Musicians

Eric Tsang – Musician

For the first post of 2021, I had a chat with Eric Tsang, musician and manager of The Phonix. We discussed the unorthodox way he came to pursue music as a career, his experience as a music teacher, and what this new year may look like for professional musicians.

Originally from Hong Kong, Eric came to Canada when he was twelve years old, and he didn’t have any intention of becoming a musician. Like many newcomers to any country, his family did not come with swaths of money and after several years, reached a point where they strongly considered moving back to Hong Kong. However, their financial troubles ironically meant that “we didn’t even have enough money in the bank account to buy plane tickets to go back,” effectively leaving them stuck in Vancouver. Eric realized that he had to figure out a way to support himself and his family moving forward. He had a mild grasp on English but didn’t feel confident going into any of the arts or sciences, so he turned to music as “less of a passion, but more of a necessity”. To accelerate his career, he pursued a jazz degree at Capilano University and then continued on to earn a Master’s of Education at the University of British Columbia, with the aim to give himself some job security as a music teacher.

Building a High School Music Program

With his degrees in hand, Eric earned a position to teach at John Oliver Secondary School, where he was tasked with building up a struggling music program. At the time, the student body of John Oliver was dotted with kids experiencing a wide range of challenges. Many faced socioeconomic hardship and complex living situations at home. Eric realized that music held different values here compared to other schools he had worked at in the past. In wealthier neighbourhoods, Eric observed that music was certainly a class that students looked forward to, but played a small role in their lives amongst other extra-curricular activities, sports teams, and family trips. In this school, “music was really important in that they use music to keep kids in school”. Music became a transformative means to add structure to the students’ lives, foster growth and work ethic, and make school a worthwhile or even enjoyable experience. Eric also saw his role evolve while working at John Oliver, as his responsibilities as a music teacher were often also met with duties more akin to a counsellor while working with their unique student body. Another challenge was that as a teacher, he had to know how to play as many instruments as there were parts in the band. He admitted that “I suck at playing the flute,” but hey, my list of instrument incompetency is far, far longer. Over eight years, Eric played a large role to increase membership from seventy students to over three hundred strong, and create a self-sustaining program that was able to thrive without him.

The Phonix

Near the end of his tenure at John Oliver, Eric was invited by his friend Reuben to fill in as a saxophone player in The Phonix, a funk, R&B and soul cover band. The band formed soon after they all graduated from Capilano and were looking for work as musicians. Operating on the platform that “we’ll play music that we all really like, and hopefully people would like it,” The Phonix built a loyal following playing regular gigs across Vancouver. Soon becoming a regular fixture in the band, Eric was eventually asked to transition into a management role in addition to his duties as a performer. He was excited to take on a new challenge but was soon thrust into client management, rate negotiation, building a website, and all the other duties of running a small business. Over the last ten years, Eric has helped take The Phonix in many new directions including opening a community-driven recording studio for fellow musicians, a photo booth business to give their shows some added interactivity, as well as launching an app to help artists improve performer-client relations. Expanding on this latest development, Eric says that each show would generally take Reuben and himself four hours in paperwork before they actually got to perform (assuming that clients still paid them on time, filed their paperwork, and held up their end of the agreement). This inspired them to build Back On Stage, a web application that helps automate scheduling, negotiation, booking and contracts. This dropped their workload from four hours to four minutes and encouraged them to provide this service for other musicians to help expedite their work as well.

