This is one fantastic fully illustrated book with 400+ photographs on world music. In case you do not know, this event is held annually in Sarawak Cultural Village and nowadays is a fully sold out event every year. The variety of music played there is awesome and you should be there to witness it. If you can't, just watch the videos at www.youtube.com/12playbyear. After that, the next best thing is to own a copy of the book on the event. If you have not been there, you can whet your appetite with the video and this book and after that, go there for the real thing - just like what I did. In fact, I plan to organize another trip there next year. Want to join me?

Normally selling at 60 UK Pounds (http://tinyurl.com/2un42od) for this fully illustrated book, you can get it at only USD53.00 (RM185.50) inclusive of delivery from Play By Ear Sdn Bhd. Just click on the Buy Now link.

Slightly more than 100 days after the death of my partner, I was sifting through a number of documents which I needed to clear. Among the pile, I came upon a document with the above title. It was probably the 1st article written by Dr Vincent Lee slightly more than 10 years ago. It must have been scanned and photostated many, many times because no OCR software could properly decipher the words due to the irregular toning and moire patterns.

Anyway, I put it through the software and then painstakingly cleared up all the errors.  Reproduced here is the text of the article he penned. Essentially, he has captured the essence of what Play By Ear is about.