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cold rainy nights

Stage Name: cold rainy nights

Links: Linktree↗ Spotify

Genres: Instrumental, Piano

Instruments: Piano

 

Artist description:

Josh started learning the piano at the age of 4 from his first piano teacher, known as Ms. Lim, at the Yamaha Music School in Sun Plaza, now renovated and replaced by a Kopitiam. After a few years of learning in a group with around 10 kids, he moved on to one-to-one lessons with another teacher, also called Ms. Lim. After relocating his home from Woodlands, he switched piano teachers once again to one who lived only 5 minutes away, Mrs. Neo. This time, he stopped switching teachers and stayed with this one till he finished his ABRSM syllabus.

At the age of 14, he moved overseas and found a temporary piano teacher there. This teacher was enthusiastic about Bach’s pieces and taught him more about the techniques of playing them, known for their counterpoint style. However, Bach was not the only pieces Josh picked up, he was interested in mastering the Pirates of The Caribbean theme song arranged by Jarrod Radnich as well. He learnt it, and went on to play it for his school’s talent show. Many years forward, this decision to learn the theme song has proven to be essential in his playing style, as you might hear from his songs.

All the way from his days at Yamaha, Josh has enjoyed making his own short melodies, and he does not really like playing according to the score (he was pretty bad at sight reading, even until now). When he was 15, the international school he was in required him to do a personal project, with the freedom to choose any topic he wanted. He decided to embark on a project to create an album of 10 songs. Over the next 1 year, he would watch countless tutorials on Youtube on using DAWs (DAW – digital audio workstation) and making the specific sounds he wanted. At the end of the year, he created an album (that he never released) with EDM songs. Empowered by this small achievement, he continued learning and working on songs even after he returned to Singapore.

In college, Josh decided to become part of a songwriting CCA (Co-curricular Activity) which focused on writing Mandarin songs. This introduced to him the world of Mandopop (he never really listened to Mandarin songs in the past) and he started learning the way pop music was produced. This was also his first time having to deal with editing vocals, but being blessed with the chance to work with amazing vocalists, the vocals never once sounded bad. In this CCA, he managed to produce quite a few songs with his friends which he has not released.

College for him was also an emotional time. Even though he was adventurous, Josh had many things to learn and had a few setbacks. Making piano instrumental songs was an outlet for his emotions and his experiences shaped and created the themes for his songs. Both of his songs were released in 2021, and he is planning to release more songs in the next few years. Right now, he is working on some pop songs, slowly learning the techniques of producing and creating the sounds he wants.

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