Tribute to Connie Leung

June 13th, 2018 Tribute to Connie Leung

On March 8th, 2018 I was just getting ready to step out to visit Connie at the hospital, a sudden urge came to me to turn back and grab my travel guitar before dashing out of the door.

I still remember it was quite an effort to make an “official appointment” with Connie (she had many friends and family queued up to visit her, you need to book a “slot” on specific day and time) and even at the last minute when I was nearly there I got her call saying she has some other visitor and I should arrive a bit later or go to her another day.

With a guitar with me, Connie immediately assumed that we were gonna do some worship right away. “I’m gonna sit back and relax and you sing for me, I don’t think I have enough breath to sing now.” (which I know it was an excuse of being embarrassed to sing in a random setting)

Originally I had no agenda for the night, simply bringing out the guitar hoping for the right moment to unleash the power of music in the hospital room. A flash of idea came up and I asked casually without expecting a positive answer “Would you like to try songwriting?”

I saw her face light up, her playfulness immediately jumped out of her. Without any hesitation she replied “Why not? Let’s do it!!!!!! But…how?”

Long story short, within 5mins we were already writing our first ever song, a song that totally captures her playfulness and humour despite the situation. She had just finished a PET scan and wanted to use a song to capture the moment.

I was in shock to witness her creative ideas automatically flowing out onto her fingers typing out the lyrics on her phone while I tried to catch up with her speed improvising a melody line and guitar accompaniment to go with her lyrics. Within 20 mins connie’s first hits 主打歌 is already completed. Our laughter were contagious triggering curious eyes around the room.

Freedom Comes

Am

What a day?

C

What a day?

G F Am

Drinking 8 glasses of water within 45 mins today!!!????

Am C

Ridiculously, you can’t pee…

G Am

You can’t pee…….. Right away!!!

Am

Hold it up!

C G Am

Hold it up!! Pressure innnnnn… my butt!

Am C G F

Do you know how I truly feel when you tell me to hold it up!!!???

Am C G F

Freedom comes, freedom comes…when I could let it go release it all at once.

Am C

Freedom comes, freedom comes,

F G Am

Felt like you blew it but indeed you have been set free…ahhh!!!(Relieved)

These are the magic moments I love capturing- of someone suddenly transition from an inactive/passive mood state to becoming fully themselves and fully alive in that present moment with music.

“Freedom comes” marked our beginning of a spontaneous songwriting project we worked together for two months from March to April.

Her physical condition causing her to be relying on oxygen tube, at times the pain in her body causing her different challenges. Yet the speed of her creativity and productivity were unparalleled to her condition and never eased to amaze me. Every week we produced 1-2 songs right on the spot next to her bed in the oncology ward. As if she just pressed a button and downloaded all her inspirations automatically, it took on average one hour for her to finish writing up each song’s lyrics. I would then take her completed lyrics written in lighting speed and initial melodic ideas to turn them into a song with arrangement at home on the same day.

Connie, one can never feel bored for a single moment around her, she has this sense of humor in her to transform any conversations into a subtle, hilarious joke that fully capture the essence and the emotions with her play of word.

Her personal stories and testimonies were condensed in song format-each song retelling her humor, friendship, identity, doubt, faith, hope, family, worship and direction. She has written a total of 11 songs’ lyrics during our time together which are part of the legacy she left behind, continuing to inspire whoever come across these songs to walk this journey of faith she had been through.

All about Jazz

June 7th, 2018, San Diego, U.S.A

In the corner of a hotel, the jazz band already started playing, with a piano, a trumpet, double bass, drum set, saxophone.

My Couchsurfing host, who’s a performing saxophonist was excited to introduce me to the local music scene. It’s been a long while since I heard jazz live, this is non-existent in hk or perhaps I haven’t been deliberately exposing myself to it. And it’s hard to find real jazz in hk, people claimed they are playing jazz but most of the Asian are playing it simply by looking at the sheet music rigidly with minimal improvisation.

In this hotel setting, everybody gets to solo up front, no agenda what’s on the program for the night. Someone starts a chord progression and everybody joins in.

I’m always fascinated by how jazz musician can memorize so many standards’ chord progression and just change keys and play on the fly. One of the bassist shared with me afterwards “once the music is in your system, you just start playing by ear and predict the next chord, even for song we haven’t heard or played.”

