As part of The Insider Series, which
comprises of a series of sharing sessions by industry veterens organized by
library@esplanade last week, established producer-songwriters-arrangers Eric Ng
and Jim Lim shared their journey in the Chinese music industry, their
experiences and insights on what it takes to enter, survive, and ultimately,
flourish in the music industry today.
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| Jim Lim (left) and Eric Ng speaking at The Insider Series |
If you are an aspiring musician, here
are the main takeaways from the two hour session punctuated with jokes and
laughter:
- Be
humble and open, and always be willing to learn. As a musician, learning never
ends.
- Be
encouraging and helpful to others too. That was the culture that Eric and Jim
were exposed to when they first started in Taiwan.
- Everyone
works with a different style: You can choose to do everything yourself, or you
can choose to work with others to cover your weaknesses
- If
you are just starting out, find friends who can help you, for example, to sing
on your demo.
- Remember
that the music business is, after all, still business. Don’t take things too
personally. If you receive constructive feedback to amend your song, change it.
- Songwriting
levels the playing ground for all musicians. If you want to be recognized and
valued as a musician, start writing your own songs.
- If
you want to be a hit songwriter, first start by having a mainstream mindset. Write
hits that will work commercially, even if they may not be your personal
favourite.
- It
is possible to make a comfortable living being a musician.
- However,
being a musician is never a straightforward route. Hence, it’s important to
know when to let go, and always have a positive mindset. Manage your own
expectations.
- Learn
to sell yourself. Musicians are like door-to-door salesmen. Learn to convince
others of your own value.
Want to know the details of the full
session? Read on.
Eric: I’m a music producer, music
arranger. I started off as a guitarist, I’m also a keyboardist, I also play a
bit of drums, bass, and I started this company Funkie Monkies Production
together with Jim.
Jim: It’s the same for me. We play a
bit of everything. I started off as a sound engineer when I was seventeen. When I was in Secondary 1, I had a strong
feeling to do something in my life. Whenever I watched TV or listened to songs,
I was listening to whatever that was going on in the music arrangement. I would
hear the drums, the bass, the chords, the vocals, although I did not have any
music education at that time. So I thought maybe that was my calling, and what
I was good at. I started learning piano in Primary 1, and really loved playing
it. So I started with classical music first, and went on to pop music. After
that, I started doing music arrangements for my friends during the Xin Yao
times. My father bought me my first keyboard, the JV1000 and the MC500, which
was an antique music sequencing engine.
Eric: It’s like the abacus of music
programming. (Laughs)
Jim: That was how I started. I did
lousy music arrangements free-lance, and I didn’t even know how to quantize.
Eventually these friends whom I was arranging for joined a record company. One
of them asked me if I was keen to continue arranging for them, and that was
when I first stepped into a recording studio for tracking. The first commercial
arrangement I did was sung by Ann Kok, a song called Nobody Knows. Eventually I
started as an apprentice in this company. As an apprentice, we are not
considered employees and they don’t really pay us. You could come and learn,
but you have to do stuff for us, like buy lunch, buy tea, and observe from a
distance away, and you would be scolded if you got close to the board. During
those days, they were still using the two inch analog tape. At that time, many
people went through the same type of apprenticeship, unlike now where there are
much better channels through schools which offer courses that you could learn
from.
Life was fun. After school, I would
rush to the studio to learn as much as I could.
Eric: I started even being interested
in music only when I was seventeen. Before that, I just had no direction in
life. I didn’t know what to do, I had no friends. Every day after school, I
stayed at home and played computer games. I could press my right fingers quite
fast which later actually helped me as a musician because I could play the
guitar faster. At the age of seventeen, I saw some cool guys in school playing
the guitar, and they were playing Stand By Me. As I watched, I thought it looks
pretty easy and I could go back and try that, and from then I wanted to start
learn to play the guitar. Of course as with many kids of my generation, my
father said, “You cannot learn guitar.” So I went to dig up my savings, and I
had savings because I had no life (laughs), and I bought myself a cheap electro
guitar. It was fun, because it a passion. When you first start, you don’t think
about it. I’m not like most people, like Jim, where he had this vision that
this was what he wanted to do. I never had such thoughts, and I didn’t even
know that such a thing exists – that you could play and make a living. I never
bothered thinking about that. As I started playing, I made many friends, for
the first time in my life.
