Profile: After years of fumbling in the music industry, the popular Singaporean singer Tanya Chua has started to find out who she really is. She shared her evolution during her ten-year musical journey.
*******
Written by Chloe So and Alex Chu
Chua used to sing what her record company wanted her to sing. "It [the song] has commercial value. You should go that way. I went that way. In the end I lost myself, I was far away from my own music."
To find the way back into her own music, she has moved to a new record company which gives her a higher degree of freedom. For instance, in her latest album, "Goodbye and Hello", she composed all the songs, wrote some of the lyrics and recorded songs with no help from sound engineers.
"It is totally a commercial album from my point of view. But it is coming from me, and it is not how people dictate what is commercial," said Chua.
This album also marks the evolution of Chua. Like its name: say goodbye to the previous Chua, and say hello to the new one. She felt reborn in this album.
"You know with the new found, kinda confident me, came back to myself, and doing such a personal album for me," said Chua.
She noticed her changes in writing songs. "Having sung and written so many albums , I have evolved with the music market and even as a musician I become more in tune with what is commercial and what is still my own style."
Chua recalled that one of the most influential songs she wrote was Memory, an English song written in Los Angeles. Lyricist Yao Qian then rewrote it in Mandarin.
"I didn't think it would be a hit, but it went out to touch so many people, including myself. From then on, I discovered that side of me, I didn't know I have that sensitive side. So I spent quite a lot of time on my ballads. Now that I know what I'm capable of doing, I dig deeper into myself to see what other songs I can come up with."
Knowing more about herself gives her a great source of inspiration. She said she once produced four songs in a day. "When I get productive, I can get scarily productive," said Chua.
Not only did she write for herself, but she also wrote songs for divas like Faye Wong, A-mei, Stefanie Sun, Sandy Lam, Sammi Cheung and Karen Mok.
Besides composition, she also likes covering songs. Her first job was singing in a pub, which gave her chances to cover songs. "I was singing a lot of covers and I covered so many artists of different ranges. I think when you do covers, the good thing is you try to sound like them. And when you try to sound like them, you learn. You discover some vocal techniques that actually create that vocal tone."
She said she unexpectedly benefited from the Carpenters, one of the biggest-selling group in the 70s.
"I was so fascinated by her voice, I play their records every day. Thinking you're Carpenters. Without discovering them, I don't think I'd be singing like this now. Because I didn't realized I can actually sing that low."
That is the reason why Chua is able to sing varied high and low notes. At the same time, she thought doing covers is also very difficult.
"When you cover a song, you're walking into a lion cage. So, you have to be so sure of yourself," said Chua. She had covered songs like David Tao's Beach, Coldplay's Yellow, Cyndi Lauper's True Colour, and James Blunt's You're beautiful. She took Beach as an example.
"Instead of like doing the same arrangement and doing the female version of Beach, I really made an effort to distinguish myself from David Tao's version. I think there’s dramatic difference. I felt quite confident."
She has no worries about comparing her version with David Tao's. "We all do respect the original artist. They first set the tone, and the standard for it; we should always respect that."
Still, she will keep covering songs if she finds a song she really wants to cover.
Chua's kind of low range makes her stands out from the crowd. "I think that's a novelty for women to go for the low note. Everyone wanted to sing so high. What's the point?"
Yet, standing out from the crowd also leaves her alone. She described herself: "I've always been more of a loner." That was a hurdle in the early years of her silvery career.
"I don't know how to talk to strangers," Chua raised her eyebrows and said. "When the camera looks at me, I always had a handicap. I get tongue-tied and I get very nervous. I felt I was insecure about myself but I didn't want to admit it to myself."
Not just the moment she sings on stage, but also when the music stops. "What do I say to the audience? It really affects my whole energy when I have sung a song," she said.
Over the years, Chua has become more and more frustrated about that. "I had to start conquering my own demons. I told myself you're in this industry already, so do something about it."
