璽恩 at 張惠妹百分百歌唱大賽

蕭敬騰 & 張惠妹 "一眼瞬間"

Sanctuary by Annable Soh

璽恩 - 家

My specs broke!

Coolest phone ever

Oh my gosh this is the coolest thing ever. I'm at siglap coffee shop waiting for the rest to come and here I am using my phone and the wireless@sg blogging and surfing the net. Say bye to boring waiting periods standing or sitting around waiting for people with nothing to do. whoots

蕭敬騰

WOW!

Corrinne May's beautiful Seed Concert

"Beautiful Seed concert going with beautiful people, sitting on beautiful seats" - Trish
Thanks to Edmund our grand circle.. very grand hor?

The concert was awesome. I think she sounds so much better live compared to the CD. How she delivers the song and the arrangement of the instruments. She had the full band, Joshua Wan on bass, Kenn Chua on guitars (he played both the electric and the accoustic), Wen Ming Soh on drums and her husband, kavin Hoo on the keys, who was also the music director and string conductor and her of course playing the 7ft Yamaha grand. Accompanying her was also an 8 piece string ochestra.

I expecially loved the song Love Song for #1 where it was only her and the piano. Simple and pure just her vocals and the piano. Another highlight was the solo done by the cello and her. NICE.

Set list for 1st half of concert :
Angel In Disguise
On The Side Of Me
Shelter
Scars
Everything in its Time
Fly Away
On My Way
Leaving

Song list for 2nd set of the concert :
Love Song for #1
City of Angels
Green-Eyed Monster
My Little Nephew
Slow Down
Journey
Five Loaves and Two Fishes
Beautiful Seed

Encore songs:
33
Little Superhero Girl
Save Me

I think it was a very personal concert with her telling us little stories and how the different songs came about. Cracking small jokes, having to start the song again because she started the song in the wrong key, having her husband remind her after the first song after the intermission to tune the strings. It was personal and simple.

And of course big thank you to Trish and Edmund for the entertaining interval show. Leaving Kat with laughing spasms. Seriously.. consider a career in being a stand up comedian.

We wanted to take a photo with her. But the time we bought the CD and joined the queue, we were way behind. After staying till about 11.30pm, (i think till then she only signed 10 people's albums because she makes converstation with EVERY single one of them) we decided to leave because we had to catch the last train. I heard she only finished the autograph session at 3am. To think we even wanted to be the last ones. Well.. at least i got my CD autographed thanks to Edmund's colleague who was way ahead in the queue.

Looking forward to her next concert.. for now.... back to her CD, beautiful seed.

Beautiful Seed

Finally got my CD from Edmund
and... its autograghed by her :D

About the album which I took from an interview done with her.
There is a song, "Shelter", in the album where there are two musical arrangements of the song. One of the arrangements is titled the "Cherry Blossom Edition" because it uses a lot of Asian inspired music scales and notes. It is my first time using Asian influences in the music arrangements of my songs. We also incorporated Taiko drums on the arrangement.

There are more minor-sounding songs in this album, like "Scars (Stronger For Life)" and "Green-Eyed Monster", which lend themselves to instrospective moments, more so than in the previous album "Safe in A Crazy World". These songs are also arranged in a very organic, intimate setting where it is mostly just vocals, bass, drums and piano.

Another song ‘City of Angels’ is a song detailing my life in Los Angeles so far. Talking about how contradicting LA is. I have also worked the flavour of L.A into the song.

There are also 3 purely piano-vocal songs on this album, "33", "My Little Nephew" and "Love Song for #1". There is an intimacy and fragility on these piano-vocal songs that bring out the depth of the lyrics in these songs.

