On making music and money

SINGAPORE — How should songwriters balance writing for passion and writing for a living?

That was one of the topics discussed at the first forum on songwriting organised by the Musicians Guild of Singapore for aspiring songwriters and musicians. Held on Monday night at 10Sq, Orchard Central, the event featured talks and a panel discussion by industry professionals Dick Lee, Ruth Ling, Inch Chua, Jimmy Ye, Art Fazil, Mohamed Raffee and Dru Chen.

During the three-hour session attended by around 90 people, the panelists shared tips on finding publishers and improving the quality of music production. Several of them also spoke at length about writing music for overseas markets, and how those experiences have shaped their songwriting processes.

“If you want to write a song about being Singaporean for Singapore, that is fine. But you know our market is that small, and if you do that, it’s very good for historical purposes or anthropological purposes. But not for money, you know,” said Lee, in response to comments by fellow panellists about finding the “Singapore sound”.

One should also understand what works in a specific market, he added, citing how ringtones are profitable in Malaysia and Indonesia. “The same goes for karaoke in the Chinese market. People must want to sing your song, so if you have three chords, fantastic, you will be rich! This is how you survive as a writer, but you have to have hits.”

In an interview with TODAY prior to the forum, the panelists also explained how they balanced doing what they love doing and paying the bills.

“I learnt how to do songs ( that audiences) like, and we made songs that we liked, just for (ourselves),” said Raffee, who was frontman of the 1970s local band Vasantham Boys and had worked as a musician in India. “In India, you do a song for a film and they just want to know whether the song can hit the masses. I hated the songs they all liked, it was so difficult for us.”

Ling, the founder of Red Roof Records, agreed. “I came to a point where, like Raffee, I started to segregate my songwriting into things that are commercial and things that I am doing because it’s a part of me that lives in a song, that I want to keep for my own personal collection,” she said. “If it happens that the two can mix, then that is amazing. But I usually keep them quite separate.”

During the interview, the musicians also discussed the importance of writing from the heart.

“I feel like a lot of people write with intent,” said singer-songwriter Chua, who recently released her EP Letters To Ubin. “For some people, it’s bread and butter, or it’s (a form of) expression. But along the way, it’s so easy to forget to mean what you write, or to write with conviction on that level where you can’t help but think these are things that are important to say.”

As for Mandopop stalwart Ye, his advice to songwriters is to not “angst about it”.

“I’ve been through the cycle. These conversations are not new. I think that, yes, it is fine to talk as an ecosystem, but as an individual songwriter, you just hack it,” he said. “You write what is true to yourself. Just do your best, be true to yourself, do what you are good at, and trust that eventually the system is going to work itself out.” HON JINGYI