Seminar

Went to sing ktv with Ks in the morning and went back to school in the evening for my cca. The activity today is a seminar by some songwriters in a local company, Vision In Music, and they are to teach us the basic skills in song composition and lyrics writing. The seminar started off slightly late due to some technical problems. The first speaker was knowledgeable, engaging and humourous, providing many insights on song composition, current trends in the chinese pop music industry and even a live demo of impromptu melody composition using a keyboard. We were all really impressed as not only he can play the keyboard very well, he thought of a melody and beat within a really short period of time.

The three important steps towards song composition are namely, one: we should have mastered a musical instrument, preferably guitar, piano or keyboard, two: we should know "ying yue yue li" or music theory, like notes, bars, etc, three: we must enjoy listening to music. He also described the chinese pop trend in recent years from David Tao's R&B, to Jay Chou's hip-hop rap, to Mayday's rock. Also ,he encouraged budding songwriters to listen to english songs more as they are of greater musical range and the number of "inspirations" will increase. Referencing from chinese songs is not recommended as they are often the second-hand goods after insight from english songs. He then listed some examples of chinese songs that have been referenced from english sources.

Next up was a video presentation of the company's achievements and another speaker teaching us lyrics writing. There is just one condition for lyrics writing, which is knowing how to write the language. Many songs tell the same story, eg. guy falls in love with gal, they break up, and guy feels sad and lonely. However, there are many different ways to convey the story, the subtlety and correct usage of words play important roles in writing lyrics. He also quoted some lyrics from Tanya's songs which are well written.

There was a song presentation after the talks composed by the second speaker and the singer's vocals is really good. It was an informative yet interesting talk although i doubt i will ever compose a song in my lifetime.