Tonight it is actually a jam session in disguise where anybody in the audience can jump in front and play along. There are four saxophonist, flutist, vocalist, drummer in the audience waiting to be called up to join the jam.

What is jazz? My host, goes “Jazz is whatever you define it.” Another performing jazz pianist I met goes “there’s no such thing as Jazz.”

So what exactly is this mysterious thing that Asian musician seem to be yearning for?

For the classically trained musician in Asia, Jazz seems to be portrayed as a high art, or more like a high skills that is hard to attain and grasp just like perfect pitch. One yearn for the sound, the unexpected, the freshness, the energy and essentially we yearn for the freedom of expression portrayed in Jazz that classical music simply won’t provide.

Jazz, I reckon, is essentially improvisation with a solid harmonic framework that everybody knows, with so much decoration on the “melody line”. The sound of jazz is characterized by the variation of the major7th, minor 7, dominant 7th chord, as well as all those “more-than-triad” chords, the syncopated, swing rhythm also makes it “jazz”.

I asked the two jazz musician to describe the main difference between Jazz and Western classical music theory in a nutshell-“Western classical music is functional, directional, everything is working together to go somewhere, its linear; whereas traditional Jazz is base on ii-V-I progression but it can go to all sort of direction and started modulating anywhere it wants, it’s scattered; but both late classical music era (after the romantic era) and late jazz are like expressionist, the music is like you are painting in colour patches, you use whatever sounds good to you, whatever you wanna express you play it.”

What amazed me from tonight’s performance was the confidence and ease of playing of people who just jumped out from the audience, the level of professionalism and musicality was so high that it’s hard to imagine that they didn’t have any rehearsal nor warmup and it’s pure improvisation on the spot that’s based on all the knowledge and skills one has soaked in for years. These are the in-the-moment musical expression.

Community “choir” for the homeless

June 8th, 2018 San Diego, U.S.A

With my host’s saxophone on my back, I jumped onto the back of the motorbike with him to downtown San Diego on a sunny day. After an exhilarating ride, we arrived at a community church in the heart of downtown. The band is ready with the ‘choir’ warming up ready to sing. The choir made up of people who are homeless for whatever reasons, gathering here every week to sing together without agenda. Anyone can suggest a song, go up front and lead or improvise a section.

When a soloist goes in front, the choir acting as the accompanist singing out the call and response parts and harmonizing.

The band: a drummer, a percussionist, a pianist, bassist and a saxophonist provide the music backdrop for the people to sing along. The parts blend so well in this setting, people won’t feel too awkward if they don’t sing or if they wanna sing loud or soft, people can feel comfortable to do whatever they feel like in the moment.

The environment is so chilled out, no pressure at all, people came up front to lead a song, sing in whatever style they want, improvise the lyrics based on the song structure. It was ear opening to hear someone improvise on amazing grace, totally transforming the lyrics to a personal story made up in the moment.

People are moving, clapping, singing along with the music, some are just relaxed, with their eyes closed soaking in the music. The backing music felt like it’s a tranquil lake for people to flow on it. Containing and comforting.

The song selection are all the classic: somewhere over the rainbow, amazing grace, L what’s going on, this little light of mine, what a wonderful world, let it be, change the world etc.

It’s a “choir”, but there’s no instruction, no correction, no assigned parts, no right and wrong ways to sing, no official leader. There’s a facilitator occasionally giving signals for instrumental or vocal solo, affirming song selection decided by the group, marking the pulse, signaling the sections.

This is the place where people can be relaxed, be themselves, be connected, socialize and have fun together. This is musicking, the true spirit of music.

Im constantly wondering how I can make this happen in the HK culture, it would take a great effort to introduce such spontaneity and freedom of expression into the culture. This is what the Asian culture needs: people need to have space to loosen up, let out all those creative energy, break through their fear and stop thinking about how people think of them when they can just be authentic.

The spirit of music making

May 25th, Kathmandu, Nepal

A Couchsurfing host, a visual impaired person who started a local NGO helping children and adults with visual impairment invited me to his office in Thamel. His office is filled with supplies waiting to be distributed to people in need. I’ve discovered a guitar at the corner of the room and was eager to unleash its power.