Corrinne May recording the songs using the Yamaha C6 at her house

I named the album ‘Beautiful Seed’ because I think that a seed is a wonderful metaphor for our lives. We are all like seeds. Seeds grow unseen in the soil and then sprout, and some seed become the biggest, most majestic trees and others grow to eventually bear wonderful fruit, and yet others, grow to provide shade. We are like trees. When we are in our mother’s womb, no one can see us growing, but we are there. And all the potential for our lives is present in that moment, small as we are at that point in our lives, we are who we are now because of what we’ve gone through. And just knowing that, makes me sad to read about the increasing numbers of abortions that occur. People have forgotten that all the potential for life comes from something small, seemingly insignificant, seemingly lifeless.

The Stories Behind the Album

1) Love Song For #1
I love observing nature. I love looking up at the stars, or the clouds and trees, knowing that the God who created all this beauty also created me. This is a song of gratitude and love.

2) Shelter
Friends support and help each other through difficult times. This song is about friendship.It is a song to a friend to tell her that I will be here for her through the difficulty she is going through. All she has to do is call me and I will help her in whatever way I can.

3) On The Side Of Me
This is a song about the power of love. No matter how unloveable I think I am, there is someone who loves me a lot. Loves me despite all my faults, my failures, despite my bad habits. I think it’s wonderful to be loved for who I am, no matter what.

4) Five Loaves and Two Fishes
This song is based on my favourite bible story. The story is about how Jesus made a miracle happen by taking five loaves and two fishes offered by a little boy, and using that to feed 5000 people. I think it’s an amazing story about how, no matter how small we may think about what we have to offer, we should trust that our offerings, our gifts are never wasted. Our gifts and our talents should be treasured for they can be used in many beautiful ways.

5) Beautiful Seed
I think people often forget how the smallest, most seemingly insignificant things can have such beautiful possibilities. All it takes is one person to make a difference in this world. But often, we are so afraid to try, to speak up, or to make a difference.

6) Leaving
Bad habits are hard to break. But sometimes, the best thing to do is to find a new way of doing things, to leave the things that are not good for us. This song is about making the decision to start anew, to do things right, to leave the bad situations behind.

7) Scars (Stronger For Life)
Scars form whenever we hurt ourselves, if we have an injury to our bodies, our bodies respond by healing, and often, forming scar tissues over the wounds. The scar tissue is usually thicker and stronger than our normal skin. In our lives, we often encounter events, or situations with people that hurt us, for eg, a lot of us have gone through the painful feeling of a break-up with a girlfriend or boyfriend, or the loss of a loved one, or the pain of being ill. I believe that when we go through the sad and painful events in our lives, we eventually heal, and we become stronger as a result of the challenges we experience.

8) City of Angels
I’ve lived in Los Angeles for 8 years and it’s always struck me as a very interesting city.It is a city of contradictions, a city of opposites, a lot of glitz and glamour juxtaposed with poverty and grit. It is a city in a desert, and in many ways, the desert is often not just a physical, geographical reality. I feel that the desert, has a deeper, metaphorical meaning in this city. People are often thirsty, hungry for love. Of course, this is a reality everywhere in the world, but it feels more intense here in Los Angeles.So I thought I’d pour my thoughts into a song.

9) My Little Nephew
The first time I held my nephew in my arms was a wonderful moment of realization that I am now an aunty to my brother’s son. Children change so fast as they grow and my nephew lives in Singapore, as does the rest of my family. I on the other hand, live far away in Los Angeles and despite my wanting to be able to see him change and grow, and to be around for family gatherings such as his birthday, it’s hard to only see him now and then, whenever I go back to Singapore. I sat down at the piano one day, and wrote a song for him.

10) Slow Down
It’s hard to watch my grandparents getting older, and walking a little slower as the years go by. I thought about how life starts off with kids, teenagers and young adults rushing around with the exuberance of youth, and how, as we get older, we all slow down.I also thought about how sometimes, working adults run around so much, focused on careers, on all the things in life that seem so important, that they lose sight of the really important things in life, things like time with the family, for instance.