Inseparable from Eric’s place in The Phonix is his sunglasses, a mainstay in every conversation I’ve ever had with him until this interview. Like Slash without his top hat or Steven Tyler’s mic stand free from scarves, it was frankly a strange experience to actually see his eyes. He explained that these remain a fixture when he performs to help fight the stage fright he feels, especially when performing solos. Expanding on what goes into a great solo, Eric shares that “[each] thirty-second solo came from years of doing really bad solos,” and that failure is something that he had to embrace to grow as a performer. Some of his favourite memories with The Phonix include playing at a house party full of fans, as well as shows at the Penticton Peach Festival. He describes the atmosphere of playing in a living room was noticeably different than at any club he has played at. All of the attendees were familiar with the band and each other, and as he walked through the crowd “everybody is your friend; everybody’s your buddy”. Playing in Penticton was also always a memorable experience since “not a lot of festivals like to hire cover bands,” making this a great opportunity to go on the road as a group and enjoy their time out of town. Mix in some time on the water and playing to a crowd in the thousands made for a tradition that sadly feels like a relic, given the effect the last year has had on the performing arts industry.

Saxo’grams

Coming into 2020, Eric says that The Phonix were primed to continue their upwards trajectory, with gigs booked through to the December holiday season. But upon live performances being shuttered so quickly, they had to refund all of the deposits that they had received and set a new course for the year. In these stressful times, Eric “quickly had to come up with a lot of new ideas, new ways of doing things,” which include streaming shows, moving his private saxophone lessons online, and Saxo’grams, a way to spread music in a safe way. The genesis of Saxo’grams came from a desire to bring shows to folks while they aren’t able to physically go to one themselves. Eric totes his saxophone around to houses to play a song or two for the desired recipient, bringing live music right to their doorstep. Lovely, right? An additional goal of this program is to help promote other local musicians and small businesses in this time of need, and a number are featured in the videos that have been released so far. This returns to Eric’s belief that at its core, The Phonix is a community initiative. Simply put, he says that “we want to help people, and this is our way of helping them”.

Eric has returned to teaching for the time being, but definitely check out his Saxo’grams to spread some live music to your friends and family. The Phonix was named the Best Band of 2020 by readers of The Georgia Straight, check them out on their website and on Instagram, and use Back On Stage to book them for your first post-COVID party. When I started this project, Eric and The Phonix were some of the first bucket-list artists that I wanted to speak with, and I can’t think of a better way to kick off the series in 2021.

-BF

Aidan Shamray – Artist

Aidan Shamray - Artist

This week I speak to artist Aidan Shamray about defining the differences between singles and albums, the impact visuals can have on a song, and the release of his new single, “Blue”.

While he has been releasing music at a furious rate as of late, Aidan has been producing for over 4 years. Looking back on his first tracks, he says that while the arrangements were not his best, he can still relate to the excitement and passion he felt as a new artist. Starting out, he felt confident sharing the lyrics, arrangements and mixes he had created but was much more nervous regarding the music videos he produced to accompany them. For him, performing on camera was “the first time expressing myself in such a direct way,” and felt much more vulnerable than a purely aural experience. To complement his performances, Aidan integrates different visual elements and he says that it has been a great learning experience to become more comfortable with the tools he has at his disposal. There was initially a greater disparity between his music and filmmaking skillsets, but he feels that he has closed this gap through repetition and practice. He also doesn’t separate these two worlds, rather he considers the visual experience an extension of the music, letting the music influence visual aspects such as subject matter and colour palettes.

The Benefits of Releasing Singles Over Albums

Aidan’s recent releases have all been singles, and when I asked him whether he had considered combining them into an album, he expressed his indecision on what qualities define an album. He said that as someone who has released albums in the past, “I struggle with if an album necessarily needs to have a consistent sonic cohesion amongst it” to hold it together, or if it may contain songs with no apparent similarities between them. If the answer to the former question is yes, then he would not consider his recent singles as part of a bigger album due to the varying stylistic differences between them. Moreover, he has found that the labour cost is significantly higher to create an entire album than it is for a single. In a social environment in which attention spans are at an all-time low, Aidan feels that you need to have “really thought about how you’re going to sustain interest in it,” in order to justify the investment of time, funds, and marketing efforts to create an album. For him, singles “allow me to challenge myself and do different things every single time,” granting him the freedom to cross genres and styles in a way he wouldn’t necessarily have within a traditional album.

