Full Recap Of Songcraft’s 1st Anniversary Session

When you hear that at least four Songcrafters took leave just because of the 1st Anniversary Songcraft session, you know expectations are high!

We took a huge risk for the first anniversary session.

It was my crazy idea to hold it in the great outdoors…or Fort Canning Park to be exact. At an idyllic little spot I’d known about a few years back.

I felt it would have been perfect for the session.

And PERFECT it was!

I say it was a huge risk because many things could have gone wrong, things such as a heavy rain washing out the entire event, muddy ground, too many mosquitoes, poor lighting, overly-loud crickets, other members of the public occupying the location, Songcrafters not being able to find their way there, etc.

Thankfully none of these problems plagued us at all.

But that being said, we can’t do this too often. Just too many risk factors involved.

We got lucky this time. =)

This was the largest turnout we ever had for any Songcraft session. I believe we had more than 20 people attending last night’s session.

I will always remember our 1st anniversary session for the beautiful and quiet location, the dark lighting, the fun and laughter, the smell of lavender-scented mosquito coils, and the yummy birthday cake at the end.

Ivan did a very good write-up on his thoughts on last night’s session (here). I really like this paragraph:

I could peek at the moon above the tree canopy; tendrils of smoke from the mosquito coils fanned by the occasional breeze; the croaking of the bull frogs as musical accompaniment to performances of original compositions: there were instances when I thought we’d retreated to some magical realm.

Now on to the recap proper.

Please forgive me if I missed out anyone’s songs. But that being said, for songs which are recorded, I will try to link to your blogs or web pages. I’m only posting up those songs which were done “live”…cos if I post up those recorded tracks, the sound quality would be very poor. I would rather link to the original file on your various blogs or web pages.

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Firdaus’s 3 Songs: 1) Ten Million, 2) Finding Love, 3) Summer Days and Winter Nights

Firdaus played three songs for us last night. All of them were through recording on Mixcraft, which is becoming very good at.

All the three songs can be heard from the links to Firdaus’s blog as provided above.

The one I liked best was “Summer Days and Winter Nights”. Ivan said he liked it too. You can really hear the Britpop influences in the song.

Ivan’s 2 Songs: 1) Lady Of Shalott (Down to Camelot), 2) Walking On Air (With Friends from Songcraft)

The first song Ivan presented was “Lady of Shalott (Down to Camelot)”, which fittingly, was the song he presented to all of us at the very first ever Songcraft session one year ago. It’s a beautiful song, one of my favourite of Ivan’s (because you can actually hear his voice in the track!), and one year on, the songs still sounds as fresh as ever.

The second song was of course, the famous “Walking On Air” which incorporated soundbites from many of the Songcrafters. This song was covered extensively on the Songcraft blog a few weeks back.

Jerron’s 2 Songs: 1) Carmen (written by Chin Hon), 2) We Need The Girls

Next up was Jerron, who did the song “Carmen” first. “Carmen” is a song written by Chin Hon, who is studying in the US right now, but once came to our Songcraft sessions and presented this very song.

It so happens that Jerron and myself both like the song “Carmen” very much, hence Jerron decided to sing it in honour of Chin Hon, while I played the guitar.

As I’m writing this post, I’ve just sent Chin Hon the clip of our recording as posted in the ODEO player above. Hope he likes it!

Next song we did was “We Need The Girls”, which is a song Jerron introduced to us last year. It is one of my personal favourites of Jerron’s, so I requested that he did a rendition of it last night. (You can hear me providing some really cheesy back-up vocals in the recording.)

“We Need The Girls” is an extremely cheery and catchy song. It’s always an immense joy to perform it together with Jerron. I had so much fun! After all, music is all about having fun isn’t it?

(And yes, that phrase in the first line of the song is indeed “chee ko pek”, in case you’re wondering.)

Chris’s 2 Songs: 1) We Are, 2) Ashes

Chris once again delighted everyone by giving a rendition of two wonderful songs from his “Greatest Hits” album. (Just kidding, there isn’t such a thing I think…although we certainly wished there was!)

As I’ve always maintained, “We Are” is my favourite song of Chris’s. This is the same song he performed at last year’s Songcraft mini-concert.

Not unexpectedly, the reception to Chris’s songs were fantastic. Mart said that Chris’s songs could be “hits”, and there were others who said that Chris should definitely consider doing proper recordings of his songs.

