Sasha M, Author at Sasha M Online

Corporate Workshop Facilitation for OCBC

July 4, 2018 by Sasha M

acting, artist, community, corporate, culture, facilitating, HCAC, improv, soft skills, theatre, training, workshop, worldview

Yesterday, I assisted Kamil Haque from the acting school HCAC as a facilitator in an improvisation-based workshop for OCBC. It was a team building workshop with the objective to create a new company culture. We worked with fresh graduates who had just entered the company and had not yet become integrated into the old company culture. There were 68 participants, and for such a huge group of people, we had eight facilitators as well as Kamil leading the full-day workshop.

Kamil is a boss ass workshop instructor who can handle any group size

It was really interesting working with so many people. As a performer, I’m used to training myself to improve my own skills at a craft. It’s very different to try and teach other people how to do those skills, especially when everybody has their own ideas and strengths. However, I must say I was very impressed by how the participants performed in the workshop, as they largely seemed to grasp the principles we were trying to express through our programme.

Everyone was paying close attention even at the end of a long day

Working so closely with such a large group for over 8 hours, I definitely learnt a lot from my interactions with the participants. I’m glad for the effort they put into all our games and exercises, and especially for their sincerity in reflecting on the activities. I, too, had much to reflect on as the day drew to a close.

Seriously there were so many people it was amazing that the day wasn’t mostly chaos

I’m very happy and honoured to have been part of this wonderful team of people, working on something that I find incredibly meaningful, and making an impact on people. My main objective as a performer is to have an impact on how people think and feel about things, and it’s great to be able to open up my perspective on that and do this kind of work in a facilitator role as well. It’s creating art in a whole different way.

Every single one of these amazing individuals is a talented gem of a human being!

Most of all, I feel incredibly glad to be part of this community of people who share similar worldviews as myself, with a similar approach to life and how we interact with the people around us. I hope to always keep learning and growing with them!

Community Performance at Our Tampines Hub

June 23, 2018 by Sasha M

Work

acoustic, community, covers, event, guitar, live music, live performance, performance, public, show, Singapore, vocals

Hello hello hello!!

So I recently did a public performance at Our Tampines Hub (if you’re on my Instagram, or Facebook page, you’d probably have seen my post announcing it; if you aren’t yet, go follow/like so you see my posts!).

For this show, I had Anthony Poi accompanying me on guitar. We did a set of stripped-down acoustic covers through the ages, from Oasis to Swedish House Mafia (can’t escape the EDM music!).

We also did a couple of Lady Gaga tunes, some wedding songs, and some really heartbreakingly sad songs (those were my favourites).

It’s been quite a while since I did a public event like this, and it was fun to be able to interact with the crowd. I’m happy that many of them stayed throughout our set, and were smiling, clapping and singing along as well.

Just wanna give a big THANK YOU to my friends and fans who came down all the way to Tampines to watch me perform. It meant so much to me to see you guys there. So much love for y’all!

Check out the video above to have a listen to the music, hear me chat with the audience in between songs, unsuccessfully attempt to convince people to come up and dance, and enjoy the chill vibes 🙂

‘Loaded’ Hits #2 on Spotify Germany Viral 50 Charts!

May 17, 2018 by Sasha M

News

charts, EDM, Hasso, Loaded, new music, new release, original music, originals, pop, Sasha M, Spotify, viral

As most of the people following my social media know by now, it’s been a mega exciting week. My first ever single, ‘Loaded’, which I released on 13 April in collaboration with producer/DJ Hasso and under a German EDM label Weeolino Music, got on the Spotify Germany Viral 50 charts last week.

It entered the charts way high up at #5. And then it went all the way up to #2, right below the just-announced winner of Eurovision!

It’s an absolutely insane result for a song that was released relatively quietly, with no advertisements, no paid promotion or anything of the sort. Just purely organic plays and streams by people who liked the track. Enough, it seems, to put us right next to an artist who was on the biggest Europe-wide music show ever, that hosted bands as awesome as ABBA!

Some people have been asking, “Who is Hasso?” Well, I mentioned him in a post I wrote previously. He’s a super talented producer from Germany who’s also a really great person and friend, and I’m so happy to be able to have a chart-topping (almost?? haha) song with him.