I started jamming. I would walk into a studio
and ask if someone needed a drummer, and would play randomly, and that was how
my music education started in jamming studios. It was a quick transition. At
seventeen, I was jamming, and when I was eighteen, I was starting to do gigs
already, and doing them badly and almost for free.
One day, some guy asked me if I wanted
to do Chinese music, I was like “Huh? Chinese music ah? Whatever. I’ll just go
and play.” I never heard Chinese music before that. After that, I started to
play in pubs and that’s where I knew Jim, because he was playing in this pub
along Tanjong Pagar called Strings.
Later I went into demo producing, got
friends to sing on them because I can’t sing, and we had a lot of fun. None of
them asked for money. I also did some demos for them, and it was all a friendly
exchange. We didn’t really think about the concept of money when we were twenty
years old. Unlike nowadays, even kids who are sixteen would start thinking if
they could make a living out of this.
Fortunately I came to know this guy
called Steven, who owned a music publishing house, and he was pitching a lot of
songs to people like Ah Mei or Jacky Cheung. He heard that I wrote songs, so
he asked me to write for him. I gave him seven songs a week, and just focused
on writing a lot of content. Along the way, I met a lot of singers, and they
asked me, “Why don’t you just come to Taiwan and check it out?” One of them was
Ke Yi Min and the other was Peng Jia Hui. At that time, there was a big scene
there as it was the pinnacle of Taiwan music because there were no MP3s.
When I went there, it was really an
eye opener, because you can feel a very strong culture there. Don’t talk about
Taiwan, I just came back from Phuket yesterday, and when I was in Thai pub, the
crowd went crazy with every song and they were singing along to all the songs.
Does that happen in Singapore? (Silence)
Jim: I think it’s because of the
language. In Thailand, everyone speaks Thai. I just came back from Japan too,
and over there, you can see many musicians basking along the streets, and there
would be people crowding around watching them perform. In Japan, everyone
speaks Japanese, but in Singapore, we have English, Chinese, Malay, etc, so the
attention is pretty much divided.
Eric: Yes, but that is also our
strength, because Singaporeans are exposed to a mixture of cultures all blended
together, and this is reflected in our sound. So back in Taiwan, I saw that
everyone was enjoying Taiwan music, and it was a very friendly environment to
work in because everyone respects everybody, even if they don’t mean it, but
they treat you very nicely (laughs). Even if the song sucks, they will say it’s
still ok. That was the culture that I was exposed to, and it really encourages
you, because if everyone were to tell you straight that your stuff sucks and
you should just quit, which was exactly what my teacher told me – to quit
school because I did not do well in school – it really makes you feel lousy. If
somebody gives you encouragement, then it will spur you on. When I first went
to Taiwan, all my songs were really horrible, but because through my demos they
could hear that I had some sense of arrangement, so that was when they started
asking me to be a music arranger. For those who do not know what a music
arranger is, an arranger creates a structure around the main melody that he is
given, and adds on instruments that will bring out the flavor of the song.
When I came back to Singapore, Steven
said that there were a few Taiwanese producers coming to Singapore, and he
would introduce me to them. Amongst those I had met were Benjamin Lim and
Michael Au, both of them were the reason why Jacky Cheung became so famous.
When I met them, there was no agenda, because they didn’t know what I did, but
they were very willing to help me and gave me advice. Benjamin started
listening to my songs and told Steven to get me to do some “stuff” for him. He
wanted me to listen to a certain melody and asked me to make a demo out of it.