Carrie’s 2 Songs: 1) Crayon Box, 2) Stolen Moments

Next up was the ever-modest Carrie, who performed where she was sitting.

There was a hilarious comment from Ming Boon who said that it looked as if Carrie, sitting on the picnic mat and holding the classical guitar in her hands, was going to break into “Let’s start from the very beginning, a very good place to start…” a la Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music, haha!

Hilarious!

According to Carrie, “Crayon Box” was written when she was still very new to guitar.

No kidding! If she writes such great songs like these when she’s still new to guitar…then you probably get an idea of how good her songs are now!

Anyway, “Crayon Box” is one of my favourite songs of Carrie’s, that’s why I requested for her to sing us this song last night, together with another of my favourite Carrie song, which was…

Yup. “Stolen Moments”.

It’s a song about juggling, and was actually borne out of a Haiku poem which Carrie once wrote.

I remember hearing Carrie sing this song back when she first joined the Songcraft sessions…and I remember thinking to myself “Wow! This is like nothing I’ve ever heard!”

Once again, Carrie says the guitar arrangement is very “simple”…but hey, if it works (which it definitely does), then who cares!

Betty’s Song: Welcome to the Working Life

A beautiful song from Betty.

This is a song about the rigours and the frustrations of working life, sung in a seemingly detached and unaffected manner (i.e. sweetly and calmly).

Perhaps it was the intention of the composer (Betty) to contrast between the angst of working life with the light and chirpy melody…or perhaps Betty is simply too good-natured to write truly angsty songs.

Anyway, I thought it was a really good song, and there were comments which mentioned that this song could definitely work well in a musical, which I fully agree.

I recommend that Betty consider doing a more elaborate recording of this song, together with more instrumental layerings.

Mart’s 2 Songs: 1) Keep On Dreaming, 2) This Is My Moment

(NB: These two recordings above were not from last night’s recording, but were recorded privately on a separate occasion by Mart. Although the songs are still unchanged, the recordings above are of a better sound quality than last night’s recording.)

Mart has a gift for writing inspirational, uplifting, feel-good songs.

Some of us commented that his songs would be excellent for Olympic Games theme songs, or Idol theme songs. Betty said that his songs “are always full of hope”.

We also suggested that Mart send in his songs for the upcoming Youth Olympic Games!

Marcel’s 2 Songs: 1) Uncanny Connection, 2) Take The Highway

Marcel says that this is one of the “rare love songs” which he’s written, cos he doesn’t really write love songs. And my comment to that was “I suppose you express your love (to Carol) in other ways!”

The chords in this song were based on the chord progression which we tried to write songs out of, i.e. C-F-G-C, Am-F-G-C.

Anyway, it’s a pity he doesn’t write more love songs, because I think the melody is beautiful, especially in the verse.

Carrie mentioned that the nature of the song suggests that it could do with the “Radiohead treatment”, e.g. in OK Computer. I could see where she’s coming from.

“Take The Highway” is a song based on a strained father-child relationship, which is a dynamic Marcel has a particular inclination for exploring in his songs.

This song is about a father who has been in prison, and is seeing his child for the first time (the mother has passed on). Through the song, the father is trying to impart advice to his son, but is finding difficulty in doing so because of his lack of moral standing before the child.

A few people commented that they liked the opening guitar riff, which was unique.

Gin’s Song: Gu Dan Lu Xing (“Travelling Alone”)

This is a song about having angst inside of you, and wanting to go travel the world to just “break free” and liberate yourself from all the bad feeling inside.

Gin’s song also utilises the C-F-G-C, Am-F-G-C chord progression, but transposed to the Ab key.

She also presented this song the last session, but put it through some modifications since the last time round. The verse, pre-chorus and chorus were tweaked, so basically only the bridge (and the chord progression) remained the same.

Ivan mentioned that he found the song “catchy”. Others also commented that they found the song very happy, and couldn’t find any trace of “angst” at all!

Gin also mentioned that she always writes the music first, then she would think of the lyrics to fit to the song.

HL’s Song: 我思念你 (“Thinking of You”)

(NB: This recording above is a pre-recorded clip.)

Last night was one of the rare occasions that HL actually allowed us to hear her singing voice, haha!

This is one of HL’s most well-known songs. A lot of listeners have commented that they really like this song very much. Mart commented that the melody is very “sweet”.

This song was also performed during our year end mini-concert.