On September 25th, Aidan is releasing “Blue,” the next single in his discography. “Blue” is a ballad he has been tinkering with for a while; he had written it several months before, but struggled to find the complementary parts to build around the main guitar line. Taking some time away from this song proved fruitful to breathe new life into it, and he expressed that “I love how so much of music is recycling” old ideas into new ones. Aidan also says that “Blue” is a snapshot of the struggle to “make the right choice not only for myself but for people that enjoy what I do;” a balance that affects artists in any discipline. Aidan says that this internal back and forth can result in delayed release dates, or deter him from releasing more experimental work, but is still part of the creative process that ultimately helps appease both himself and his listeners.

The Workflow of a Solo Artist

When it comes to writing the lyrics to performing the arrangments, mixing the recordings and finally creating the accompanying visuals, Aidan has largely been the sole architect of his creative body of work. While he says he is certainly open to writing or producing for another artist, at this point he isn’t sure if he could work with another lyricist or musician on his own projects. He explains that “so much of what I come up with is just me mumbling and then figuring it out,” that it would be difficult to integrate another artist into his usual workflow. However, he adds that “I can definitely admire other people’s skills,” when dreaming up bigger projects or developing more complex visuals, and by no means has Aidan written himself off as completely a solo act.

Reflecting on the past four years, Aidan says that “I feel like I’m always creating,” regardless of whether he has been releasing music on a consistent basis. He has refined his workflow to the point where he can now release new music with regularity, something that used to feel much more insurmountable to do. Aidan tells me that when he was starting out, he would get hung up on the little details, overwork aspects that were already working and miss the big picture of the whole song. Using a drumline as an example, he realized that “it makes zero sense to try and save this snare when there are so many options” to explore and play with. This shift in his mindset has saved him great amounts of time when recording, added stability to his workflow and has brought a lot of the joy back into creating, now that “the content is there and the content is there consistently”.

My favourite artists are the ones who are cool without even trying and Aidan is no exception. He describes a time last winter when he would run out to his car at night and listen to his music to see how his songs would sound in a car; repeating this process for each of the nine songs on a past album. While tedious under normal circumstances, this was complicated by the -40 degrees Celsius winters of Brandon, Manitoba that necessitated “holding my phone so it doesn’t freeze” and turn off. Nowadays, Aidan is confident enough in his mixing abilities that such experiments are not necessary, but he cites this memory as just another example that “I will go to the end of the world for my art and to deliver the best product available”.

To support Aidan and prevent future ice escapades, give him a follow on Spotify to hear his backlog of work and on Instagram to see the visual companions to his tracks. He is releasing music on a monthly basis with “Blue” coming out on all streaming platforms on September 25th.

Follow A Musing on Facebook and Instagram for more content on Aidan and the other creatives in this series.

Don’t forget to check out last week’s interview with actor and filmmaker, Jenny Lee-Gilmore.

-BF

Brent Mosher – Producer

Brent Mosher - Producer

This week I spoke to producer, audio engineer and DJ, Brent Mosher about his musical roots, the soundscape of space and the release of his debut EP, Event Horizon.

An Education in Music: Formal and Otherwise

Brent started in music like many others, learning to play the piano as a child, and then enrolling in band classes as a teenager. After a brief stint playing the baritone, he moved to the drums and percussion for his five years in high school. Percussion afforded him the opportunity to focus on beats and rhythms, something that eventually led him to develop an interest in DJing. Brent had a friend who was relatively new as a DJ but was nevertheless tasked with playing music for a house party that they both attended. While Brent was looking over the control board, his friend turned to him and said, “Hey man, I want to go make out with my girlfriend. Can you take over for a little bit?” When I’ve been asked this question, it has never been accompanied with any real responsibility; its more like “hold my beer,” or “get out of the hot tub”. Returning to the story, this “little bit” turned into two hours, and despite being a bit overwhelmed, Brent’s surprise debut was positively received by the crowd. This pushed him to delve deeper into electronic music, get a controller of his own, and begin exploring life as a DJ.