At that time, I didn’t know what music arrangement was, so I thought, “Is it
because I can play guitar on this recording?” He said, “Yes, yes, just do it.” So I
went to program the drums, bass and played guitar on it, and I was quite happy
with it. After he heard it, he told me it was not bad, and told me which parts
to change, and I did. He then told me to
come to the studio the next day to do tracking. I didn’t know what tracking
was, but I just went anyway. It was a beautiful studio that is no longer in
existence. The studio was designed and built by the team that built one of the
Abby Road studios.
I used my keyboard to program the instruments,
and that was when I met this guy called Terence Teo, who was still using the
MC500, and he’s a very famous arranger who has done works for FIR, Stefanie Sun
and many others. He told me that I had to guide the drummer and bassist. I was
surprised because I thought I was just there to record my guitar. But he told
me, “No, you have to do it, that’s your job!” So I did. I went into the studio,
and there was this drummer called Gary, and he plays wonderful drums. He’s like
a machine with feel. So Steven told me to guide him, so I told him basically
what to do and we finished the track. After that there was a bassist called Andy
Peterson, and all of them are really top musicians. After I guided him as well,
we were done with the drums and bass, and I was getting excited because I
thought finally it was my turn to record my guitar. Then Steven told me to sit
at the board because he was getting another guy to play the guitar for me. That
was when my world crumbled down. (laughs) In my mind, I thought, “Steven you
idiot, asked me to do so many things and you’re not letting me play my guitar?”
He told me to just sit there, watch, and learn something.
Then I saw this guitarist called
Jonathan Xu Hua Qiang, who wrote many great songs like Ah Mei’s Jie Tuo (解脱) and is a very good
guitarist. He was of course much better than me, especially his tone. And that
was also the first thing that I learnt about showbusiness from Jonathan. You
can play one chord like that (demonstrates with little movement with his hand),
and you can play the same chord like this (dramatic action with hands playing
the guitar). It’s the same thing, but it looks so much better. He makes it look
so stylo, and makes people think that it’s very difficult to play, but actually
it’s very simple.
A few weeks later, I received $600
cash from Steven. I asked him what was it for, and he explained to me that was
for my arrangement fees. I was so amazed and happy because I made $600 for a few days of work and all I wanted during that time was to make $800 in a month! Furthermore,
the song turned out to be the first single of an artist called Zhong Jian Fen
Zi. It felt really great, because you’re walking on the streets and you hear a
piece of music made by you. That was when I decided that this is really
something I want to do, and I started noticing that there were many avenues
that I could go into, from songwriting, I could move into arrangement,
production, playing the guitar and touring with artists.
Jim: I think for Eric, you’re very
lucky because you met a lot of Gui Ren (贵人) who have helped you a lot along the way.
For my case, I didn’t have any help. After army, I was employed formally
by this company as an in-house producer. At that time, I didn’t know what was
producing. All I knew was recording and buying lunch and tea, and making basic
arrangements. Producing is very important, and a lot of people actually do not
know what producing entails. As a producer, you need to oversee a certain
project, which is not easy. You need to understand every single step, starting
from songwriting. A producer may not know how to write songs, but he will know
how to judge what is a commercial song, and which song will suit which artiste.
Producing also includes vocal recording, recording the singer, the backup
vocals, mixing and so on. So the producer has to guide all these people along
the way, so that the song turns out the way that he wants.
There are many producers in Singapore
who do everything themselves. At that time, I was an aspiring producer who
wanted to do everything myself, because I was a control freak and the song can
only sound like the way I wanted. If it was done by anyone else, I would think
that it’s not nice and I would want to do it myself. Step by step, I learnt the
different aspects of producing, and it was a lot of fun during that time. I had just finished army, and the pay
was more than army, so I was happy already. The good thing about this
studio was that it was an in-house studio, and I could use it as much as I
wanted to. I could camp overnight in the studio and live there, which I did,
just to learn or figure a small little detail. During that time, it really
wasn’t about money making, but about the passion and interest. The whole
recording thing was new to me. I learnt piano and the guitar and knew what was
arrangement, but recording and mixing was a whole new ballgame to me. I was
enjoying myself so much with all the equipment provided to me.
