Round and Round

From 1pm until dinner time I wandered Manila with Armand both on foot and by car in search of a viola. The very quick version of the story is that we met on facebook through a mutual friend because the three of us have an interest in music. Armand contacted me to say hi and share a link, I found some of his other songs, and before I knew it we were setting up times for me to record for my favorite song of his. Fast forward back to the present, and we eventually found a viola to borrow. We borrowed it (for free) but it is priced around $150 – very cheap. Not just inexpensive. Cheap.

Sometimes things happen and no one really has any sort of an explanation. Sometimes we just have to shrug and accept these things. How did my alarm get turned off during the night? Why do I have an odd number of socks? What causes storms when the weatherman promises sunshine? Or the question for this occasion, how the heck do we get lost when we have a map? Leneth (the mother of the family I was with) was kind and considerate enough to draw me a map so I would know how to get back. I handed it to Armand's driver (typical to have a driver in Manila...at least from the few people I've hung out with) and the next thing I knew we had stopped 3 times to ask for directions, never quite getting the same response. I tried calling the three numbers I was given but to no avail. Eventually when I finally did get an answer from Leneth and had her talk to the driver, we still had to make several U-turns before we found where we were supposed to be.

I spent a little time that night listening to the song and trying to come up with a good viola line, but the problem is that I don't have perfect pitch and I couldn't figure out the chords. I decided the best use of my time was to go to bed and try to pull together some ad lib in the studio after getting the chords. Unfortunately, the combination of no shoulder rest, a different viola (of slightly different size), not playing for 3 months, and only just getting the chords really made things much more difficult than I anticipated. The recording session ended up being more of an embarrassment than anything and I packed up while assuring Armand that if we could have another session and if I could get a hold of a viola in Boracay then I would actually be able to help. He scheduled another session during my last couple days in Manila and managed to have a viola delivered to Boracay for me.

The next morning I took a cab to the airport ($6.50 for about an hour's drive) to kick off my vacation in Boracay...