Aside from Hasso, another person I would like to thank is my dear friend Nik who did (my version of) the album art for me. She took my concept and totally gave it life, it turned out better than I could have imagined.

Look at all these glitches and stuff they look so good!!!

And of course, thank you to Daniel for taking this photo of me during our music video shoot for Dangerous Woman. (That’s still my most professionally done video on my channel, haha.) Who would’ve guessed that this photo would go so far!

The support for this song has been tremendous. So many people were listening to the song and sharing it with their friends. I’ve been beyond touched to receive messages, screenshots and tags in posts about Loaded. Some of you guys are using it as your ringtone too, that’s incredible!

On top of that, Bandwagon wrote a really lovely article about the song and I’m so happy:

I’m immensely grateful especially for all the support from listeners in Germany. If I could reach them, I would say thank you in a video and put it in targeted ads all over Germany! Haha, of course I can’t. But I can and will say thank you here on my blog, and put it on the internet, so that hopefully some of these people will be able to see it.

For you who are reading this, thank you also for supporting me and being interested in my work. It means the absolute world to me that you guys care about what I’m doing. I really hope you like the song as well, that I made with Hasso.

Do sign up for more updates from me if you haven’t already! Because, as you can imagine, I’ll have loads – pun intended – more updates to come 😉

If you haven’t heard the track, or just want to listen to it again, here it is! Do save it, share it, and put it on your playlists!

Participating in The O Project by Marcos Alberti

October 21, 2017 by Sasha M

Personal Growth

art, artist, artwork, meaning, message, photographer, photography, photoshoot, social impact, viral

So this story has hit Singapore shores today. Kudos to those who spotted it first! Guess it’s time for me to share it myself 🙂

I’m so happy and honoured to be part of this photography project with a message, but more so, part of a movement. This is the crossroads where art and social impact intersect, and I couldn’t be luckier to be able to play a role. It is everything that I want to do with art – sending a positive message out to the world, which people can interpret in their own way, hopefully in a good way. And I’m happy that so far I’ve received nothing but positive (or entertaining) responses!

For those who aren’t intending to read the actual article(s), just take away one idea: that female sexuality is not a taboo thing, or something on TV that’s supposed to be ‘sexy’. It’s something ladies should learn about on their own terms, and not be afraid to talk about.

With the recent #metoo phenomenon, too, this story couldn’t have gone viral at a better time.

Anyway, enough words. It is my greatest honour to have worked with the amazing photographer Marcos Alberti on this project. I hope to always be able to create positive, empowering art that has an impact on people.

Performance at HDB Community Week

June 8, 2017 by Sasha M

Work

a cappella, arrangements, auditions, beatbox, covers, gig, HDB, improvisation, jam, live looping, loop, music, performance, show

Last Thursday, my a cappella/beatbox crew Little Red Dots went for a performance as part of the HDB Community Week celebrations. It was a 30 minute set in the afternoon, outdoors (under a shelter though), and it was h-h-h-HAWTTT (mostly because we turned up the heat with our kickass performance!!!!!) We had a great emcee and sound guy though, and a nice crowd that cheered for us, and it was so nice to perform there 🙂

Yes, this is the only photo we took, and it was during soundcheck. LOL.

A little backstory on this gig:
Actually one of our members couldn’t make it for the gig. So we were going to go in as a three member group, and had to come up with all new arrangements for three people instead of our usual four. Then suddenly… another person couldn’t make it!!! So we held an open audition for someone to sub the person.

Quite a few people came to audition, and we’re very happy and grateful for the turnout… but after the auditions we realized that it’s Really Difficult to sub an a cappella singer whose parts are not scored, but improvised and then fixed afterwards by memory lol. (Yes, a little insight into the esoteric ways in which our a cappella-ish group thing works.)

We did manage to find a sub in the end, from within the a cappella / show choir community. But that sure was a lesson learnt, that a cappella singers who can improvise parts sure are difficult to substitute!