Halfway through, I realized that I
wasn’t recognized at all. In order for people to recognize my effort, I have to
have a value. Most of the time, you would see the credits for the songwriter
and lyricist, hardly the arranger or mixer, so that was when I decided it’s
time to write songs. I started quite late writing songs, at the age of around
23, and through writing songs, people see your name keep appearing, and they
assume that you did everything.
When I was 24, my boss asked me if I
wanted to be a singer. I told him no, because I wanted to be a producer. But he
told me that the easiest way for others to recognize my name was for me to be a
singer. He had signed two male artistes who were my friends, and due to some
contractual issues, he decided to cut costs and cut an album for us as a group.
Back then, there were many two-guy groups like Zhong Jian Fen Zi, Shan Feng
Dian Guo, Guang Liang Pin Guan, so my boss thought that maybe we should do a
three-man group.
Although I didn’t like to be on the
front, I thought that I should give it a try if it could make me more credible
and get me more jobs. That was how Dreamz FM was formed. It was a great
experience, as I had the opportunity to go Taiwan. I stayed there for a year to
learn about production and know people there. The people I met weren’t as
helpful, but the overall culture was great. I got myself attached to this
producer named Jerry Huang Shu Jun as his assistant, and I learnt a lot from
him. I learnt that music production is very much about entertainment. During
those days, you had to learn how to entertain people, learn how to drink with
them, and from there I got to know and work with very good singers like Ah Mei,
who also helped me a lot, asking me to write and vocal produce for her.
When I came back to Singapore, I was
much more equipped with knowledge as a producer. I started to source and groom
my own artists, produced the whole album and provided a singular direction for
them. Even up till today, I am pretty proud of one of the projects that I did,
which involved this artiste Shi Kang Jun. I found him singing at a karaoke,
and he had a very good voice, so I asked him if he was interested to go for an
audition. He decided to sign with us, and I produced a pseudo-British band
sounding album with him from beginning to the end.
After all these experiences, I left shortly and joined Eric
with his Funkie Monkies. I realized that getting to know the right people who
recognized your value is very important. At that time, I didn’t care about
money, I just wanted to learn and do. After I left the company, I realized
something was wrong. Firstly, my pay could have been better, because my other
producer friends were getting around two to three thousand per month. Another
lesson I learnt was that, with regards to songwriting, when you are signed to a
publishing house who will help you do all the admin and sell your songs, they
will have to take a commission from the amount that is quoted to the client.
For a beginner, the industry rate was that the writer will get fifty percent of
royalty. As you establish yourself as a writer, then you can negotiate for a better
rate. Be mindful of what publishers offer you before you sign that contract. It’s important that you know where your value is, and
it’s not only about passion.
Eric: Arrangement provided a regular
income for me, but I also started to think about how I could step out and go
beyond being just arranger. I also noticed the same thing. Everybody only
bothers about the songwriter and lyricist, so I continued to keep writing
songs. As I was arranging a lot of mainstream material, it started to rub on me
on what the industry wanted, and I started to sell some of my own songs. The
first song I sold was to an old timer called Yang Ling, and my first single was
performed by Cass Phang. As I had come from a not-so-mainstream background, I
was still struggling to strike a balance in writing so that my songs that were
not too mainstream.
Later I got to know to know this guy
called Jonathan Lee, and he liked my stuff because they were not so mainstream.
He started getting me on board on many other projects, and one of them was for
Karen Mok. Her first and third single were my songs. Then he also asked me if I
was interested to co-write with his then-wife, Sandy Lam, who was working on
her own album. I flew to Shanghai and we wrote really fast. Up till today, I
don’t spend more than 30 minutes writing a song, and she is also the efficient
type, and in one week, we wrote seventeen songs, and one of them was called Zhi
Fei Ji (Paper Aeroplane), and it was written during the time when we were
supposed to take a break. I was playing the guitar, and we started piecing
together this song. That song turned out to be my first hit song. A lot of
people knew it, and because of that, Sandy also asked me to join her for a
tour, which included China, Japan and Malaysia. That was when I saw the
difference between writing a song for your own creative purposes, and writing a
song for mainstream appeal where I could see thirty, forty, fifty thousand
people screaming this song back at you when you are on stage. Of course, later
I also discovered that the royalties are also much nicer. That was the point I
decided, ok, I want to sell out, which is not a bad thing. I want to write songs
for that Ah Beng in the KTV. I want him to enjoy singing my song. I started
shifting my song direction. If you tune into any mainstream radio, most of them
are slow songs, and so that’s where I am going to concentrate on, and that was
where more of my songs started moving. I started working with Liang Jing Ru,
Tanya Chua and Stefanie Sun, and it all started with having this mainstream mindset.
