September 3, 2008...8:07 pm

The journey of musicians..

Jump to Comments

Many of you might not know that before I enslaved myself to the tech industry for the past 10 years, I was actually a musician. A full-time ‘professional’ musician who had to play a few instruments including the piano, keyboards, drums, percussions, bass, and guitars to make ends meet :(

Nic

Nic the keyboardist

A musician’s life is hard, especially here in Singapore. If you are not the top 0.0001% of musicians who were already grooving even in their mother’s womb, you might be better off earning a living holding signs at street corners, just like the ‘Flight of the Conchords’ :

Flight of the Conchords having band meeting with road sign

Flight of the Conchords having band meeting with road sign

I guess some of my biggest breaks were playing with the Singapore Symphonic Orchestra, for various VVIPs like the late President Ong Teng Cheong, our former Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong, and Deputy Prime Minister Tony Tan in various gigues.

The Flight of the Conchorts had some big gigues too:

FotC with Jennifer Aniston
FotC with Jennifer Aniston

In fact they’re so big now, they’re on YouTube, MySpace, and even HBO!

They’re soooooooo hilarious!! No wonder they get gigues!!
I really wonder about the journey of these 2 co-sojourners in life, and where the highway of life will take them. Especially being musicians… you never know! But what a great job HBO did in telling their stories! 
You can catch their wonderful and hilarious stories on HBO Asia and even win a free MacBook Air if you join the video contest!!

3 Comments

Filed under Co-sojourners, Friends, Life, Notes to You, Stories, Travel, Work

Tags: , , , ,

3 Comments

  • ssumin
    September 4, 2008 at 12:21 am

    do u still jam or perform anywhere?

    once in a while… long long while in small obscure corners of the earth… my last “major gigue” was for an US artiste Larissa Lam (who had a top 10 on the billboard dance charts). But basically I do some teaching on the side for fun :)

    Reply
  • Yin Qi
    September 4, 2008 at 6:31 pm

    Hey Nic!
    So um, did you hook up with Hillary by telling her “I’m in a band” like Bret did? :)

    Do inform us if you ever play anywhere else again ok! I’m a verrrry good groupie; major support for folks I know!

    Wahahaha… I’m not a groupie too! And I support the Flight of the Conchords!! I hooked up with Hillary way AFTER my career as a musician so I told her ‘I have a proper job (holding signs)’ like Bret :) friends and I have chatted about my ‘re-entry’ to the scene… hahaha… well… lemme procrastinate about it for another 5 or 10 years :D

    Reply
  • Wilfrid
    September 5, 2008 at 12:23 am

    I play music too as a hobby. I can understand where you come from. Symphonic Orchestra eh? What did you play may I ask? I miss playing in an Orchestra.

    I didn’t play in the SSO per se, but I played piano in a guest concert with them for the late President Ong Teng Cheong. Orchestra rehearsals are HARD work!!

    Reply

Leave a Reply