Singapore Archives « Sasha M Online

Spot the cameos in the Glass Shard music video

February 8, 2021 by Sasha M

cameo, did you know, Easter eggs, friends, Glass Shard, independent musician, Made In Singapore, music video, production, Singapore

By now you’ve probably already watched the Glass Shard music video – a story of the highs and lows of friendship. You’d have seen that Zaleia and I have a commemorative photo wall, with photos from across the years. But there are some things you may not have known about us that I’m happy to share with you now.

Zaleia and I have 10 years of friendship together
You heard that right! We met while singing, in a school a cappella group, and have been singing together ever since. Some of you may know that we even used to be in a girl band together. However, even though I’ve started a solo project, we are still very close friends.
Several local artists make a cameo appearance on our photo wall
Over the years, we made many friends in music as well. While our photo wall commemorates our friendship, it actually also acts as a subtle shoutout to the music friends who have been part of our journeys in some way. Some of the local artists include rapper and wordsmith THELIONCITYBOY, vintage songstress Miss Lou, and legendary beatboxer and musician Charles, also known as Stitch FM from AnchorBlanc. (Charles also wrote a super sweet blog post about his cameo!)

In case you missed the cameos, they’re around the 0:42 mark:

Everything was filmed and made in Singapore
Though the aerial shots of the island may seem like we’re somewhere in the Maldives or perhaps one of the many beautiful spots in Indonesia, we actually shot the entire video within Singapore waters. Of course, we had to – the entire production happened during a pandemic! Even the carpentry was done in Singapore; in fact, we actually built the mirror frame ourselves. The glass frosting and cracking effect that was created within the mirror frame was also done by a local team. Talk about #MadeInSingapore!
The video was produced by an all-girl power team
Between Zaleia as our Executive Producer, and the co-producers being myself and our friend Ray, we had a lot of girl power on our hands. It’s really a testament to how much we were able to achieve with a female-oriented creative vision!
We did an impromptu photoshoot on set
For the scene with purple lights down the corridor, the set looked so attractive that I just couldn’t help but do a quick athleisure themed photoshoot, with pictures taken by Ray. However, this special set of photos will only be available to patrons – so if you’re already on my Patreon, look out there for more information!

Hope you found these trivia interesting, and the video enjoyable! We feel very lucky to be able to do all these as independent artists. Do stay tuned for upcoming news and events – sign up to my mailing list to keep in touch!

Teaching Dance Choreography for Secondary School Choir

August 27, 2018 by Sasha M

Work

CCA, choir, choreographer, choreography, instructor, secondary school, Singapore, teaching

Recently, I had the honour of being invited to choreograph a dance routine for a secondary school choir. I was told that I had been sought out specifically because of my experience choreographing for a cappella groups in the past… which is, frankly, the greatest honour! So, even though I don’t often teach, I was very happy to do two sessions for this choir.

I had a great time teaching the students (13-15 year olds, a big group of 33 students), they were very tuned in and applied themselves with earnest. When I used to teach music in schools (also as a freelancer), it was always a big game of chance as to whether the students would be positive and keen to learn, or if they would play punk with you (it has happened to me). So this particular choir was really a very pleasant surprise.

Some of my teaching points:

The Responsibility of the Performer: to take care of yourself so that you can do your best
Doing well cannot happen without doing your homework; PRACTICE
No performance is perfect; every run through is a learning opportunity to improve the next time round. Keep Improving!
Work as a team, look out for and help each other
Most of all, Have Fun! (And don’t forget to smile!)

While I won’t post any photos of / with them here, you can find a snippet of the choreography on my Instagram.

I really hope the students had fun during my two sessions with them. I did get a lot of positive comments afterwards and it really warms my heart! Especially this message I received afterwards:

“Thanks so much for your help and spreading the passion for dance to the students” – choir teacher-in-charge 🙂

Very happy to be able to do this kind of rewarding work. Thank you again to the school for putting their trust in me. I’m looking forward to seeing the students perform!

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 🙂

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!

singapore

Spot the cameos in the Glass Shard music video

Teaching Dance Choreography for Secondary School Choir

Community Performance at Our Tampines Hub

Online Music Production Course & SkillsFuture Credit