At that time I also realized that I cannot be the world’s best guitarist, nor
the world’s best arranger or producer, because there is always somebody better
than you technically. But when you write songs, you can never guarantee if the
next song can be equally good or be better. There is no standard for writing
songs. It’s like abstract art, picking elements from all over and making it
simple so that the world will sing together with you. So I focused on
songwriting, because songwriting puts you up there with everybody else. I was
Eric Ng, right at the bottom, and there was Jonathan Lee, right at the top, and
these two worlds wouldn’t have collided if not for songwriting. Songwriting is
a way where it really levels out the playing ground for everybody. Like how Jim
shared, there are people who can write a song but can’t even play an
arrangement, it really comes out of nowhere.
But I also notice that there are
trends, and there are actually shapes and structures, or formulas in that
sense, that you can make a song memorable and catchy, even if the melody is not
nice.
I decided that I was not going to
write songs for myself, but for others. So I had an agenda where I would write
five commercial songs and five songs for whatever else, and I did that for many
years. Of course, the commercial ones would get the furthest, but as a
musician, you also feel great when a song that is totally out of this world and
is non-commercial gets into an album and gives you that kick. One of these was
picked up by Ah Mei, which was a heavy rock song, and it was even used as a
single, and I got some royalties out of it. That was when I discovered the
power of songwriting. Everything revolves around it. Through our songs, people
looked for our arrangement or production, and if you look around in the Chinese
scene, 90% of producers are songwriters, because the Asian music scene is very
melody-driven, and if the guy understands this, they assume that the guy can
take charge of the whole song.
How did you
continue to hone your craft, after you did Dreamz FM?
Jim: Life will be super boring if
there wasn’t anything to learn. I’m glad that in this music line, it’s a never
ending journey to learn. There are so many things to learn, discover and better
yourself at. Currently, I’m trying to hone my mixing. There was a period of
time I was into arranging deep house dance music, then I shifted to a more
band-sound arrangement. I just keep doing different things, including vocal production,
which is my forte. Vocal production is like 40% music and 60% psychology,
handling the artiste in the studio, which can be a very pressurizing feel for
them because they are not used to hearing themselves through the headphones.
Vocal production is something that I keep trying to improve myself on.
Sometimes it can be very aggravating, because you know how exactly how the song
is supposed to sound like, but the singer is unable to deliver it, so you will
need to find a point between your expectation and the singer’s natural ability.
I find it very challenging, to bring the best out of the singer, and not to
make him sound like you. Same for backing vocals, and I would try different
styles, sometimes spacing them far apart, or sometimes putting them close to
each other for a different effect. There’s a lot to hone in this industry, and
every day I’m learning something new.
Eric: Somewhere along the way, I
noticed that you can actually make a comfortable living out of being a
musician. What is considered comfortable, is of course defined differently for
different people, but I realized that you don’t need to be struggling to be a
professional musician, earning a comfortable pay not much less than your friend
who is drawing a salary from a nine-to-five job.
I started thinking, how I could work
with people who could cover my weaknesses. I started to seek out all the top
musicians I know. When I did my arrangements or productions, I engaged all
these top musicians who are better than me to play on them, and if others heard
that this piece of music was top grade, it’s my credit. (Laughs) It was an evil
plan, and even today I work with them, including this top string arranger Bang
Wen Fu, who has done a lot of musicals. Unlike Jim, I don’t think I have so much
time to learn every part of production, but I want to focus on the things that
I think I can do well in, and just outsource the rest to the best.
