Features : The Trio - Road To The Promised Land
Running in tandem with the Parade of School (see previous post) is the Talentine which is one of the hightlights of my church's 3 day long youth conference. There are many categories in this competition such as solo (vocals), group (vocals), solo (instrumental), group (instrumental), drama and dance. I managed to get into the finals under the group The Trio in the instrumental group category.
A typical Trio practice
The story of the Trio traces back all the way to 2004 when Jason Ang (Erhu) and I formed the Double J to try audition for the talentine. Unfortunately there wasn't any intrumental category so we weren't selected. This year there's an inclusion of Paul T. (percussion).
Jason Ang's amazing in his erhu. Just hum him any tune and he's able to play it for you on the spot! I'm always buffled by how these players find those notes without any frets??? Hahaha. Paul's another amazing musician. Give him any surface and he can tap out interesting rythyms for ya! We've even tried letting him play on a Ikea paper basket and it still sounds good! Paul's from India and spent a few years learning Indian music so he's also able to come out with many tunes that's simple on hearing but complex on inspection. The complexity's got to do with the pitching and timing of the notes. The next time you watch some Bollywood movie do take note of the music! It's more than just about bollies running around coconut trees! :P
Anyhow, the video below was taken during our practice just before the audition. We had lots of fun playing this piece! It has evolved to much longer than this to date. Would love to show ya a video of it someday. Check out this audition version for now! :)
The Trio practicing "Road To The Promised Land"
A typical Trio practice
The story of the Trio traces back all the way to 2004 when Jason Ang (Erhu) and I formed the Double J to try audition for the talentine. Unfortunately there wasn't any intrumental category so we weren't selected. This year there's an inclusion of Paul T. (percussion).
Jason Ang's amazing in his erhu. Just hum him any tune and he's able to play it for you on the spot! I'm always buffled by how these players find those notes without any frets??? Hahaha. Paul's another amazing musician. Give him any surface and he can tap out interesting rythyms for ya! We've even tried letting him play on a Ikea paper basket and it still sounds good! Paul's from India and spent a few years learning Indian music so he's also able to come out with many tunes that's simple on hearing but complex on inspection. The complexity's got to do with the pitching and timing of the notes. The next time you watch some Bollywood movie do take note of the music! It's more than just about bollies running around coconut trees! :P
Anyhow, the video below was taken during our practice just before the audition. We had lots of fun playing this piece! It has evolved to much longer than this to date. Would love to show ya a video of it someday. Check out this audition version for now! :)
The Trio practicing "Road To The Promised Land"
posted by JasonOng at 1:06 AM
According to Urban Dictionary, an ever trustworthy source of weird information, a hollaback girl is:
2 Comments:
Man, I'm telling ya, I LOVE IT! (who do I sound like?? :)
It's real awesome! Love the energy and the rapport - makes for music that is truly alive. It's effortless and can tell tt you guys are really enjoying yourselves. Interesting choice of middle eastern tune, is it ad lib? :) Reminds me of gypsy music. You guys should go gig at Arab St. Promise you, will be v. popular.
On a more serious note, believe that true mastery of an instrument is when it becomes so much a part of you, it's 2nd nature to think of how to play something, be it a note, a tune, a rhythm or a sound effect.
BTW who's tt girl??
Hey thanks for your encouragement bro! We're still working on the song. Wanna make it WOW. Paul created many tunes for us. His indian background gave us many unconventional ideas. The girl in the video's Jason Ang's niece... heh...
God bless,
JASon
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