sound.travels
Yun Qi Wong
our sound.travels videos are finally out and that is in a way, the final steps to this indescribable journey we've taken. for now. and it will be a very short now.
when Bert and Ms Tham first invited me to put up a concert - any kind of concert i wished - the possibilities were so endless, i was overwhelmed. but then one fateful day i picked up one of my four Murray Schafer books and it was a lightbulb moment - sound.travels was born.
we were going to show our audience the world (or part of it) through soundscapes, soundmarks, audio-postcards; with their eyes closed, and their ears wide open.
if you do not know who Murray Schafer is, please please pleaseeee do go check him out. listen to his music on youtube, grab all his books (some are available on Amazon, the rest have to be ordered from Arcana Editions) !!! his writings never cease to inspire me in preparing for my next lesson or pump me full of ideas for life/work in general. they have become my go-to in countless moments of helplessness, they've opened my ears/mind/eyes/heart to this world we live in. it is no longer just about music, its all about life :)
seeing how this blog entry could happily turn into one dedicated to Murray Schafer and his works, i ll move along and do that dedication the next time ;) coming back to the point, sound.travels allowed me to finally collaborate with a bunch of quirky amazing friends i love. we were able to commission Americ to write us music (always a YAY because he is always full of surprises, the good kind). i learnt about so many Singaporean writers i never knew about and fell in love with them. i listened to Tajik music on a weekly basis. we learnt about the existence of e-bows, fooled around with shot glasses, did arts+crafts with our scores. we were able to fly Ruschana to Singapore! and best of all, we got to experiment, experiment, experiment. and oh, what fun we had.
this is us performing Americ's Void Deck
(C) Hillary Lee
this is a pretty cool picture of us. we're usually more often seen dissolving into giggles! and it is to these sound.travellers i say thank you to - Veda, Peixin, Terence and Ruschana. i love our rehearsals - they're packed with intensity, confusion, laughter, screams and stranger sounds. there is also Americ who comes to rehearsals ever so often. Woon who does late night/early morn editing and re-editing of my texts, the 856323 takes of recording and mixing of these texts. Hil who took this picture and many other funky ones. Lu Heng and brother who produced the videos you should watch. the talented Em whose artwork adorns our postcards. and there is Bert and Ms Tham who give me precious opportunities like these, introduced me to the wonders of Murray Schafer, who think of everything we might forget, make sure the show goes on, and make my most demanding requests come true.
thank you. i'm already looking forward to sound.travels II.
love, qi