As musicians, whether you are a
gigging musician in a pub, or a songwriter, I realize that we are just door to
door salesmen. We have to let people know this is what we are worth, and there
are a lot of creative people who cannot detach themselves away from the fact
that this is actually business. When you can’t do that, you will get hurt for
all the wrong reasons. For example, after your client pays you, but later
remarks that it is not very good, and you totally blow up on him, it’s your
loss, because you may never ever get him again. Why would you want to burn your
bridges if he already paid you for your services? After all, I learnt something
out of it, and I wouldn’t have gotten the job if I had laid out all my strict
rules from the beginning. The balance is when it’s time for us to take action,
and when should you allow yourself to made use of and let go. When I submit my
songs, most of the time, the arrangement is 80% done, and it almost sounds like
the final product. There were so many times that I heard that they found
another arranger or producer, but when the song is released, I heard that the
final song sounds exactly the same as my demo. It happened a few times, but any
sensible person in the record company would have easily noticed that this was
happening, sooner or later, they would recognize you and wish to pay you.
After one or two years of receiving $600
for an arrangement, I decided to put my foot down and started to charge more.
This whole business of being able to raise your own value is a difficult
balance. That was why I bought a lot of books to read to learn how to present
yourself and convince other people of your value. Like what Jim said, it’s not
just about the production. The whole business is about the psychology as well.
If you can convince a person that you’re worth something, maybe you may fail
with one person, but at the end of the day, if you really persist, I think
people will recognize you for it. For me, to hone my craft, I still only focus
on songwriting, because it still holds true to me the fact that I will not be
the world’s best whatever, but my songs have a place. I’m also always trying to
find out more ways to help people monetize from this business. That’s why I set
up Funkie Monkies, because I wanted to be my old boss, Steven, someone who
could bring about many people and form an army or team to have more leverage or
bargaining power. I set up Funkie Monkies so that I could also hone that part
of the brain, which was my business sense.
How did we
continue to move on in this industry?
Eric: Stay humble, stay open. Anyone
could walk up to me or Jim to ask how to do this or achieve this effect, and I
will definitely help you. This was the culture that I was open to in Taiwan,
unlike in Singapore. Nowadays, there’s nothing to hide. There’s Youtube, you
could find basically any information you want on the Internet. Sharing also
helps us to understand more about ourselves. We have already completed six
seven batches of song writing students, and we learnt a lot from them too.
What is your
biggest setback?
Jim: There is no one thing, but there
was a situation back in my old company that when people wanted to buy your
songs, they would give you a lump sum of money and give them the whole song.
The song belongs to them, and they will not pay you any more royalties. There
was once I wrote a pretty huge hit song during the late 90s, and when the
credits were out, it was under the artiste’s own name, but the truth is that it
was written by me, but I couldn’t say anything because I already agreed to sell
the whole song to them. I nearly cried when I heard the song on the radio and
the DJ mentioned that the song was written by him. Furthermore, the song was
also covered by another artiste, so it was not a setback, but I felt really
sad. From then, I told myself that I would never agree to such terms again.
Eric: When you want to make your
passion a career, it’s not a straightforward thing. When you ask most people
out there, they would think, “How is it possible?” Especially in Singapore.
So in the first place, if you want to
do this, you have to manage your expectations. If I wanted to be a doctor, I
know I would have to go to doctor school, graduate and become a doctor working
in a hospital or clinic. It’s a very straightforward route. It’s a difficult
one, but a straightforward path. But as a musician, there were many things
which we didn’t know or are unacceptable, but at the end of the day, as long as
you learn something from it, that is the greatest thing that you can receive
from any setback. If you want to do this as a career, you have to wire yourself
positively and move on. We have many emotional musician friends, and because they
were unwilling to let it go, they waste one or two years of their lives just
dwelling on it, or trying to take action, and in the end, nobody gains from
this.
Jim: Yes, I totally agree. It’s
important to have a very positive mindset, and always be humble.
