what is.

I recently managed to get my hands on one and am having DHL bring it here from the States. So far, they've done a fantastic job. They flew my keyboard from the US to the UK in a day, and it took another day to land in Bangalore. According to their online tracking system, my keyboard landed in Bangalore at 6:00 AM this morning. I was delighted! I thought that they'd finish processing it in a couple of hours and I'd have it by mid-day.

It's now 8:30 PM. It has been in Bangalore for the last 14 and a half hours and is

STILL

STUCK

IN

CUSTOMS

...

can you believe that???

DHL took a mere two days to fly my keyboard across two and a half continents. Because of the losers down at customs, it's been stuck for the entire third day forty kilometers from where I live. Why the delay?

Isn't it obvious? They want money.

The lying, cheating, pieces of horse manure lowlifes who work there have done this before to people I know... they wait for the owners of the shipment to come to the airport themselves. Then, when the owners are in a weak position, the customs people will throw them some nonsensical piece of paper asking for a ridiculously large duty charge that has no actual legal footing. Since the shipment is important, many people just cave in and pay.

Make no mistake, people - the payment is not legitimate. It's a bloody bribe.

Bribe! They want us to bribe them! I've waited half a year and shipped the keyboard across thousands of miles for the keyboard to get stuck in a dingy little office forty kilometers away! This is ridiculous, man! How can they throw this at us civilians?

Lying, thieving, shamefaced, hypocritical, pathetic, barbarian, uncivilized, rogue, daft fools!

Are they always this idiotic or are they making a special effort today? I don't know what makes them so pathetic but it really works. Calling them idiots is an insult to idiots. I mean, how did they get there... did someone leave their cage open? Every human being has the right to be ugly inside, but they abused the privilege. Do they still love nature, despite what it has done to them? One can always tell when they're lying - their lips move. When they get to the men's room and the sign says 'Gentlemen' they put no heed to it and still just go on in. There are several people in the world that I find obnoxious and the Bangalore customs people are all of them. There is no vaccine against being a lowlife. One day they will find themselves for who they really are... and wish they hadn't.

I'd like to see things from their point of view but I can't seem to get my head that far up my a**.

I'll be back later.

- Advait

Heal The World - A Piano Tribute to Michael Jackson

Recent news of the legendary popstar's passing has moved me. I remember music lessons at my first school - in the music room there was this big poster of Michael's and I always wondered who it was...

Anyway, I'm rambling.

Heal The World has always been one of my favourite songs by Michael Jackson. I've performed it with a couple of choirs before and it seems only natural that my modest tribute to the man comes in this form. I hope I've been able to do justice to such a great work.

Hope you like it!

~ Advait

Dream Theater - Synthesizer Battle

Jordan Rudess, Derek Sherinian and John Petrucci go head to head! The clash of the titans! This has got me all excited now...

The almighty Korg M50!

Hi there guys!

I've just begun a 5 day countdown until I get my new synth workstation:

The Korg M50!

* cue "aaaaah" voice *

I'm getting a 73-key version, six octaves, for a very specific reason:

- I simply cannot survive with a piddly five octaves

- Though I would love to have the full 88-key version, it comes with weighted keys and thus makes the whole rig quite heavy. I wanted something light; I'm not known to have impressive upper body strength, really.

And isn't she gorgeous.

It's been a veritable NIGHTMARE trying to get one of these babies into India. None of the online stores ship to India. I tried contacting Korg's India distributor in Bombay, who told me that they didn't have it in stock, but they could order one for me. I asked how long it'd take, and they said "well, it'll take about 4 months for Korg to process it"

What.

The.

.

4 months? My vacations will be long over by then! (Well technically they'd be just over, but I don't want to brag). I tried a couple of other ways - tried sourcing it from within Bangalore... turns out they also would take 4 months. Blah.

I settled on a retail store in Manchester, UK. I'd wire them money via bank transfer, and then get DHL to pick it up from the store. One hiccup - the price was a ridiculous 1250 GBP. I could have gotten it for as many dollars from the US online stores and saved about 40 grand (in rupees). So Dad suggested we do buy it from a US online store and have it sent to one of our relatives. Turns out DHL charges practically the same for a shipment from the US as it does from the UK. So that's what I did!

SweetWater did a brilliant job of delivering the M50 to my relatives. It was done in a day and a half, which is remarkable given that shipping within the US is FREE (subsidized by SweetWater themselves). No strings attached.

I'm waiting now for DHL to pick it up and bring it to India... we estimate that it'll take until Friday to get here, so 5 days to go!

I wanted to review the Korg M50 in this post, but since I don't have it yet, it'll have to wait until monday! I'll be boring everyone who isn't into gadgety stuff, but what the heck. I doubt more than 10 people in the world read this blog on a regular basis anyway!

See ya!

~ Advait

God, It's Been Long.

Dear readers,

I sincerely apologize for not writing a single post in nearly half a year. In the run up to my exams and subsequently, I really haven't been able to write a single damn thing. I hope you'll forgive me.

In any case, I've redesigned the website, check it out: www.AdvaitSarkar.com

And I'm also planning a couple of new videos for YouTube!

More content coming soon, hang in there, guys!

~ Advait