(Oh, and if you haven’t seen or heard Little Red Dots before, here’s a video we made:)

One thing we realized during the rehearsal process is that it’s very difficult to do a cappella with just three people (essentially only two people singing). So we had initially held aspirations of doing some incredible mindblowing arrangements like Freedoms Boombox:

Or even something simpler like this:

(Okay I am obviously a huge Freedoms Boombox fangirl but I guess these two videos are more than enough for you guys HAHA)

Anyway, the point is, we realized we are not Freedoms Boombox or anything close. So we scrapped the idea and went with a loop pedal. Which worked out great!

I have some video footage of our gig somewhere, so I’ll post an example or two up on my YouTube channel soonish. Meanwhile, many thanks to the very talented John Khoo from John and Deneice Glee Studios for performing this gig with myself and Jacky aka JK47! Hope we can perform together again in future 😀

Yeaa!

Online Music Production Course & SkillsFuture Credit

February 13, 2017 by Sasha M

Guides

audio, claim, course, credit, Cubase, DAW, development, digital, guide, music, online, programme, Singapore, SkillsFuture, tips, training, workstation

If you’re a songwriter, or singer-songwriter, you might accompany yourself on a guitar or keyboard. That’s great! But if you want to take things one step further, you’d also want to learn some music production, so that you can produce some decent sounding demos all by yourself (and not necessarily have to pay a producer just to create a demo).

And the best thing is, if you’re Singaporean (like me), you can learn online music production for free. Absolutely free, with your SkillsFuture Credit. The good news is that since I last checked the list of SkillsFuture approved courses (back when the only music-related course was a DJ course), they have updated the list to include tons of online courses using Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs) – Ableton, Logic Pro, Garageband, Cubase, Reason, etc. As of right now, they also offer offline courses in Lasalle, NAFA, and SIM, just to name a few. So you can basically claim for all of these courses using your SkillsFuture credits.

For myself, I’m currently using a trial version of Steinberg Cubase 8, which came with my audio interface. I really like Cubase and I find it easy to use, so I’m going to upgrade that to Cubase Elements 8. Luckily for me, there’s an approved course that teaches the fundamentals of Cubase 6.

Screengrab from SkillsFuture website.

But wait… it’s Cubase 6? But I’m using Cubase 8! And the interfaces are kind of different thanks to their upgrades. So how?!?! (As we say in Singlish)

Luckily (again!), the vendor that’s administering this course (Loop.sg) was kind enough to give me a special offer.

Exclusively for me AND readers of my blog (that’s you!), they are offering the Cubase 8 course for FREE with purchase of the Cubase 6 course (which is claimable under SkillsFuture Credit). That means we can have the updated course, Cubase 8, even though only Cubase 6 is offered on SkillsFuture! Are you as excited as I am??

In order to redeem this special offer, you just have to sign up for an account, and then follow these terms and conditions:

1) User purchases the Cubase 6 course from Loop.sg
2) User completes the Cubase 6 course, receiving their Loop.sg Certificate of Completion
3) User will email info@loop.sg with a notification of completion for the course (do mention you heard of this offer through my blog, and show your certificate as well!)
4) Loop.sg will automatically upgrade their current course to Cubase 8 upon confirmation in their system

Here are some points you may also wish to take note of:

1) All courses are online based training; all you need is your LOOP.sg account to get started.
2) No particular qualifications needed, just go right ahead!
3) Set your own schedule! Learn at your own time and pace from the comfort of home
4) You get a certificate of completion from us when you’re done!
5) 12 months of unlimited access to your course – lots of time to learn & hone your skills

You can also check out their FAQs for more information.

Here’s what the Cubase 8 course looks like once you’ve gotten it!

That’s it! Be sure to create an account (unless you have one already), and follow the terms above in order to get your free Cubase 8 lesson! After which, you can go ahead and claim for your Cubase 6 course under SkillsFuture Credit.

Happy making music! And do feel free to share your tracks with me too – I’d love to hear them!

Creating a Portfolio in the Performing Arts

January 11, 2017 by Sasha M

Guides

body of work, collaborate, DIY, guide, how to, performing arts, portfolio, professional, video

My professor once expressed to me the importance of having a ‘body of work’ to show what you are capable of. He was talking about academics. But it is equally important particularly in the creative arts (notably the performing arts), a field where many do freelance work or may have short-term contracts, to have a portfolio of past work to show for yourself.

