Tomorrow’s the 3rd annual Songcraft concert. Everyone’s pumped up for it, which is very encouraging. It makes all the preparations seem worth it. I’m really pumped up for the concert too, cos this is the first time we’re holding it in a slightly more posh venue, so I’m really excited to see how things turns [...]
Archive for the ‘Composers’ Category
Concert
Friday, 20 November, 2009
The Emotional Connection
Tuesday, 28 July, 2009
I can’t speak for all songwriters, but when I’m trying to write songs the most important thing to me is that the songs should establish an “emotional connection” with the listener. And the earlier in the song that the emotional connection can be established, the better. The method doesn’t really matter – you could be [...]
Tchaikovsky Is The Man
Sunday, 8 March, 2009
I attended an SSO performance of Tchaikovsky music over the weekend, cos it’s been awhile since I’ve attended the SSO…and well, it’s Tchaikovsky after all! Anyway, the evening’s programme consisted of only 2 works – the legendary Piano Concerto No. 1 in Bb Minor and the Symphony No. 5 in E Minor. As far as [...]
Schumann’s Kinderszenen Op.15 No.1
Thursday, 22 January, 2009
I recently agreed to be the wedding pianist for a dear friend of mine. (She obviously doesn’t know too many pianists, that’s why she decided to take the risk of choosing me, haha! Just kidding.) And whilst brainstorming on appropriate pieces which I could play at the service, one of the pieces I thought of [...]
My Year In Songwriting
Monday, 22 December, 2008
I thought I’d reflect a bit on my year in songwriting. Considering this is only the second year which I’m seriously writing songs (I only really started last year), I am still very much learning as I go along, and in the process hoping to hone my songcraft. Overall I am very satisfied with my [...]
When Dreams Came True
Monday, 24 November, 2008
The last week was so hectic for me that I’ve now officially fallen ill. But ultimately, last Saturday night’s concert was simply one of the best memories of my life. It’s so heartening to hear that the concert meant so much to so many people. For some of us (myself included), it was the fulfillment [...]
Perfect!
Sunday, 23 November, 2008
Tonight’s 2nd annual Songcraft mini-concert was simply perfect! Sometimes I need to pinch myself to see if all this is real. Everything seems to go so perfectly when it comes to Songcraft. I truly want to thank God for blessing this wonderful little group since its inception. It is truly an immense joy to know [...]
Film Scoring
Tuesday, 7 October, 2008
You know how in life sometimes the discovery of one thing tends to lead to another and stuff. Anyway about a month ago I learnt from a friend that the NUS Wind Symphony (which he plays in) will be putting up their annual concert “Da Capo” at the Victoria Concert Hall on 17th Oct (plug [...]
To Move The Listener
Tuesday, 29 July, 2008
I was recently reading a book about the great composers (“The Great Composers” by Jeremy Nicholas) and came across this particular paragraph written of the great opera composer Giacomo Puccini: “As a manipulator of audience emotions, Puccini was second to none. He has been much criticized for this, but moving the audience is a large [...]
“The Gift Of Melody”
Sunday, 29 June, 2008
From the Songcraft blog: “I’ve often spent countless hours pondering about the concept of “melody”. Many songwriting books will tell you that writing great melody is a gift – some have the “gift of melody” while others don’t. My question, then, is how do you define this gift of melody? Is there really such a [...]