11) Green-Eyed Monster
The term ‘Green-Eyed Monster’ is used to describe someone who is jealous about somebody else’s success.I think most of us have been through an occasion where we find ourselves comparing our own achievements with those of our peers. Sometimes, in comparing ourselves with others, we end up feeling bitter and resentful, and that is not the way that we should be feeling. I wanted to write a song to tell myself that there is no use in comparing myself to others. I have my own story to tell. I have my own path to walk. No one else can walk the path I am meant to walk. So I should not compare my own life with others. It is a waste of energy and time. So I decided to write a song about this.

12) On My Way
I’ve travelled a lot over the past few years, to Singapore, Chicago, San Francisco, Washington, Maine, Philadelphia, etc. as I’m often going to various cities to perform my music. Most of the time, I’m on the road by myself, driving to various venues. Sometimes I get lost, sometimes, I get into traffic jams… I think that life is like being on a journey. We have a final destination to get to. We’re all travelers on this road of life. I think that life is like a winding road where it’s hard sometimes to figure out where the road is going to go, and sometimes it’s easy to get lost and confused. ‘On My Way’ is a song of hope and encouragement, that no matter how far the journey is, every little step that we take, brings us closer to our final destination, and as long as we keep on walking that journey, we will get where we need to be eventually.

13) 33
When I turned 33 last year, I thought to myself, that Jesus was 33 when he lived his last year on earth. I thought that it was pretty amazing that I was now the same age as him. So somehow, that made me wonder how it would have been if I had lived during the time of Jesus. Would our paths have crossed? Would we have been friends? It also got me thinking that some lives are so short, just like Jesus’ was, and some lives are much longer. But ultimately it doesn’t matter how short or long someone’s life was; what matters is that life is lived to the fullest, no matter how much time you are given to live.

14) Shelter (Cherry Blossom Edition)
Even though I listen to mostly English pop music, as a child I often listened to the Chinese pop melodies that my grandmother would play on the radio, and my father would teach me some Asian folk songs. I was inspired to write a Asian-styled piano arrangement to ‘Shelter’ after listening to Kavin’s string arrangement for the song. Lately, I’ve been experimenting more with pentatonic keys and modes and so, I decided to try an Asian-styled arrangement on the piano. I loved it very much, so we decided to include it in the album because it adds a different, more dramatic feel to the song.

My favourite song "Five loaves and Two fishes" by Corrinne May

A little boy of thirteen
was on his way to school
He heard a crowd of people laughing
and he went to take a look
Thousands were listening
to the stories of one man
He spoke with such wisdom,
even the kids could understand

The hours passed so quickly
the day turned to night
Everyone was hungry
but there was no food in sight
The boy looked in his lunchbox
at the little that he had
He wasn't sure what good it'd do
there were thousands to be fed

But he saw the twinkling eyes of Jesus
the kindness in His smile
and the boy cried out
with the trust of a child
he said:

"Take my five loaves and two fishes
Do with it as you will
I surrender
Take my fears and inhibitions
All my burdens, my ambitions
You can use it all
to feed them all"

I often think about that boy
when I'm feeling small
and I worry that the work I do
means nothing at all

But every single tear I cry
is a diamond in His hands
and every door that slams in my face
I will offer up in prayer

So I'll give you every breadth that I have
Oh Lord, you can work miracles
All that you need is my "Amen"

Take my five loaves and two fishes
Do with it as you will
I surrender
Take my fears and inhibitions
All my burdens, my ambitions
You can use it all
I hope it's not too small

I trust in you
I trust in you

Take my five loaves and two fishes
Do with it as you will
I surrender
Take my fears and inhibitions
All my burdens, my ambitions
You can use it all
no gift is too small

Elaine's b'day

Elaine's b'day lunch on the 24th of June
The photos are here

The annointing

"Either you run with the annointing of the gift and that's all you'll ever have or you allow God to hold you steady and make you into the kind of person that can carry the annointing of office"