Last night, HL actually forgot the lyrics to her song, and hence had to try to type them out on her handphone so that she could read them as she performed!

Jeremy’s Song: Over and Over

This was my “pseudo-rock” song, because as I said last night, I don’t have “rock” in me, so I can’t really write rock songs.

This song is talking about the disenchantment and disillusionment of present day youth with life, education, etc. Basically I came up with the tune first, then the lyrics were more or less an afterthought.

And because it’s a rock song, I decided that I needed to write a pre-chorus as well as a bridge, like any other normal rock song.

This is my best attempt at being rock. That’s as far as you’ll ever see me go with regards to writing rock songs. I can’t write anything rockier than this, haha!

Lingfeng’s Song: The Lord’s Redeeming Spring

This is a Chinese Christian song (translated into “The Lord’s Redeeming Spring”), which is also based on the same C-F-G-C, Am-F-G-C chord progression. (Wow, I’m impressed that so many people decided to write songs based on this chord progression exercise! Well done!)

Lingfeng encountered some problems with her guitar-playing, especially with the F chord I think, which probably hampered her rendition of the song.

Nonetheless, it was a nice song. Thanks for sharing, Lingfeng!

(Update: You can hear a recorded version of the song on Lingfeng’s blog.)

Addy’s Song: Zai Wo Shen Bian (“With You By My Side”)

Addy presented a song of his to all of us, which was very courageous of him considering it’s the first time he’s joining us.

Addy, being the perfectionist that he is, mentioned that he actually re-wrote this song 8 times, to the point where he had fever! Incredible!

I commented that this is the first “truly bilingual song we’ve ever had in Songcraft”, cos literally half the song is in Chinese, and the other half is in English.

According to Addy, this song was inspired by Liang Wen Fu, cos one day Addy heard Liang Wen Fu mention on the radio that songs nowadays lack the “sincerity”. Well, I could definitely hear the sincerity in Addy’s song!

I also mentioned that I liked the way the last part of the song was arranged.

Jerron’s Song: The Girl Who Stole My Soul (written by Jerron and Firdaus)

Lastly (but definitely not least, as you will see as you read on), Jerron single-handedly presented “The Girl Who Stole My Soul” while playing on the keyboard.

The opening comment that “Just hold on…cos my leg is a bit numb” was hilarious enough!

Then as he was about to start playing the keyboard, some of us teased him and asked if he “remembered his scores”, cos we all remember very well how he played through the entire intro during the mini-concert before finally realising that he didn’t have his score with him.

But this time round, apparently Jerron was smart enough to memorise his song, so nothing could go wrong this time!

Or so we thought.

Then halfway through the song, Jerron suddenly stopped playing and said “Sorry it’s a bit loud”.

That brought the house down! (But luckily we were in an open outdoor area.)

You can hear everything in the ODEO clip above.

You really had to be there to appreciate the moment! Easily the funniest and most memorable part of the night.

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Celebration

Of course, no birthday celebration is complete without a cake plus food and drink.

Betty and gang managed to put together a wonderful spread of chocolate cake plus chips, soft drink and other delicious items.

The chocolate cake was delicious.

Me being the “founder” of the Songcraft Songwriting Circle, I was asked to blow out the candle, which I did. But when someone asked me to say a few words, my response was “we say it all through songs”. (Good reply eh?)

But you know what was the best part?

When we tried to sing the standard “Birthday Song” and we had to pass the guitar round three times just to find the right person who could play the “Birthday Song”!

To me, this is a very good sign. Cos it shows that we are truly songwriters.

Why do I say this? Cos true songwriters can only play their own original songs best. They can’t really play cover songs for nuts, haha!

(Just kidding. Don’t get offended, Firdaus and Jerron. You guys play your own original songs brilliantly.)

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Parting Thoughts

All in all, it was one of the most memorable nights in recent memory.

To me, the night went PERFECT.

We probably won’t be doing another “Fort Canning Park” round in the near future, but we might consider other exciting things…like maybe a beach-party-cum-chalet?

Who knows? Anything is possible.

Betty mentioned to me that she would like to see the day whereby we celebrate “TEN candles on the cake for Songcraft”.

TEN candles?!? Hmmm, I daren’t think so far ahead. Who knows what the future holds?

I’m not really sure how many candles the Songcraft cake will have at most, or whether there will even be a 2nd candle, but I’ll be sure to cherish every single moment as it comes!

So until then, keep writing songs everyone!