Having a portfolio means creating products. It’s great to tell people “yes I can sing”, but a comment is not a product that people can watch, listen to, or form their own opinions about. The thing about being a singer, or dancer, or actress even, is that your portfolio necessarily has to be in video form. So just practically speaking, it’s a lot more expensive, resource-intensive and time-consuming for creatives in these fields – the performing arts – to build their portfolios than say, an artist who can create products all by themselves: painters, digital artists, sculptors, craftspeople, basically people whose art is essentially creating a product which can be seen or touched.

But let that not discourage you as a performance artist! Here are several ways you can build your portfolio:

Record your Recitals / Public Performances on Video
If you are in school, this is perfect for you, and easily the most efficient way to build your portfolio. School performances? Go for them! They’re the perfect opportunity for you to test your work (be it a new song, a dance performance etc) in front of a (usually supportive) audience, and the best part is you can also film it down and use that video for your portfolio. Talk about killing two birds with one stone.

Just how should you be getting these videos? If the event has an official videographer, perfect – try getting the footage from them. If not, see if you can find a friend to hold a camera for you… or simply place a videocamera on a tripod somewhere where you can get a good view of yourself. There’s always a way!

When I was in school, I fronted bands and also sang in a cappella groups for several concerts. I have some great photos and videos from those days, and they would have made for a great portfolio if I were to continue in bands or a cappella groups. But now I’m going in a different direction as a solo artist, and will have to create a whole new portfolio for that. That’s okay though – I’m very happy for my previous experiences, and I’ll just keep those past materials because who knows when they may come in handy 🙂

Like this one! Good times with the LaundroMATs
Record your Rehearsals on Video
It’s not always necessary to only video your finished work – you can also video your works in progress. If your theatre group had a good rehearsal and you managed to get it on video, that’s awesome – put it online! It could even drum up interest for people to come and watch the actual performance. There’s more of the killing two birds with one stone outcomes 😉

(Of course, you would have to ask permission from your director and it should not conflict with the interests of your theatre group. So be sure to get clearance before you put up material which does not only involve yourself!)
Record yourself after Masterclasses or Workshops
It’s amazing to have an opportunity to learn from someone who’s well-established in the scene you want to be in. If you learnt a dance choreography, or some singing techniques, or an acting sequence, be sure to get it on video if you can. Failing that, just get a photo with the instructor, so you can at least remember and be able to talk about that time when you had a masterclass with so-and-so. It’s not bragging if it’s for your professional portfolio.

Beatboxing workshop with Felix Zenger. Because singing and vocal percussion go hand in hand in a cappella music.
Make your own Videos at Home
Singers can do this more easily because dancers need more space (unless you have tons of space and then there’s no problem, or you can find another more suitable venue). Been practicing something at home and you want to show the world? Just put a camera on a tripod and film yourself performing it. Don’t feel shy about performing to just a camera, nobody’s around and nobody will judge you for it, they’re just going to see the video afterwards and be totally focused on the performance itself.

Just one thing about taking videos at home, though: you might want to try and not make it look too much like a home video, if you can. Make sure the space you’re in is not cluttered, try for good acoustics, and make sure your video is clear or you’re using a good camera. Some video editing would help too especially if you’re not moving around much.

Came for the marijuana, couldn’t vibe with the music. 🌿 (Just kidding it’s just a song about secretly not wanting to be at a party)

A video posted by Sasha M (@sasasha.m) on Nov 29, 2016 at 2:56am PST
Collaborate with Filmmakers
Just because you’re in the performing arts doesn’t mean you can’t or shouldn’t work with people in other fields. In fact, in today’s video-focused era, all the more you should collaborate across fields of work, such as visual media.

If you want to up your portfolio game, here’s a way: work with a professional. Your product is a video, so you should try to collaborate with someone who’s a videographer or filmmaker. Of course, professionals may charge for their work, so if you don’t have the budget, try finding filmmakers who are starting out and who may not charge so much, or who may be willing to do your video for free if they like the concept.

