Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Well maybe many do not know that I come from parents who were musically inclined. My dad knows how to play a few instruments but turn out to be a primary school teacher as during 50s being a musician does not pay well. My mum used to sing and perform in school and she claims to be a great singer. Well, I know all my family members include my siblings can sing but none of us work in the music industry. I am the only child in my family who knows how to read chinese as all of my siblings include myself was educated in english and malay and none of us ever study chinese from primary to secondary.As my parents were bilingual and know chinese and english, since young I am exposed to different kinds of music. My dad can read music notes, loves instrumental and classical music and english, malay and chinese while my mum is chinese song lover. So I get exposed to different kind of music. Due to my interest to sing chinese songs and watching Hong Kong chinese serials, I started to learn how to write in chinese at home coach by my parents on basic chinese characters. I managed to improve further by reading chinese newspapers and learn how to write daily copying words from news article slowly and my dad bought me english-chinese dictionary for me to refer.When I move to secondary school my exposure to chinese language was greater as I have more friends joining me at school who came from chinese primary. They taught me more about chinese language and we share chinese music. At that time we are more towards listening to Cantonese and Hong Kong singers. I started with Sam Hui (my sister's idol), Danny Chan, Alan Tam, Anita Mui and finally Jacky Cheung. I still recall my group of friends who are Karaoke fans we used to go sing K almost every week. And I would always challenge our group best singer a guy who called Alan and we gave him nick Alan Tam. He can sing almost exact like Alan Tam but not as good looking though.As I too like to sing, I would always learn new songs to challenge Alan. We both love Alan Tam and Jacky Cheung and that was ages ago. Now we no longer in contact. When I move to Singapore to work 10 years ago, I started to listen more to Mandarin songs. Before that I do listen to Eric Moo, Wang Jie, Pan Mei Chen, Emil Chau, Chi Ching and a few old Taiwanese singers but still at that time in Malaysia, Cantonese songs were more popular.I grew to enjoy listening more mandarin songs than Cantonese after Jacky and Alan Tam both stop accepting awards. I kinda miss them. Later I started to listen to singers like Sally Yeh, Jay Chou, A-Mei, Fish Leung, and now Kelvin Tan, I love mandarin more. Somehow when I sing I can forget about work or other stressful matters. But I only like to sing in Karaoke and not perform for people as I am not a performer (haha).I do have a few experiences performing for audience. I was a choir member in secondary school from sec 1 to 3. In church I used to be in the worship team for about 2 years but stop now. I ever perform once at church suppose to sing in a group but end up sing solo when the rest could not sing. Somehow my 'yung chi' just came out of sudden after realising my group members open their mouth but no voice coming out from their mouth and in front of few hundred people its embarassing if I keep quiet just because I do not want to be discovered and ask to sing solo in future. I tried to keep my singing ability from others as I never enjoy performing on stage solo. That is how my singing talent was discovered and was invited to join worship team. This is not something I enjoy as I find it stressful leading worship so I move to be member in worship team instead. Then in 2004 I was being 'sabo' to join IT idol competition where 6 IT staff were selected. Only 1 was volunteering the others were voted and mine was being selected by my ex boss and my colleague wrote a program to vote more than 1000 times for me so I was automatically participate without knowing till last minute, I got most vote. It was the most stressful experience I ever had. I am bad in remembering lyrics so the committee prepare tv for me so that I could read lyrics. But that time I was so stressful I just sing quickly so that I can get over with the competition and out of sudden a guy turn up with bouquet of flowers to present to me halfway during the competition (arranged by my ex boss, the guy is one of IT staff from another dept). This actually interrupted my performance and after that I kinda forget the lyrics. But still thank to my 2 male colleagues who cannot sing, I somehow manage to get 3rd place out of 6 contestants. I was happy that I need not sing another song which was required for the final 2 contestant. Well, I admit I can sing but I am not a great singer and can never be as good as recording artistes. If I was 10 years younger, I can consider joining vocal school to improve my high notes which was my weakest point and join singing competition but I no longer have this interest.
spoke at : 7:46 AM
If music be the food of love, play on. This is a blog where I share with people about myself and my favourite Singaporean Singer Kelvin Tan Wei Lian. All who are my friends, colleagues and family are welcome to come to my blog and get update here. I am part of Kelvin Tan's FC who is named the Blue Angels since he won PSS1 in 2005 
