I have been working on the guitar tab for this song on and off for the past two weeks or so. I was stuck on a particular chord, which I finally figured out. So here it is, 너무그리워 (romanised: Neomugeuriwo; translated: Miss You) by S.M. The Ballad (에스엠 더 발라드).
S.M. The Ballad is a group put together by Korean record label, S.M. Entertainment, consisting of singers from its roster of recording groups – Super Junior’s Kyuhyun, SHINee’s Jonghyun and TRAX’s Jay – and a newcomer, Jino. These guys are the lead or main vocalists of their respective groups, so they do sound good. In fact, they sound surprisingly good on “시험하지 말기” (romanised: Shiheomhaji Malgi; translated: Hot Times), another track on their EP, “S.M. The Ballad Vol. One”.
Anyway, back to “Miss You”. There really is nothing groundbreaking about this song, but the melody is just oh-so-nice. That I can listen to it over and over again.
For the past few weeks, something else has been distracting me from music. But it all came back when I caught two inspiring performances this week.
__________
On Monday, I attended a talk by Stanley Jordan where he spoke about using music as therapy. I wasn’t even paying attention to his credentials when I saw the poster for this. All I saw was ‘jazz guitarist’ and that made me decide that I should go have a look, whoever he is.
Pardon my ignorance, Stanley Jordan fans, but as I found out later, he is a four-time Grammy nominee and a pioneer of ‘tap’ technique on the guitar. Wow!
During the session, he only played two songs and the rest of the time, he shared about his work in music therapy. It was fascinating for me to find out how powerful music can be. But what really touched me was how he was so immersed in his music while he was playing. And for his second song, he actually played the guitar and piano together.
If you don’t know who Stanley Jordan is, there are lots of videos of his performances on YouTube.
__________
On Wednesday, I decided to catch a performance by an a cappella group from Korea called A-Five. I haven’t heard of them but since they do k-pop (which I’m into lately), I thought it would be interesting to go watch them.
When they walked in while the recital room was filling up, the five young men looked just like any of the students in the audience (ok, except for one who was weaing sunglasses).
I was somewhat subdued at the start of their performance but by the end of the first song, I have warmed up to them. They sang a mixture of English and Korean songs, including I’m Yours (Jason Mraz), Almost Paradise (T-Max; from the OST of Korean drama, Boys Over Flowers), Only You, How Deep Is your Love, Gee (Girls’ Generation), Nobody (Wonder Girls) and Insomnia (Wheesung; Korean remake of Craig David’s song of the same title). My favourite song by them has to be Shackles (Praise You).
These guys are really good, especially the beatboxer. You could feel the vibration of the music, especially for the fast numbers with a disco beat. Though the performance wasn’t flawless, I really enjoyed it. I’m very certain most, if not all, in the audience did too. And A-Five obliged with calls for an encore.
I love the energy displayed by these guys. And the passion when they sing.
What’s also interesting for me was trying to understand what the ‘spokesperson’ in the group said in Korean. Not much luck, I have to study Korean harder. But one of the guys can speak pretty decent English and did the English translation, so it wasn’t that bad.
A-Five will be performing at The Arts House Chamber, Esplanade Recital Studio, at 8pm tonight (Thursday, 14 October 2010) . If you do not have anything planned, it should be worth the while to catch their performance.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t find anything about A-Five on the Internet and can’t tell you more about them but I chanced upon this video of their performance:
__________
Did you catch Stanley Jordan’s performance at the Esplanade on 10 October 2010? Will you be catching A-Five’s performance at The Arts House Chamber tonight?
It’s that time of the year when I catch up on the Chinese pop music that I missed out on – release of the nomination list for the Singapore Hit Awards. Not that I think it’s the most authoritative source for the best Chinese pop music out there; at least it’s a first cut for what music I can consider listening to.
I’m really glad to see 林宥嘉 and his album, 感官世界, nominated in two categories which I think he deserves to win. And 严爵 too, who, with his jazz-inspired music, is a breath of fresh air in the Chinese music scene.
Which singers and albums have impressed you this year? Read more…
I was at a combined rehearsal of the Singapore 2010 Youth Olympic Games Opening Ceremony three Fridays ago on 30 July. The only performance from that rehearsal that left a deep impression on me (for the right reason), I remembered, was a segment where a teenager sat at a white grand piano encased within a huge white frame of a bud in the middle of the reflective pool on stage.
The melody of the song was mesmerising and the voice singing it, accompanied by just the piano, was touching. That was my favourite part of the whole show.
I was really looking forward to catching this particular segment when I watched the ‘live’ telecast of the opening ceremony yesterday. But it turned out that only the last few tens of seconds of this segment was shown on TV. Why? Because MediaCorp chose to go for a commercial break just before this performance came on. What a shame.
As I found out today, from various sources, the song is called “Across the Finish Line”, an original song composed by Mayuni Omar and Mathilda D Silva for the opening ceremony, and sung by 17-year-old Seah Wei Wen.
It’s a really beautiful song, especially under the stage setting at the opening ceremony.
