YouTube Uploads
I’m going to start recording and uploading more videos to YouTube. There aren’t nearly as much stuff as there should be on there and I hope my contributions will be a valuable asset to those who are looking for more classical recordings on YouTube.
Oh, that, and most of my students are off island so I have quite a bit of free time – Yay! So look forward to it and enjoy! http://www.youtube.com/coufu
Student Recital
I’m holding a recital for all my students on Saturday, May 28, 2011 at 7:00pm at the UOG Fine Arts Building Room FA127. It’s my first time holding a recital for my students so it’ll be pretty exciting to see how things work out.
Check it out if you have time. See you there!
Krystal Paco Senior Recial
Check out my student’s senior recital. She’ll be playing a really diverse one hour set of saxophone music. It’ll be lots of fun!
iPad 2!
Posted by Doug Chan in Technology on April 7, 2011
I’ve been having a blast with my iPad 2. I hate to feel like I’m becoming and Apple fan, mainly because I was never crazy about Macs. I have to say though that this is a beautiful piece of hardware that will get a lot of use from me.
This is also coming from a Music Educator’s viewpoint. I found an app that teaches music theory and another app that shows rhythms and you have to tap them out on the screen. I think it’s amazing the kind of tools I have at my disposal now.
I probably will never get a Mac, but I have to say, I haven’t been in love with a piece of hardware in a very long time.
2011
Posted by Doug Chan in Exercise, Life and Stuff, Music on February 17, 2011
So far, the new year has been great to me.
I got back to the Philippines on the new year. Great way to start the year fresh after a nice vacation. Now that I’m back, I’m finally settled into the new year after a month of stressful juggling of new things.
First off, I now have 25 students. I usually max out at 15 students, but now this is just insane! All the cracks of my schedule are filled, and I barely have any time to do any of the other things I love to do (for work and enjoyment), like recording and programming websites. I still have time actually when the weddings are slow, but surprisingly enough, even tough we added a pianist at World Bridal, my hands are still pretty full. I may finally have my first student recital too, since I have a good number of students.
In addition to having lots of students, I have also opened my other room for my friend Jean Ann Hu to teach flute. She’s fresh out of college, so I’m excited that she’s able to jump on this opportunity and help me out.
Another thing that I’m really proud of is that I’ve started running! No more of this Wii-fit business (not that I didn’t enjoy it). Wii fit was great, but it’s time I graduated to some real exercise. Actually, I’ve always wanted to run, but the only convenient place really is UOG, and that’s a 15 minute drive from my place. Now there’s a pool near my house (just about 5 minutes away) and it has a nice .5 mile sidewalk surrounding its perimeter that a lot of people run on.
Anyway, I’ve been doing the C25k (Couch-to-5k) program, which is a 9 week program to get you to run a 5k nonstop. I started it since the new year, and now I’m on week 6. I’ve been able to work up to running 20 minutes straight from only being able to run for about 60-90 seconds at a time. Talk about a milestone! I can’t wait to finish the program and try to tackle another 5k to see if I can run it in about 30 minutes.
I also have a few recording projects still open. I am still working on Freedom Fries’ recording as well as recording a new band called “Flyspeck” (sp?). They have a pretty cool song coming out that you might hear on the radio soon! 
That’s the year so far. Oh, and I’m looking to start recording YouTube videos once again if someone is interested in helping me out. I have a nice video camera and editing software. I just wonder if someone out there is wanting to get into video editing and is interested in helping me out. I want to upload a video every week onto YouTube. Let me know if you’re interested.
Oh, and I may try to blog a bit more. Or maybe not. Who knows! Ciao.
Freedom Fries
So I recorded Freedom Fries today. They have a new song coming out soon, and I’m VERY excited! This song is even better than their first two, so look forward to hearing some awesome stuff on the radio, people of Guam.