Eric: On the things we wish we knew
when we first started out – the answer will be in line with what we will be
doing for the next 9 months. Recently, the government has started to be quite
supportive towards the music industry. We are working with MDA to train up a
new batch of songwriters. We started the first batch already, and it was very
successful. MDA funds up to 90% of the school fees. When we first started out,
we would die to have this chance. First of all, we don’t know where to go, we
don’t know how to do it, so it’s cool to see MDA, WDA and NAC coming in to give
grants, because it’s all musicians who are benefiting from this. That was the only thing I wished
existed.
Jim: I feel very happy that nowadays a
lot of things are more accessible and simpler for musicians, not only because
of the government’s support, but the scene is more vibrant because now there’s
a lot of things that you can do at home. You can record at home, you can do
music arrangement at home, you can mix at home. You will need to invest, not
it’s not much for a basic set up. During our time, it was so expensive.
Eric: Now everyone says that the music
industry is doomed. But actually if I’m looking for something positive out of
the whole situation, I would say the playing ground for musicians has been
leveled, because you can just go on Youtube to reach out to an audience. Of
course, there are so many other people doing the same thing, but there are many
stories and successful cases of musicians making a success from non-traditional
platforms. Of course, during the good times during the 90s, there were the hit
bands or artistes, just as there were so many other bands that didn’t make it,
and the situation is pretty much the same now. It just makes the strongest more
prominent.
Q: How has
Singapore contributed to the Asian music industry?
Jim: Singaporean musicians are very
different due to their influences. They have a very distinct sound or style,
and that’s why Taiwanese artistes like to employ Singaporean bands to tour with
them rather than hire from their own country. This is something I’m very proud
of. They recognize that we are able to do certain things in a different way. We
have a more western sound which they like. We are a very small country. We do
not have our own market to support our musicians, but we are able to export our
talents.
Eric: Our export culture for musicians
is actually very strong, which is one of the reasons why MDA, WDA and NAC
always come in to support this area. If you ask any person in China on the street if they
knew who was JJ Lin or Sun Yan Zi or Ah Do, they will probably know them. I
would say in the top ten of the more successful artistes in Asia, especially
China, Singaporeans probably can make up two to three of them, and for such a
small population of Singapore, that is really insane. At the back stage, a lot
of hit songs are written by Singaporeans too. They do notice that we have
something special. Turns out that our disadvantage in the local music scene
because of language and the mixture of cultures has also become our advantage.
Q: With the
advent of MP3s, how have your royalties been affected?
Eric: Yes, MP3s have affected the
music industry drastically, but then again, it’s still more than $800 (laughs)
and there are many other avenues in the music industry. For example, karaoke is
a big culture in Chinese music. So even though people are not buying our songs,
they are still always dedicating the songs on karaoke. When it is released on
karaoke or on radio, it’s called public performance, and we get royalties from
that. Every year, we would receive a thick file from the society who helps to
collect our royalties on our behalf, and I could receive something like $30,000 in accumulated royalties for a big hit song that I wrote 11 years ago that I wrote in half an hour while I was cycling. If that song was
sung by someone like Jacky Cheung, maybe I could have been getting $100,000 or
$200,000 in the golden period of the Taiwan music scene before there were mp3s. But like what we said, we are not doing this entirely for money. As
long as we can survive, we are happy.
Jim: A lot of musicians are feeling
insecure during this period of time because we are not earning as much money as
we did before when it was just CD sales. To me, I do not believe that music
will die. CD will die, but music will not die. It will just become something
else, and I’m just waiting eagerly what it will be next. When vinyl first came out, live performers
were afraid that they would be replaced, but apparently it became a positive
effect instead, because with vinyls, their music reached out to even more
people and as a result, people from all over the world came to watch them live.
I believe it would turn out to be a good thing, but I just don’t know what form
will it take, whether is it iTunes or Spotify, I’m not sure.
Q: Taiwan’s
music industry seems to be going downhill. How would this affect you?