Sushil has never played before and I thought it would be a great opportunity for him to have a crash course on guitar.

We rely on touch to explore the shape of the guitar, the spatial relationship of the strings, the relationship of the pitch and thickness of the strings.

It’s all about kinesthetic memory and sensation of the finger tips that help finding the right position and sound of learning chords.

It took him no time to find the G, C, Em chord that can get any pop songs going. Sight is actually not an advantage of learning music, Sushil learns as fast as anybody else.

A friend of him who owns the little local restaurant next door came to serve us tea and was keen to try out the guitar. He has never played yet his intention of playing was so strong, he took the guitar in his hands, looked at me and shook his head telling me he doesn’t know how to play, yet he immediately started two traditional Nepalnese song with just simple strumming on the open strings that was in a different key to his singing. Strangely enough, I was touched by this “out of tune” moment.

This is essentially the spirit of music making, anybody can play and make music despite their skills. Instrumental techniques and musicality are two separate things, the two elements don’t necessarily go hand in hand.

Everybody has an innate musical self in them waiting to be unleashed in the right circumstance. Musical instruments are just the tool yet musicality is inside each one of us in various strength.

Hidden music talent in Kathmandu

May 23, Kathmandu, Nepal

Today I arrived at my Couchsurfing family ‘ s house away from the city center. The host was eager to introduce me to their entire family upon arrival. He was excited to introduce his son to me, a 15 year old who plays the guitar.

We sat down for some massive bowls of saltless popcorn and he was ready to entertain us with his guitar playing..fighting for attention alongside the TV.

As if I found a hidden treasure tucked away in a place you wouldn’t expected such talent. He is no regular boy who claims to play the guitar, he is the guitarist.

John Meyer’s song first came out of him, with such ease of finger picking style of playing, effortless recall of the lyrics, smooth and confident voice. From John Meyer to Justin Biber to Beatles to Yiruma to movie soundtracks to his own songs he played them all effortlessly. His playing was almost automatic, he was watching the TV as he played for me, all of these action on a cheap guitar that no one would give any attention to. His playing and singing captured my soul.

He has only learned the guitar for 7 months, all thanks to Youtube. Unbelievable.

This young guy has the look, the skills, the voice, the musicality ready to be the future guitarist celebrity from Nepal, hopefully this hidden treasure will be able to be dig out and the value being recognized. He is quite an inspiration.

Somehow I wish I could have this kind of memoraization talent, to have a massive pool of songs in my head ready to pull them out when called upon.

Music Jamming at Nepal 2

May 21, Kathmandu Nepal

We spent our second day at one of the local school tucked away on a hill in a suburb of Kathmandu. Most of the classroom are without lightbulb, utilizing the fade sunlight that’s shining into the window.

We prepared a music program as one of the after school program in one of the darkest classroom. Standing in front of the classroom, one can barely see the face of the students.

It’s a Christian school and we were preparing to lead some worship on guitar and mini djemebe. Didn’t carry the big suitcase of instrument with us today but a few percussion due to the 15 mins hike involved to get to the school.

Little did we know that when the music started, it went wild and couldn’t be stopped. From simple worship to improvisation of pop songs. The sound of music filled the dark room and leaked to the rest of the school, it’s contagious, attracting other students to peak in from the window.

I saw a few of them closing their eyes, soaking in the worship music, the boys in front were fighting for the chance to accompany the music with some small percussion and the mini djemebe offered.

Their musicality surprised me, they need no warm up, a few who rushed out in turns for the djemebe poured all their energy right into the instrument the very first second the person touched it, resulting in an accompanying rhythm that captured all the nuances I was playing on the guitar. A regular untrained person would normally go up to a djemebe and do a steady pulse of 1 2 3 4, a trained musician who’s not a percussionist would normally give a simple rhythm that simulate a bass on first and snare on third. There kids here picked up the nuances of the strumming pattern from the guitar, filling in all the gaps between a 1 2 3 4 into a 1xxx 2xxx 3xxx 4xxx with syncopation and accents that simulate a full drum kit.

I was totally blown away by their musicality.

