Altered Echoes....

A short history of my very brief musical career. :-)

Music has always been important to me. As far I could remember, I've always loved music. I was even a soprano at my elementary school glee club so many years ago. At first, I was content just to listen to it...then in the latter part of my life, not so long ago in fact, I received a calling of sorts and for a time, with the help of some friends, I actually started making it.

In 1998, at the ripe old age of 26 (well, as far as singing or playing in a band is concerned), I started out as a backup vocalist for a no name hobbyist band at work. By sheer coincidence, one colleague at work was into drums and had a drum set of his own. One played the bass, and another played lead guitar. Another officemate was the vocalist, and he sort of dragged me along for the ride. The performance was rather forgettable, but making music seemed to strike a chord with me (pardon the pun), and everything just seemed to fall into place. At the time we were into making music just for the hell of it. I was also nursing a broken heart from a marriage which was falling apart at the seams during that period. To get my mind off things, I taught myself chords, power chords, and various strumming techniques within a span of few months from first picking up a guitar. When my confidence level rose, I ended up buying my first electric guitar the following year.

It was a black Indonesian made Squier Affinity Stratocaster with three single-coil pickups and a rosewood fingerboard. I figured that rather than get a cheap strat knockoff might as well go for a Squier, considering that Squier is owned by Fender. No surprises really. Compared to an original Fender Strat (which is at least twice as expensive), the sustain is a bit light, and there's a bit of a "tinny" sound to it, probably because of the cheaper wood used for the body and the less expensive single coil pickups. All in all, a very forgiving instrument for a newbie like myself. Matched it up with a black Zoom 606 guitar effects pedal and I was rocking with the rest of them. I could never appreciate why some musicians smash their instruments at the end of every performance, other than the fact that they just could simply afford it. I couldn't. It took me three months to pay off my guitar which I bought using a credit card.

For a number of years after that, I settled in the role of rhythm guitarist and backup, sometimes lead vocalist, specializing in alternative and grunge music, like those performed by Nirvana, Stone Temple Pilots, Creed, and Pearl Jam, to name a few. Some old band members came and went, and new ones would sometimes join in for a gig or two. We adopted the name "Alter Echo" to represent our roots in alternative music, as well as the different lifestyle that we were living when we were playing, which was the opposite of our rather "somber" day jobs. We performed at parties, events, and some bars...and everything seemed fine, except that we realized that alternative, grunge and rock seem to have narrow audience. We had to go mainstream. Or at least, we had to try.

We dispensed with the rock image or at least lightened it, and I shelved my guitar, for a full time stint on vocals. I would have preferred to have kept on playing my guitar, but unfortunately, my skills are more geared towards the distorted or overdriven tones of rock music, and not the clean strumming and plucking of popular music. And besides, as I have learned the hard way...it's not always easy to sing and play the guitar at the same time.

Making the transition to more common music styles after welcoming to the band a new full time female vocalist was a bit on the arduous side in terms of preparation, but fulfilling nonetheless. The nice thing about having a female vocalist is that the line up is effectively doubled with the addition of female songs. It was at this point that we gravitated towards female songs by artists such as Lisa Loeb, Avril Lavigne, Indigo Girls, Cultured Pearls and D'Sound. I found myself singing a lot of John Mayer songs in addition to some of my old light alternative numbers and we also delved with 80's music. We had our run on a number of different venues, particularly in the Timog area. Our most notable performances were at Wow! Philippines in Intramuros. We really wowed them there. :-)

Unfortunately, changing priorities seem to have gotten the better of us. Some of us concentrated on our careers, or on our studies, or on our families and loved ones. After a while schedules became more and more difficult to manage, particularly for practice sessions. The final straw was when our lead guitarist found himself embroiled in a controversy which resulted in him dropping out of sight...and out of circulation. Too bad. In general, our interest in playing seems to have waned. But it had to happen sooner or later I suppose. Oh well. It was a good run.

Nowadays I still listen to music...a lot of music actually, practice my singing while driving or at videoke bars, and practice my guitar playing. Learned a bit of scaling and some riffs, and recently decided to try my hand at playing bass. Not so long ago I got myself a Peavey Grind™ Bass 4 BXP NTB four string bass guitar. Been teaching myself scalings and bass lines since then. I guess whether I perform professionally or for fun, in front of an audience or by myself, it doesn't matter. As long as I can sing or play.

Who knows? I may find myself back in the saddle sooner or later...these things have a way of just happening. It really was exciting "being in the band," and it's something that I would recommend a person does at least once in a lifetime, that is, if you're still young and talented enough. Sometimes it just begs the question: I wonder how far we would have gone had we really wanted to go the distance. I guess we'll never know. But one thing is for sure. It was fun while it lasted. And I will miss my bandmates. Well, until the next gig that is. :-)

Alter Echo from two years ago. Clockwise from upper left corner: Glenn (guitars), Chiqui (Vocals), me (Vocals), Nelson, (guitars), Gary (drums), Norman (bass)

"No matter how long you play the guitar, there's always something else to learn."

- Tom Petty (of Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers)

The same thing can be said about life, don't you agree?