About Me

For my musical resume, please download from here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?33fj6w1jgkk46lt

To listen to samples of my work, visit:
http://www.reverbnation.com/auglum
http://soundcloud.com/august-lum

 

I am such a slowcoach, only after the trend of composing ‘25 Interesting Stuffs About Me’ has died off do I finally adopt this mode of introducing myself. But I shall not describe them as ‘interesting’… you should come up with the verdict!

So here goes… ‘25 Stuffs about Me’

1. I am a musician. Sub-categorisations: composer, arranger, pianist / keyboardist / accompanist, transcriber, typesetter (using computer software, unfortunately).

2. I like to refer to myself as ‘the joker who spends his time milling around NUS pretending to be a student’. My forays are about to conclude by the end of this year.

3. I still like to hand-write.

4. I have a phobia of losing control of my handwriting. So I make it a point to achieve a balance between typing and writing. That said, I’m not a good typist, I resort to writing lecture notes by hand.

5. Having said that, I like to write my notes (at talks and lectures) by hand because it gives me greater flexibility (I can write stuffs on whichever part of the paper I like) and because by the time I fiddle with the keys and decide on the formatting, I have lost a little of what the speaker had just said.

6. However I am still unable to write formal essays by hand, because of organisation issues. I will cancel a lot and the paper will become very untidy. And I will develop the urge to go straight to the computer to write my draft. Then again, I can still take my time to write the prose for my essays.

7. I sleep on the floor. With all the musical equipment and such my room has no more space for a bed. I have a mattress stacked up against one of the walls, but usually I’m too tired (or lazy, depending on how you want to see it) to pull it down before I turn in for the night; neither am I willing to push it back up in the morning. But I like sleeping on the floor enough that I sometimes procrastinate and laze around in bed – or rather, floor – in the morning.

8. When I travel alone on public transport, I must have a bag. And in that bag I must have a book, a notebook or a foolscap pad, and a pen. And when I choose to use a larger bag, it should be packed with other (unnecessary) items until it becomes heavily-proportionate to the size of the bag.

9. I do not really fancy the outright labelling of music: that this piece must definitely fit into this category. Although it is unfortunate that such classification is necessary in helping customers locate albums in the record store.

10. I do not like the application of the label ‘classical’ to whatever music that comes from the North Atlantic (stereotypically ‘historical’ and European) that is frequently played in the concert hall.

11. Whenever I order something over the counter, I will make out the quantity of the order with my fingers. Say if I wish for a coke, I will say, ‘One coke, please,’ and raise my index finger to denote one. It’s become second nature.

12. I am very particular about fonts. I frequently change the default font on my word processor just so that I feel good typing and reading. I am also concerned about the font that the text of a book or article is printed in, because it somehow, (strangely), it affects my attention span.

13. I cannot take cheese and dairy products – not because I am lactose intolerant, but it is due to the smell, it will prevent stop my mouth from chewing the food and everything I have munched on will lodge there.

14. I frequently potter around when I use my mobile phone to engage in a conversation. And I do that when I text people too.

15. Despite being a musician, I do not carry an mp3 player around and listen to music on the move. In fact, I prefer to read and write when I am travelling on public transport. I am quite a spoilt brat when it comes to listening to music, I prefer to play them on speakers than listen through tiny earpieces, unless it is absolutely necessary (e.g. when you need to listen to an audio track urgently outside where you obviously can’t get a pair of speakers).

16. My dream and goal is to erode the biasness prevalent in music today, regarding perceptions of ‘high’ and ‘low’ in terms of culture. And musicians should get to know others outside of their ‘field’.

17. I am a very non-fussy eater. The only foods I will decline are dairy products and chillies and spices that are way too hot for my tolerance.

18. I don’t have a ‘favourite music / musician’, I listen to everything, and when there are stuffs I fancy, I will listen to them again; and when there are stuffs I don’t fancy, I avoid listening to them where I can help it.

19. I believe in this phrase given by Sir Ken Robinson, one of the UK’s foremost experts in education: ‘If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original’.

20. Till today I have never figured out how I became classified as ‘PES A: extremely medically fit’ by the military.

21. Not to show off here, but I too have not figured how I was awarded ‘model student’ in my Primary One class when I got into trouble more often than I was praised.

22. The first feeling of excitement, that music carried so much meaning for me, came only in Primary Three, roughly four years after I began my music education. I decided to volunteer to be the pianist for my class choir that was going to perform for the school’s annual Music Day. It was quite nerve-wrecking at the beginning as I became the only one who wasn’t singing with the majority. But the feeling of providing support for my friends was great. Till today I’ve always loved being an accompanist to others rather than a frontline soloist, because when you play with others, you get to experience the energy bouncing off all the musicians – including the singer(s) – present on stage.

23. Some of my childhood ambitions: doctor, teacher, principal (at that time I was foolish to think that being a principal or a teacher were two separate occupations, I did not know that a principal was a former teacher who had climbed up the career ladder), artist, architect, lounge pianist (after listening to Richard Clayderman), bus driver, train driver, monorail driver (back when the old Sentosa monorail was still in operation) tram driver (after going to Melbourne on holiday, where I commented, ‘Hmm this looks easy to drive…’ to which my friend retorted, ‘Yeah, wait till you get into a few accidents.’ Wow I still remember the exact words ten years later). And at one stage I seriously wanted to be a writer. A writer of fiction, that is. The thought of becoming a composer / arranger never crossed my mind till late.

24. I am a fan of Singapore buses and subway (Mass Rapid Transit) trains. I get familiar with their manufacturers and models. After a while, I am able to guess the service number of an approaching bus by its make, because the bus companies regularly assign a certain make / model of buses to a particular service. As for subway trains, you can distinguish their make from the whine of their motors during acceleration. The Siemens are pretty loud when they move off.

Read more about Singapore’s public bus fleet (scroll down to the section titled ‘Vehicles’): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_transport_in_Singapore

Read more about Singapore’s subway fleet:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMRT_Trains

25. I am very particular about the feel of my computer keyboard, otherwise I will dislike typing on it. Currently my favourite is the Sensonic (http://www.sensonic-global.com/u3.html) which I’m using with my desktop.