You have to be thankful for the Mosaic Music festival. Decades ago, it was unusual for big acts to come to Singapore as part of a series; now the young generation can take it for granted. It seemed like that was happening, as R and I looked around us, wondering why one-third of the seats …

We just met last Saturday and we’ll be having 2 more rehearsals before the school concert. We’re so new, we don’t even have a name yet. Sounds drastic? Well, we’ve been practising on our own and finally are merging our efforts and working out the kinks. We’ll be playing two jazz numbers – one’s an …

Before I [switched to jazz piano](http://vantan.org/archives/2006/10/the_conceptualj.php), I was a classical pianist. My mother found me at the Yamaha organ, playing a song by ear. She said I was just 2 years old; I thought I was closer to 4 as I had to be big enough to climb up the seat. Whatever the case, my …

Throughout my life and work, I’ve found that ratings are subjective. You can use quantitative methods to make the methodology more objective, but often these are based on qualitative assessments as well. Of course, if you are looking at something very mechanical, like quality control for widget production, then there’s little to argue about. But …

About 10 years ago, as a university student, I was influenced by the likes of nu soul artistes such as Maxwell and Erykah Badu. They have greatly influenced how I write and produce some of my own music. Now, Maxwell is about to launch his new album, BLACKsummer’snight on 7 July after an 8 year …

I intended to spend my 4-day break fixing my home music studio, which has been experiencing various malfunctions. In August, my faithful G5 PowerMac suddenly couldn’t start up. I tried everything suggested in the help forums (Apple and unofficial) and mailing lists, to no avail. Pulling out the power plug and leaving it for days …

One of my favourite acid jazz songs is ‘Everybody Loves The Sunshine’. As a beginner to acid jazz in my university days, I listened to compilation CDs and thought the song was written by The Quiet Boys, until I heard a new, jazzier rendition of it on our local radio station Lush 99.5. I then …

I and two of my cousins played at my grandmother’s birthday dinner on Saturday. These are recordings from our rehearsal on the day itself. It was a last-minute affair, since we were ‘volunteered’ for it! Violin and piano rendition of ‘Think Of Me’ from Phantom of the Opera, written by Andrew Lloyd Webber. Violin, cello …