ever never no and I’m a music producer
and music audio manager at a production
house called Zander productions well as
a music producer I have many shoes to
fill in this industry many many roles
but to sum it all up simply my job is to
make you guys any of you wanna come on
the rail birthday song or some for a
girlfriend or whatever my job is to make
you guys sound as amazing as possible
and for me while I do this I have a
little quirk and I what I do is I tend
to put a little bit of some sounds from
our city in my productions so let me
show you and perform to you a few
examples the first one is actually by a
local singer songwriter named inch
not too long ago she had a little
residency in this little island that we
know as pulau ubin so what she had to do
is she had to stay in a compound in
Peleliu bin for four months with no
running water no electricity at all and
she had to finish a EP there so my job
as a producer was to help her realize
that vision so what we did also we went
about and we recorded sound like this
little neon y’all might be familiar with
see like that gray night which is what
fellow beings named after inch washing
clothes on the washboard and the river
so easily I could have written we could
have written an EP with inch unlike an
acoustic album you know you could just
strum and sing and it would be really
easy and done done deal but no in she
didn’t want that being their starting
musician extraordinary musician she is
she wanted something completely
different because Pulau Ubin is just a
few like a 10 minutes boat ride away
from the main city she want a little bit
of the old and the new so a little bit
of electronic mixed with acoustic so
what I did was by using all these sounds
right
I actually clumped in all that make a
basic beat for the foundation
we hear sounds you say yes great so with
that that became the foundation of that
tune and at the end we add add more
layers more sounds when we are recording
more stuff around the eyelid ad I’m
going to perform to you the piece it’s
called last year and here it is
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
thank you
so that was an arm or of a little
artistic approach to using sounds from
the city in another situation I was
presented with a little collaboration
that John Chuang assemble Lowe’s was
doing with adidas so what he did was he
was actually just doing a little video
of him walking around the city with a
pair of shoes that you guys might know
as at the nmds a pair of amazing pair of
shoes that I will never be able to
afford so he was running around the city
just you know checking out Singapore and
stuff like that so my job was to write a
background track for that am it about a
minute and half a video so um I figured
that you know given and then these cou
shoes kids nowadays given a demographic
I should write a tune maybe something a
little bit more like a hip-hop beat
little bit more urban so and yeah and I
did just that and then I was presented
with this particular scene that’s going
to show you in a bit where there’s a
little transitional scene where there’s
a little bit of traffic so let’s check
it out just a short exit though I see
Jones walking about looking real cool
and there so there’s a little traffic
scene and then it transits to another
part of Singapore so in most cases um
when you see a scene like that
as a composer you should create
something a moment where it can be a
little bit more uplifting a little bit
more exciting when the kid or any of you
see on Facebook like wow I want to buy
their shoe so my job is to make you make
sure that that my music generates sales
for you guys okay so in a typical
situation to transition this segment you
could actually use like a melodic idea
all the drum fills so this is the place
where the drum filled that I did it’s
going to sound like this
okay that might do may be but well I
couldn’t stand for that I don’t think
that was cool enough so what I did was I
went around Singapore I went to capture
some sounds some traffic and I used that
same rhythm the same drum rhythm that
same fill with traffic sounds so here’s
how it sound so they did help capture
your attention please say yes thank you
so so here is the full-on video I’m
going to play for you and just see how
that little snippet of audio helps
improve the narrative of that one minute
of video that makes you say hopefully
makes you say that
wow I want to buy that shoe so there you
[Music]
you
Thanks so a lot of people ask me along
my friends ask me as when how do you do
this while you cut up Singapore sounds
and put in your tray why is it’s a it’s
a waste of your time it’s picked up a
lot of the time it doesn’t help with
workflow whatsoever well basically it
started I got really triggered when
there was this one moment in time when I
was actually pitching I was gonna know I
was in an interview for scholarship and
I was for music College of my choice and
the panel asked me one simple question
and he asked me this do you think that
there is a Singapore sound and then I
said there for a very long time and I
said a Lama no no there isn’t
so it dawned on me that I like our
neighboring countries Japan there’s a
pop career as kpop now all these amazing
countries with amazing audio traits and
identities but we do not so um it’s been
almost six to seven years in this
industry for me and up to today I still
haven’t figured it out but as I do
projects like this down the road and
make me realize that by still working on
these sounds like this collaborating
with different artists and individuals
on I hope that together as a collective
that we can figure out an audible
identity for our country so to end my
segment I’m going to perform if you one
last piece that I wrote just for TEDx I
went about recording sounds off from
what I do every day you know drawing
money picking the bus the Train and
dropping stuff like that and I made it
into a little song like a minute so um
there are some sounds but I think I’ll
leave you guys to figure it out all
[Music]
[Music]
thank you guys [Applause]