The group worship finished, the principle usher the younger students to go home, leaving the older one in the classmate who want to stay behind. They already have the instruments in their hands, eager for the music to continue. Without a word, we started improvising. Their spirit were so high that really drove the music, one of the boys decided to use the guitar box as a drum , another using the table to tap out the rhythm, two on shakers and rattle, one on guitar along with mine. From improvisation we moved onto pop song after pop song, I was so surprised by the amount of western songs they know, from Beatles to Imagine Dragon they know them all.

Thanks to internet, music skills can be easily acquired for those who has the passion, these boys actually self learned everything from YouTube in just a few months. However their musicality and skills already way surpasses the regular crowd that put years of attempted learning but still complain about how their finger hurts. Music does tests one’s will power, passion and endurance level.

This is the type of music making that really revitalize someone’s soul. As simple as a guitar and a guitar box and some small percussions are already enough to execute the full power of music.

Music jamming at Nepal 1

May 20, Kathmandu Nepal

It’s my first time travelling with a suitcase of music instruments, I’m here on a mission attempting to bring out the joy of music making with the local children in a school and a trafficking shelter.

There were around 20 children in the shelter, after a program full of singing and dancing they prepared for us, we prepared a surprise for them. Unloading the suitcase to present the assorted musical instrument in front of them was one of the magic moment. I saw their eagerness to rush in front to try and take their pick, their faces brightened up, nothing can hide their excitement.

Our team started a song, the children eagerly followed the rhythm with their percussions. The musical force was so strong that the two groups were connected right away at that moment.

We did some call and response and some improvised singing. The room was filled with songs sung at the top of their lungs, music that’s so loud that I had to control the volume with my body gesture.

One can observe a lot about each culture by the way people respond to music. Music cannot lie. You see someone’s true emotions, personality and culture upbringing right away in a simple act of playing music. Are people spontaneous? At ease with improvising? At ease with using their voice and instrument? Creative? Confident? Are people at ease to be themselves in front of a group?

Despite what the children have gone through, most are the victim of human trafficking and earthquake survivor who have lost their parents, I saw the amount of joy and liveliness on their face in that present moment.

Are we living in the present moment? Are we willing to let go of the past or use the past to propel us forward?

Drum Circle Facilitator Intensive Training

I had the privilege of attending the 6 days intensive drum circle facilitator training with Arthur Hull, one of the well known master drum circle facilitator who started the drum circle movement around the world.

I’ve heard, read, watched everything about Arthur and finally got to meet him in person. One should never trust the impression you conceived of a person by merely looking at YouTube video and photos, you simply have to attend their class to get a full picture.

After six days, I must have to say that Arthur is truly the legendary drum circle master. He reminded me of Master Oogway in Kungfu Panda, someone full of wisdom for life, packed with years and years of experience, have trained many other well known facilitators all around the world. His workshop is all about drum circle and is also not about drum circle at the same time.

I felt like everything single word comes out of him are essence extracted from years and years of experience. It was like a leadership training, where every aspect we learned can be directly applied into running small groups. And every sentence he spoke were nugget of wisdoms for life and everyday living. Drum circle? It’s just the tool or even the metaphor for learning.

Drum circle is a magical thing. I’ve been dying to attend a real drum circle ever since I’ve discovered such phenomenon existed from the internet. This past week it felt like I’ve just cramped in as many session (6 hours a day x 6 days) that could equal a whole year worth of drum circle experience.

Drum circle: in essence, it’s a group music making experience where people gathered together to play different types of drums and percussions. It requires no prior music skills and training, welcoming everybody from any age and ability level to join the circle. There’s a facilitator who assist the group to experience improvised music making together.

Drum circle can be evolved into different variation to suit different settings used by community musician, music therapist and music teachers to serve a range of population.

Rhythm, the backbone of music is indeed the simplest, the most accessible and the least intimidating form of music making that welcomes everyone into the act of playing.

Busking in Beijing

May 10, Beijing

Ive just realized that I’m actually living next to a backyard that’s seriously full of treasures. China never stops amazes me, once again it’s the Chinese musician and the aspect of community music that’s keeping my eye wide open.

It’s our third day into our drum circle facilitation training, just a light hearted suggestion of going to busking after our 6 hours drum circle training was being taken seriously by my new found musician friends in class.

10 of gathered after class, with our borrowed drums and percussion headed off to the park nearby that has a charged entrance fees of 2RMB.

