All my life, I have always identified myself as a musician. This, despite a complete absence of any formal music learning. Formally, my training has largely centred the visual arts. Throughout my formative years, art was a constant feature of my learning repertoire, culminating in a degree in fine art from Goldsmiths College, University of London, and a career as an art and design educator.
But music has always been and continues to be my main creative outlet and where my proudest creative accomplishments have been made. Growing up, music was a constant companion, perhaps the only constant. And thanks to an older brother who had an eclectic taste in music, I was exposed to and learnt to appreciate a wider variety of music than perhaps most. At one point I was listening to and loving The Beatles and death metal at the same time, and have often asserted that between the two, I had learnt all I needed to know about music. On hindsight, that might have been an exaggeration. I did pick up a lot of musical principles that I rely on in my music-making to this very day but the thing that I love the most about music is that there is always so much more to learn, about the art and science of sound and our experience of it. To this day, I am still very much learning and enjoying it too.
Over the years, I’ve been privileged to have had a wide array of experiences in music, many of which were truly wonderful and perhaps even life-altering. It has provided the soundtrack for some of the best moments in my life. And when needed, it has been a great avenue for catharsis.
Read my interview on Singapore’s Life in Arpeggio music blog here:
Life in Arpeggio Interview (20 March 2020).