She tries to get in touch with the audience. "Now, I just go to all kind of performances, like school tours, meeting different batches of audience. Sometimes they don't respond to you, but you keep yourself like you're cool; and there is another over-responsive crowd. I put myself out there with the sharks."
In her eyes, 'sharks' not only means the audience but the press too.
"I used to think I don't really know who you are, and it is hard to get into the moment with the press, and tell them all about your whole life. To me, it's very personal, you would feel like intruded in a way, and that was me before."
Now she found herself more able to face the press, without getting hung up or feeling being judged, though she is still looking for a clue on TV entertainment shows.
"It's such a pressure when you need to think of something funny to say. When you're not that kind of person, I don't want to deceive myself and make myself uncomfortable. So I think being in the media, you have to learn like fill in the blank. It's quite tough."
She remembered once the host talked over her even if she was the guest, but she did not care about it.
"TV show is not my natural environment. If somebody wants to talk over me, I let them. I don't feel I need to come up with something to cover over them, " said Chua.
Every artist tends to put his/her best appearance on TV screen, including Chua, who used to appear in plain T-shirts and jeans with no make-up.
"The change in appearance is very natural to me and it is not because I am judged or told by others," she said. "It is just like a "click" in my mind and a part of me has grown up as a woman."
"Now I want to look pretty and fabulous. I have done enough [T-shirts and jeans] and bored of it, that face of me has passed," she said with laughter, tapping her high-heels while she spoke.
Chua now puts mascara on her eyelashes; puts a chain of bracelets on; dyes her hair in brown and wears a dress. Femininity, a word that couldn't be found on her before, is now the charisma of this 30-year-old singer.
The transformation is so dramatic that her new artist manager told her in a joking tone, "I think you secretly went to Korea for cosmetic surgery!"
"Don't show me any old video of mine, because I'll die of embarrassment," she giggled. "The past of my appearance is dead. Aside from the music, I can’t relate to myself anymore."
"I don't know …I don't know if I have become more confident, but I feel good about myself. I love that transformation,"Tanya burst into laughter. "The caterpillar becomes a butterfly."
"I used to think I know myself. But when you want me to put in words, it's difficult for me to describe," she said.
She uses her music to tell people who she is. Don't know, one of her favourite songs in her new album, reflects her life, and the name of the song also stands for her self-introduction.
She likes digging out reasons behind things, with curiosity. "I would think about why everything in life is in a certain way, like why did I have a performance just now, digging into small holes."
"I am very fault-seeking myself. In some ways, maybe I am insecure at the same time," said she. "Because of the insecurity, I am also a perfection seeker. With that I try to create a balance, when I see what is wrong in the picture. I try to perfect it."
The perfection seeker adds new elements to enrich her live performance. Apart from hugging her guitar, Martin, on stage, audiences will see her playing piano and sing in the near future.
She once played new song Blank Space by piano, and she learnt by herself. "It's still a very terrifying experience every time I go on stage, solely because piano is not my forte."
At the same time, the fault seeker worried. "It's still a nerve-racking thing for me to play piano on stage. Every time I'm on stage, I keep thinking 'am I going to hit the wrong note?' One false note, everyone can hear it."
But she will have a brave move for the sake of the audience. “"It's boring to see me always playing Martin. If you don't put yourself out there, you'll just keep playing at home. You won't learn from your mistake somehow."
Indeed, she started learning piano when she was small. "When I was a kid, I was such a lousy student. I can turn up for one lesson and then not turn up for next three weeks. I gave up on piano. But piano came back my life again when I start composing."
This is life. Way in, way out. You thought you lost something, but eventually it will come back into your life. So does Chua.
Darwin, the famous English naturalist and author, suggested evolutionary theory, saying that 'evolving to be a better person'. Chua uses his name as one of her song's name, since she has the same feeling.
"It feels like I have come one full circle and it's almost ten years. I finally get to do something that I'm quite sure about now.
No comments:
Post a Comment