solo

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!

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:

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!