My new friends have once again completely revolutionized the concept of busking for me and turned my dream conceived last year into a reality.. well in fact it’s busking turned into a random community music event in a random park.

This is a story of the different responses of the locals to our music at four different busking location within 2.5 hours. (Conversation translated from Chinese, trying to stay close to the original meaning as possible)

Busking location no. 1

We found a spot under the tree and immediately started playing, within 10 seconds of our playing, we already get a mini crowd of 10 passerby surrounding us.

Out of nowhere my friends started some well known Chinese oldies on top of their lungs, with flute, drums and voices in full force, our mini concert has started.

At 7:45 someone goes “we’ve been playing drums all week, let’s do some singing!!” There was a big dancing group with a blasting speaker next to us and we decided to move to another spot.

Busking Spot no.2

We found our spot, settled ourselves down and as we began to play, an old lady with her sword (literally) came out and goes very politely in her gentle voice and very indirectly “do you mind if you girls move to the lamp post near the light? We’ve been in this exact spot to practice our sword move for over 20 years now. This is our spot.”

Ok…that’s a very polite way of reinforcing her own territory. We tried to argue back but there’s no point so off we go packed up again and hunt for the next spot.

Busking Spot no.3

Just nearby where we got kicked off on the main road of the park, making sure we are not in anybody’s territory. Since last spot, we have starting to accumulate a small group of fans following us. Quickly settled down and immediately got our show started, within 20 seconds we already have a crowd that’s more than 20 people surrounding the circle.

As the music started, it was becoming more and more like a community drum circle, we invited people to join us trying out instruments…people were asking enthusiastically “do you girls have a group name??”. As if we could be potentially famous if we keep doing this every week for the next few months.

After around 15-20mins a lady suddenly came in the circle grumbling and scorning us “I live right next to the park and your drumming is so loud and disturbing that is making my heart so uncomfortable. My heart couldn’t stand it anymore, I’m calling the police!”

We a bunch of music therapist was so surprised but full of understanding and empathy that we immediately stop the music, ready to move and try different ways to calm her down verbally. Little did we know we have a secret fans following us, an elderly man started arguing with her on our behalf “This is a public park, everybody deserve to use this park whatever they want and they paid their entrance to be here!!!! You are ridiculous and unreasonable!!”

It’s like we were caught between two parties and had to console both sides..

Busking point no. 4

Finally we moved into the middle of the park right next to the lake, the previous crowd followed us and even before sitting down we already have a crowd of 30 surrounding us eagerly waiting for the music to start.

We met two African sport coaches at the hotel where we did the training and they were so curious and wanted to join us. They finally found us here and join in with our circle, sharing some of their songs. The local Chinese audience were so ready to move into the circle for some dance move, a few of them came in the circle and shared their favorite song while we accompanied them. By the end of the session a lady full of admiration goes “Please come back tomorrow, we will be here and will bring a crowd.”

We have successfully hosted a community drum circle out on the street, immediately taking what we’ve learned from the workshop out into the local community. Unbelievable.

I remember my last trip to China at Lanzhou where I was so inspired and moved by the local musician where they gathered to play on the top of the hill, just for themselves and not for the sake of performance. This time I get to be directly involved in it and it was exhilarating.

The circle dismissed at 9pm, i felt like this is the first time ever where I’ve done this massive amount of musicking within a day. We’ve just spent 6 hours in a drum circle, then another 2.5 hours improvising on the street. 8.5 hours unbeatable musicking experience. Musicking is about relationship and connection, a totally different concept from practicing and making music on your own.

Music is like medicine(or drugs) and when you have like this much of it in your body, you can imagine how it’s like…it’s a natural high.

Couchsurfing & Music

May 7th

Finally managed to meet up with the random couchsurfer who invited me to the random Guqin event yesterday. She was full of energy and i was blown away by her enthusiasm at my very first second of meeting her.

She seems to be someone already researched my background, listened to my music and she was ready to present a music project proposal to me.

What if we combined Travel X Music Performance X Music composition together. That’s quite a thought to ponder.

Wouldn’t it be amazing if I can combined everything that I love doing together in one platform.

Perhaps Couchsurfing and music go hand in hand actually. Indeed I have been inspired by a lot of people on Couchsurfing and especially the musicians that I’ve met in all of my journey.