Charismatic

I went painting. Epic moment for me...because I haven't really painted anything since those torturous high school art lessons/exams. That's definitely more than 10 years ago. Yu-Chieh, a dear church friend of mine, and I decided to go painting on the day I found out my singer friend, Elin had passed away from cancer. And 2 weeks ago, Chia Yen had just passed on too. Two young, bright, beautiful mothers, wives and friends. 33 and 32 respectively. I had no words express my confusion and grief. It was then time to do something completely different and not routine. We dropped by Brendon's paint-ertainment cafe, The Escape Artist.  Starting off with the landscape colours.  I love this roller. It does wonders with acrylic paints. Creates gorgeous textures.  My landscape. Warm colours.  I didn't add blue till later. Yu-Chieh didn't quite know where to start at first.  So she randomly picked her happy colours. Purple and Pink...

I had a chat with my friends today over coffee, chocolate and a lil whiskey in the chocolate :D. We were chatting about everything and nothing in particular. But then, the 'hot potato' of recent LGBT parades and demonstrations came up in the conversation. There is no simple way to address this issue. A lot has been said and written about it already. I don't have the mental patience to articulate all my reflections coherently right now. But some of these words came up today, "Twisted, Broken, Mutated". I want to clarify here that Jesus loves everyone and therefore, I really do try to do the same(actually I wish didn't have to clarify things. But then, this is a public blog). It's not meant to be a condescending gesture or statement. But just because God loves us ( and especially because God loves us), does not mean that we can re-tailor truths to suit our own feelings.  My friends asked, "So are you asking a person who believes they are bo...

Been trying to do more 'singer-songwriter' gigs lately, as opposed to ministry, or musicals, or weddings (though there have been PLENTY of weddings lately. And because they have all been pretty good friends of ming, I've been singing/playing for a lot of them).  I have my jewelry designer/art-entrepreneur  friend, Brendon to thank here, because he is very proactive about encouraging anything cultural or artsy-fartsy in Taipei. We were chatting one day, and he asked me if I wanted to sing regularly for his 'salon'-like group meet called "Dream Gallery" every first Sunday of the month. So I said yes, and I've done it twice now.  Theo accompanied me the first time The little meet was at Brendon's 'paintertainment' cafe called The Escape Artist My lovely lifegroup mates who are always supporting my gigs :D  The multi-talented boss himself, Brendon New friends I met that night who have become fans :D ...

Growing to know my own voice After recording a lot of vocals this year, I am happy to say that I have grown in this area. I am starting to learn how to write melodies that I can actually sing and suit my vocal range. Previously, I wrote songs based on how 'good' they sounded, without even custom-tailoring the melody or range to myself. After repeated 'constructive criticism'  sessions with my mentor, I've started limiting my note ranges when I write melodies. I've also started changing the keys of my old songs. I've started exploring different tonal textures and ways of singing. Tiring but exciting. The scary thing called "putting myself out there" During my reflective moments, I realized that I've shied away from performing my own songs in public for a long time. Since uni days. I've shied away from being a singer-songwriter, prefering to hide behind the more respectable and reserved 'keyboardist', 'music director...

A few things I wanted to blog about. Part 1 being: The reality of 'likes', 'dislikes', and comments As one's exposure grows, there are more people who 'like' and 'dislike' you. I've never taken rejection well. One of the least favorite jobs was telemarketing. 100 phone calls and maybe one gets 2 positive responses among all the rude 'no's. But if I want to keep growing, I have to keep improving despite the stings of 'dislikes' or 'unlikes'. Once in a couple of weeks, I flinch a little when people 'unlike' the fan page, or 'dislike' the videos. But I cheer myself up with the fact that it's only the videos that have received the most hits and 'likes' that are also getting 'disliked'. They are finally reaching a broader audience, which might like or dislike my music, but that's all part and parcel of this line of work. God help me. My value and worth is in You and You alone. I...

"You Don't Know Me" When I watched Michael Grimm sing this for his audition on America's Got Talent, I melted. That was a year or 2 ago. Finally, it is done! Have a listen and a look! I worked with Jesse  again this time (the guy who filmed Phoebe and I singing 青花瓷, which is doing well in terms of views and likes among the youtube vids I've uploaded). This time he brought Albert along to help, and Theo came along to shoot photos (I thought it would be a waste of make up and dressing up otherwise. I was really happy with the photos that ensued) I did the vocals at home now that I have a mini set-up though I'm constantly plagued with noise (dogs barking etc). Guitars were tracked by my friend Jacob Liang, who's a jazz guitar grad from Berklee as well. It has been fun working with different people on these projects, and thinking of ways to upgrade the videos. I have something a little bigger planned for next time, so fingers crossed we'...

I was at the Kris Vallotton ' Spirit Wars' Conference tonight. He talked about many things, basically outlining the first few chapters of his book, "Spirit Wars". But what struck me today was his explanation of thoughts, lofty things and speculations. Particularly lofty things. A lofty thing is a a lie, usually a lie that makes us believe our circumstances are bigger than God, or that a lie that makes us feel powerless, helpless and oppressed. I realized that I've been repeating so many lies to myself internally. No wonder I've been depressed most of the time. Life is not worth living because of the pain of just living. Being joyful is almost impossible 80%of the time because of burden of life My body is not beautiful until it hits a certain percentage of body fat with no flab, and my face is not beautiful unless it has a certain bone structure God is not going to provide my desires, only my basic needs (if that) Something bad might happen to me an...