At the start of his studies at The University of British Columbia, Brent began recording mixes for his personal use but soon outgrew the audience of his dorm room. He received his first real opportunity to play for others at the end of his second year when he was hired to play half an hour at a party hosted by The Calendar. He remembers only a few people being at the party during his timeslot, but due to his performance, he rose to later and longer sets until he found himself closing the night. Brent faced a steep learning curve to keep up with these opportunities, saying that as a performer he had to learn that for this type of event “you’re playing for the people in the room… not necessarily what you want to hear”. Other key learning moments were learning to mix without train wrecking, “when you have two beats that aren’t aligned when you’re playing them,” and dealing with the unpredictable climate of the crowd, weather, and power outages of a party.

As his university degree came to a close, Brent realized that he didn’t want to pursue a career in the field of Kinesiology, his chosen major. He also realized that while he was DJing on a consistent basis, he didn’t see a future for himself in this field either. Neither the life of a commercial DJ playing weddings nor the life of a resident DJ playing clubs every weekend presented him the opportunity to use the music he wanted to play. Moreover, he wanted to shift from playing other artists’ songs to learning how to produce his own music. He completed his kinesiology degree as a nod to his parents and the time he spent at university but decided to continue his education at the Nimbus School of Recording. A surface-level look at Brent’s journey at Nimbus thus far includes modules in sound engineering, electronic music production, and post-production game audio production, but the star of this article is his most recent final project. This resulted in the release of his first EP, Event Horizon.

Event Horizon

While the inciting incident to create his EP was to satisfy an assignment, the inspiration behind it came from the onset of COVID-19. Brent describes the beginning of quarantine as a time in which “anxiety and depression were at an all-time high,” and a period in which he found himself wanting to be far away from the troubles on Earth. His first song, “Day by Day”, imagines “what would it be like to just get in a rocket ship and blast off” from our rock. The title is also a mantra of how Brent got himself through the initial turmoil of quarantine; taking all of life’s sudden changes one day at a time. In this song he took vocal samples of conversations about space and processed them with a vocoder, introducing the sci-fi quality that is consistent throughout the four songs. These vocal samples are the glue that Brent uses to hold the EP together, and this was the first time he had released multiple songs with the same thematic overtone. Despite the environment in which this song was made being a place of adversity, Brent describes his dream for the music video as much more jovial, with an astronaut dancing around his rocket ship. Speaking on behalf of the astronaut, Brent says that “because he’s just hurtling through space, [he] might as well dance”. I know videographers read this blog, let’s make this happen.

Following “Day by Day” is “Landing Zone”, a song about the moment when our hero arrives on a calm, desolate planet. As the astronaut explores the landscape of this planet, he discovers that he is not alone, encountering hostile aliens in the third song, “Contact”. Brent describes “Contact” as “the most chaotic song on the EP,” as well as the song that would best fit into a club set. He built this song around a simple driving bassline, using other techniques to evoke alarms, flashing lights, and a fight between warring spaceships. He also dots the track with “ear candy,” which he denotes as the extra bits in a song that “tickle your brain a little bit”. ***Not to be confused with what my uncle assured me was delicious, homemade taffy***. Finally, the last song on the EP is the title track, Event Horizon. Brent says that he spent the most time on this track to achieve it’s celebratory and light-hearted sound. It began as a specific in-class assignment in which he received ten sounds to make a track with, despite the sounds being disjointed to one another. After manipulating them to develop some cohesion, he created Event Horizon and closed the book on the astronaut’s story. Having escaped the aliens, the astronaut and his ship approach a black hole, unaware of what new beginnings may lie on the other side. This EP combines Brent’s loves of house music and outer space, but he adds the caveat that this may not be indicative of future work. With this EP finished, he says that “I still feel like I’m very early in my artistic journey” and is excited to explore new sounds and new horizons. Pun damn well intended.