Speaking of which, I forgot how much fun recording is. I’ve been recording Fiyahdub (actually mixing them down now, they have 4 songs), and now with Freedom Fries, man I am having a blast. It helps that I think that my mixing skill has gone way up since the days of Matala. It makes me want to go back and remix all of the old stuff to see how good I can make it sound. Listening to all the old Matala tracks, I really am unsatisfied with the way I mixed some of them, so I would like to go back and maybe just play around.
Lunch Disaster
Posted by Doug Chan in Life and Stuff on December 7, 2010
So today, I had two weddings: 11:00am Crystal and 1:00pm Crystal, both with Gigi. So since we had about an hour in between, we went downstairs to Magellan restaurant for buffet. It’s like only the best buffet evar!!! Plus we got tip from the wedding ($20 each!), so like yay.
We got a table, sat down, then proceeded to the buffet table. When we I got there, I’m like… oh look, the first dish is seafood. Let’s take a look at the next dish… more seafood. I walked around the whole buffet table… ALL SEAFOOD!! WTF?! Oh, for those of you that don’t know me, I don’t eat seafood. :/
Anyway, since I’m already there, I figure I might as well just try… So I get one of everything. They still have the bread I like, which is awesome. They had some seafood veggie soup, which my parents make all the time anyway so I had some of that too. Got a piece of shrimp, seafood pasta, a fillet of sea bass…
It turns out I really like sea bass. At least, the way they prepared it. It was very un-fishy and nice any crispy with a spicy sauce. The soup was even better than my parents make it too (probably all the MSG), so I found a few things that I could really like.
Anyway, turning lemons into lemonade, I managed to get full, so it turned out to be alright after all ^^ Oh, and of course, it was so much fun hanging out with Gigi as usual.
Seaside Concert
Posted by Doug Chan in Life and Stuff, Music on December 6, 2010
The symphony seaside concert was pretty alright. It’s the same old same old. It started with a Bell Choir, then UOG Singers, then GTB Brass Group, then UOG Jazz Band, then the Symphony. All groups did just fine, although I have to admit that the acoustics are pretty terrible. The sound amplification does an okay job, but without any monitoring, it’s almost impossible to hear what exactly is going on on stage.
I actually really hate the Ypao beach shell. It’s facing the worst way possible, because the sun is shining right into it for all of the afternoon, so it’s pretty damn hot for the whole entire concert.
Either way, each group performed just fine and I’m glad this musical weekend is over! Except I have another gig coming up on Friday for the Guam Woman’s Club and another concert for a church on Sunday, so meh. I was hoping to get some relaxation in before my PI trip, but I guess I might as well make as much money and stay as busy as I can, and my trip will be that much better.
Music Week
Posted by Doug Chan in Life and Stuff, Music on December 5, 2010
It’s been a very musical week. Of course, on top of my weddings and lessons, I took part with UOG Jazz Band concerts and I’ll also be playing tomorrow with the Seaside Concert at Ypao beach from 3pm-6pm. I’m still having some body aches, but overall, it’s really fun and I’m glad to be a part of it all. I can’t wait til it’s all over and I get a break! That’s what PI is for I guess
Also, one of my students is going to be playing for his church, and he hasn’t been the bright student of mine, but his mom has insisted on him taking lessons almost every day and he’s gotten way way way way better than any of my other students have been. This makes me want to start a daily class for people of certain levels, because it turns out, I guess meeting with my students once a week isn’t enough.
Anyway, he will be playing 4 short pieces, and he had such a hard time with it before (not to mention a bad attitude about hating all the songs I gave him), but now he loves them all and is doing really well. Hopefully this will inspire me to try to alter my teaching methods for the better and trying to recommend my other students to meet more often throughout the week.
2v2 Awesomeness with TimFox
Starcraft 2 – Played a bunch of 2v2s tonight with Tim. We played 6 games and won all of them. Yeah!
Also, there’s a new test server which is so fun to play on. I did my placement matches then placed silver. Then I played two more games and lost both hahah. I guess all the high level players want to see what it’s all about so I played some pro people. Pretty crazy. All in all, had a very fun time.