Eric: Last year I did a project,
recording twelve of China’s craziest vocalists, from The Voice of China. As
soon as I was in the studio and started recording, it was totally insane
because the quality of what Mainland China’s music has become, whether it is
the singing or the songs, I wondered what Taiwan was going to do now. But the
way I see it is that, it will only make everyone stronger, including Singapore.
Nowadays, if you want to be a Singapore singer, you just have to go watch the
Voice of China and you know you have to work your ass off. Of course, pop music
is not just about technical ability, but this would generally raise the level
of the entire music industry. For Taiwan, yes, their incomes and budgets are
all dropping, but I see that they are also going to turn into like Singapore,
which is export-related. They are aggressively trying to push their artistes to
China as well. If they were to only circle themselves around Taiwan, then it
would not be as comfortable as it used to be, but now they are combating it by
exporting.
Q: How to
sell my songs?
A publisher is like an agent or
manager for a songwriter, because if your songs get played on radio for example,
someone has to collect the money for you. That’s the role of the publisher’s
job. The second is that the publisher is able to inform you what songs are
needed for which singers or artistes, so that you are able to cultivate or
improve your songs. There are three main publishers in Singapore. One is
Universal, one is Ocean Butterflies, and one is Funkie Monkies. If you are
interested, you can send in your stuff, and we will see how we can help you.
How it works for us is that we don’t sign a whole big group of writers like how
some publishers do. For us, when a writer approaches us, we first analyze if
70-80 percent of the songs are marketable. I’m not talking about arrangement
quality or the production, but whether this song is good enough to be pitched
out. With that in mind, we will consider signing the writer under our
publishing department. But if we find that this person still needs grooming,
that’s where the school comes in, where we teach them to better their melodies
and more complete that people would enjoy.
About the Speakers
Eric Ng
Songwriter, Arranger, Producer, Music Director
A highly sought-after Songwriter/Arranger/Producer, Eric has stamped an
indelible imprint on the Asian pop scene since the late ‘90s. He has created
career-defining hits for artists such as A*Mei, Sandy Lam, Tanya Chua, Jaycee
Chan, and Ming Bridges. He has also performed extensively as a session
guitarist for artists such as Sandy Lam and Emil Chau, staging shows all over
the world from Taiwan, China, Japan, Malaysia, to London, America, and Canada.
As an entrepreneur, Eric founded Funkie Monkies Productions, a music
production house that aims to groom the next generation of artists. Never
resting on his laurels, he moved into movies and musicals, and he was the
composer/music director for productions such as “The Voice of China” film ,
Singapore hit movie <881>, and Lao Jiu the Musical. Amidst his many
commitments, Eric teaches songwriting at FM Pop Music School in hopes of
helping aspiring musicians take a step closer to their dreams.
Jim Lim
Singer, Songwriter, Arranger, Producer
A multi-hyphenate in the Mandarin Pop industry, Jim’s career began in
1992 as a studio engineer. Equipped with a range of instrumental skills, he
quickly became a self-sufficient musician who wrote, arranged, mixed, and
produced his own songs. In 1999, he formed the band 梦飞船, Dreamz FM, and produced and co-wrote all 3 albums of Dreamz FM. The
band attained recognition not just in Singapore and Malaysia, but also in
Taiwan and China.
In 1999, he co-produced the National Day theme song “Together” sung by
Dreamz FM and Evelyn Tan. The following year, he was commissioned to write the
National Day theme song, “Shine on me”, which was performed by Jai Wahab and
Mavis Wee. In 2004, he joined Funkie Monkies Productions, and has since written
and produced for many A-list artists including Stephanie Sun, Fish Leong,
A*Mei, Nicholas Teo, Jacky Cheung, and Show Luo. He has also toured with Wang
Leehom, JJ Lin, A-Do, and A*Mei as a backup vocalist. Jim is an ardent
supporter of local independent artists/bands, having produced albums for Serene
Koong, Jones, and Rui En. He currently heads the Vocal Recording department of
FM Pop Music School.
This session was transcribed by Emily Haw. Reach out to her on Twitter @emilyhaw