Producing

Speaking about the process to make this EP, Brent says that a common misconception is that all producers eventually have an “a-ha moment” in which they break through their creative block and arrive at a finished product. Like many other creatives I’ve spoken to, he says that while his workflow has become more efficient, “a lot of it is just generating unsuccessful ideas, and making bad music”. To mitigate this he says that over the last two years he has attended concerts with critical intent, to “figure out why I like it and why the room is responding the way it is”. Working backwards to break down the individual components of a track and identify the structures of music he enjoys has consequently helped him grow his skillset for his own original content.

A recurring theme in our conversation is the trials of building confidence as a creative. A formative moment for Brent was attending Bass Coast, a music festival he simply describes as “my favourite place in the world”. The community-oriented art installations and a carefully curated lineup are what he values most about this festival, and what drove him to move from an attendee to volunteering in several capacities and joining the Bass Coast street team. Brent describes a night in 2018 when he worked his first shift as Stage Keeper of the Radio Stage. Seeing the organization on the back-end of the festival, meeting some of the artists, and more importantly, becoming more confident in the space in which he sought to work affirmed Brent’s original conviction to enter this industry. Holistically, he says this night “showed me what a world-class event in my eyes would look like, what it would sound like, and how people would work as a team”.

Looking back on all his different projects, he says that being able to share his music with others has been the most rewarding part of this journey. Brent still enjoys the occasional DJ gig but has found that the ownership and creativity as a producer gives him more satisfaction in his work. While he doesn’t view his growth as finished or even always where he would like it to be, his goal is to keep creating tracks “better than the last thing I made”. For more on Brent, and to check out Event Horizon, click this link. Also, if you are in need of a recording or mixing engineer, contact Brent through his Instagram page.

Make sure to follow A Musing on Facebook and Instagram for more content on Brent and the other creatives in this series.

Finally, check out last week’s article with Doodle Artist, Sofia Shamsunahar.

-BF

Amanda Sum – Theatre Artist & Musician

 Photo by Olivia Pannu

This week I spoke with Amanda Sum to talk about her roles as a soccer-playing teen, a local cricket star and the upcoming recording and release of her original music.

Growing up, Amanda says that while “performance was always kind of around,” she didn’t decide to pursue this lifestyle until the end of high school. Throughout her five years there, she found herself in band and choir classes but wanted to explore music outside of these domains. After teaching herself to play the guitar, she shared some covers singing on Youtube. However, let it be known that the catalyst behind her channel “was not for self-growth, it was for me to try to impress my grade 10 crush”. I am in no position to judge, none of my attempts to impress love interests have resulted in any tangible skills. While this strategy ultimately didn’t work, she still finds value in it and “leave[s] up old embarrassing videos just to keep humble”. Despite all of these involvements and other creative endeavours, Amanda’s decision to study theatre in university largely came through the elimination of other options. She says that unlike classic origin stories, “I wasn’t blessed with knowing” that this career lay ahead.

Crickets & Wolves: Fitness in the Theatre

While attending Simon Fraser University, she received tutelage from Maiko Yamamoto and James Long, the co-founders of the experimental theatre company, Theatre Replacement. Amanda struck up friendships with both of them outside of class and even interned at their Pantoland children’s summer camp. She had many roles there, serving as someone who “tamed kids tantrums” as well as serving as someone who served lunch at noon. Last year, Amanda earned a role in East Van Panto, one of the most well-known installations from Theatre Replacement. Donning a plaid blazer with an extra set of arms, she played “Jiminy Pattison,” the Jiminy Cricket/Jim Pattison hybrid in their take on an East Vancouver Pinocchio. After three weeks of rehearsal, she embarked on a performance schedule of eight shows a week over a total of seven weeks. In addition to this commitment, she was arranging music for a project that I’ll touch on later, along with finishing her final classes at SFU. Amanda describes this workload as both a physical and mental marathon but adds that she learned a lot from this experience and was also “the most fit I’ve ever been”.