I was super duper lucky to be able to collaborate with a filmmaker on one of my YouTube videos, a cover of Dangerous Woman. His name is Daniel Alejandro Gonzalez and he was in Singapore for a period of time, during which we managed to squeeze in this video collab.
(For singers and musicians) Record yourself Better
Typically audiences respond better to visuals than sound, but if music is your thing, you want to make sure they pay attention to your audio. For that, you should definitely record your best performances… but you could also take it a step higher and have your stuff properly recorded, with a good microphone or recording setup, good EQ balance etc. There’s no better way to get people to hear the nuances of your music than to have it properly recorded and even produced.

You can choose a combination of the above methods, or all of them, and use them in different situations. It also helps to be mindful of which particular field of the performing arts you are doing, and make sure the method you choose showcases that well.

Whichever method you choose, be sure to always put out your best work. Remember, the end goal is to have something you can be proud of, that you would be happy to show people. If you’re not sure what your best work is, get feedback from your peers, but you ultimately decide for yourself what your best work would be. Once you know for yourself what your best work is, you will not be affected by unfounded criticism from people who are not constructive or simply do not like your style. Just do what you love and show what you are proud of, and others will learn to recognize you for who you are. All the best!

2016 In Review: Taking the leap and going solo

January 7, 2017 by Sasha M

Personal Growth

2016, artist, journey, Little Red Dots, music, production, recording, review, SASS, solo, video, videography, vocals, YouTube

It’s only been a week into 2017 so far, there’s still time to do a review of 2016! Mostly, it was about my journey to becoming a solo artist.

2016 was a lot better than 2015 for me. Musically, my 2016 has been full of adventures. It was definitely the start of new beginnings, with my vocal group SASS going on hiatus in Feb after two eventful years (on Valentine’s Day, also known as our anniversary hehe). Though we are no longer working on original songs together, we still sometimes perform together for shows. It’s always great to perform with these girls, and I really can’t get enough of our vocal harmonies!

SASS at one of our performances last year.

I also got together with another talented vocalist/producer and two extremely skilled beatboxers, and we formed a group called Little Red Dots. The awesome thing about making music with them was that firstly they were all guys and this was a new thing for me to figure out how to sing in a group where all the other vocals and parts were male (a big jump from SASS as an all-female trio). And best of all, we were going after a very urban, beats-oriented underground sound. Our first cover was a drum and bass remix of a pop song, which basically sat perfectly within my musical tastes:

Well, Little Red Dots didn’t go on hiatus, but everyone is so busy with such conflicting schedules that we may as well be! Nevertheless we did some great gigs:

LRD performing at a National Day event.

LRD performing at the Manhunt finals show – Caleb was a Manhunt winner!

Above all, 2016 was the year when I finally had to face up to the fact that I needed to become a solo artist to pursue my music as fully as I am able.

This may not seem like a big deal for some, but it was a very big deal for me. I have basically been working in groups all these years (I used to be in several a cappella groups and bands like my university band The LaundroMATs), and I’m very much a group-oriented person. So to become a solo artist was really, a pretty terrifying idea. Though I’m used to being in the spotlight as a vocalist, I’m also used to being credited in my group, because it’s always a group effort that’s needed to pull off a show. How was I going to shoulder the entire responsibility of a performance by myself?

After thinking a lot about it, I realized what was the one thing really holding me back: my insecurities. I didn’t have confidence in my own abilities. And I also realized, most importantly, that if I didn’t have confidence in my own abilities, it didn’t matter how talented or not I was, I was going to go nowhere.

So I took a leap of confidence, and started my YouTube channel (more on that in another post). And it was great, because now I’d finally started, I began to know exactly what I needed to be able to do in order to make good videos, and create quality content as a solo artist.

That’s how 2016 became the year of training and equipment acquisition. I saved some money to buy a decent recording microphone, and learnt the basics of vocal recording. I recorded my vocals to backing tracks created by other people, and made videos to post on YouTube. And at the end of the year, frustrated with my limitations in making my own videos to a decent standard, I bought myself a good camera so I could really tackle this video making issue.

This year, it seems, is looking to also be a year of training and self-improvement. I’m still just at the very beginning of a music career, and I hope to be able to take some steps forward in that this year, particularly as a songwriter. I still love to perform so I will be focusing my YouTube channel on improving my own performance, as well as technical skills (vocal and video production). And there are a couple other online courses I’m looking at taking as well.

And that’s my direction for 2017. Hoping all goes well!

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