Before her time in East Van Panto, Amanda earned a role in a stage production of The Wolves, not once but twice. In the initial run (2017), she saw a casting call for nine teenage girls, a demographic that she obviously had some experience in. However, the more unfamiliar territory was that all of these girls were members of the same soccer team. Pushing any inhibitions aside, Amanda thought “I’m so bad at sports, but how fun would it be to act like I’m good at sports?”. After a crash-course on dribbling, she got the part and completed a successful, albeit unpaid four-day run. But due to the positive reviews of the cast’s performance, the show was picked up for a larger, paid, remount for the following year. Amanda said that receiving news of this was both very exciting and validating as their passion project was garnering appreciation on a larger scale. Unfortunately, as rehearsals began for the remount, and Amanda returned to the physical nature of the role, she developed a nerve issue in her foot. She says that “I woke up one day, and I thought my foot was asleep, but then it never went away”. In the spirit of athletic perseverance and something about a show going on, she pushed through without any major incidents right up to the preview, the first night with an audience.

During the preview and midway through a scene in which the cast was doing some warmup exercises, Amanda tripped and was unable to catch herself due to the numbness in her foot. She suffered a sprained ankle with half a show to go. She still had lines, so leaving the stage wasn’t the optimal solution, but neither was changing the tight blocking she had with the rest of the cast. Without many other options, she says that “it was such a team effort” to adapt as she stayed seated for the rest of the show. One small silver lining was that since her character was concussed and “always kind of out of it a bit,” the audience proved never the wiser to her static nature in the second half. However, due to her injury, Amanda was unable to return for the entire four-week run of the remount. While she initially felt “devastated” at this prospect, she was extremely proud to see the camaraderie between her understudy, her original castmates and the new team members over the successful run.

Artistic Integrity

Over the last year, Amanda has shifted focus towards her music and has been awarded grants to record and release some singles with her band later this year. While “music was always something that was like a hobby,” she found herself integrating her music more and more into her work in the theatre. She makes the distinction that she isn’t very interested in performing in traditional musical theatre, rather that she is interested in how music and theatre can intersect “without being a flashy thing”. ***jazz hands***

Due to COVID-19, her original recording date in April has been moved to July. Amongst obvious difficulties rescheduling recording time, this shift also jeopardized her dream of having an all-Asian female band. Since she was in a position to curate her own team, she wanted to collaborate with individuals who share similar experiences and values to those influencing her music. But due to the rescheduling, her guitarist was no longer available to record. To fill this need and stay on schedule, Amanda was sent a list of session guitarists; all of whom were White men. She felt that bringing one of these guitarists in for the sake of staying on schedule would be “rubbing directly against the value[s]” at the core of the project itself. Instead of accepting this as an inevitability, she rewrote the guitar arrangements to be played on a synth and is excited to have hired a new musician to join her team. This solution required much more work to rewrite and rearrange the parts, but she is “happy to do the work to make both process and product something I can stand by”.

Expanding on this ideology, Amanda derived these principles of artistic integrity from her experience in the theatre. She said that she has no desire to make generic pop songs, and wants to tell stories that are important to her. The personal aspect of this project is also unique in that “this has been the first time where I feel complete agency” in the work. In theatre, she is generally “some sort of vessel for someone else,” whereas now she is bringing her own stories, inspiration and team together to create an original product. Speaking about her body of work as a whole, she says that as a theatre artist and musician she is constantly confronting societal norms that do not necessarily line up with her own perspectives or experiences. However, she sees opportunity in polarity, and says that “when I don’t match up with these norms, that’s even more exciting”. Hell yes.

For more, follow Amanda on Instagram for updates, content, “and other performance-related antics”. If you went to high school with Amanda and would like a do-over, I’ll also link to her Youtube channel. Stay tuned for her singles later this year, but in the meantime check out New Societies, an interactive theatre game that can now be enjoyed online at 7pm on June 25th.

Follow A Musing on Facebook and Instagram for bonus content on Amanda and more!

If you missed last week, check out my interview with filmmaker, Corim de Guzman,

-BF