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ykls_shyler
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Name: Tyler
Location: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Birthday: 11/13/1986
Gender: Male
Interests: Musical theatre, music (includes playing the piano, listening to good music, singing, teaching), food (eating and looking at cookbooks), reading (myths, plays, fantasy, non-fiction), writing, chatting, philosophizing... oh and marshmallows & grape pies! ... marshmallow pies! oooh...
Expertise: Food metaphors, versatility, theorizing, speculating, analyzing, procrastinating, tolerating, having paradigm shifts... pretty useless fields of expertise if i may say so...
Occupation: Student
Industry: Entertainment
Message: message me
Website: visit my website
MSN: ykls_shyler@yahoo.com
Yahoo:  same as MSN
Member Since:
2/21/2005
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| Whoo! I am SO psyched!!!
After about 4 weeks, it's time for us to go!!! Whoo hoo! The show begins tomorrow and runs till Saturday!
This is my second time being in a musical and it feels absolutely fantastic! I've had to do things I'd always dreamed of and you can bet that it's as exciting, heart-racing, nerve-wrecking, time-consuming as you'd think it will be.
I was introduced to the concept of the musical when I first watched the Young Ambassadors from BYU Provo, Utah ("the other BYU" we call it) come down to Malaysia to perform for us years ago. I was still a wee lad then, traipsing off to primary school in my navy blue shorts and probably still infatuated with the Spice Girls (yea... i loved them) at that time. They were an amazing bunch, all star-quality performers doing an impressive show with showtunes from musicals like Starlight Express, Secret Garden, Les Miserables, Once Upon This Island, Cats and many others and it was a mind-blowing experience for a kid like me to witness such a thing. They were rollerblading around, smiling, dancing, interacting with each other, being caught up in their own little world and they were singing the most marvelous tunes! I had been completely enthralled with the magic of it all and I really think I left a changed boy after that - though I didn't know it at the time, my foot having unwittingly taken its first step into the realm of musical theatre.
So my mom bought a CD from the show which I listened to very often and would sing along to. On the second track of the CD was "Giants in the Sky" which I thought was very strange about why someone would sing about a giants. Somewhere along the road I had figured out that the character was Jack (the beanstalk-climbing, giant-slaying one) from the fairy tales, and I had also figured out quite a lot of the songs from the CD were from musicals. I came to know Andrew Lloyd Webber and Boublil and Schonberg (?) first, particularly Cats and Les Miserables. It was not till I was 17 that my friend - Hwei Ling invited me and Terence (I don't even remember if that's the correct spelling :P sorry! - they're my only two high school friends that I still have some contact with) to a screening of a musical I had never heard of which was Sondheim's "Into the Woods". Again I was blown away by the sheer depth of Sondheim's masterpiece! Maybe one day I'll shake his hand and tell him "thank you for giving me the opportunity of performing something like this". Even our director said just today, "next to Shakespeare, Sondheim is one of the most difficult kinds of theatre".
From the opening scene where you get a peek at the living quarters of three households, and Cinderella, Jack, the Baker and his Wife sing their first scene you'll know this is no ordinary musical. Sondheim's genius is apparent as is his penchant for complexity as our musical lines enter in one after the other, sometimes overlapping, all requiring precision to execute well. Adding having to use a CD track instead of a live orchestra (though it sounds just like the same thing), we have to be absolutely precise in our vocal deliveries. His accompaniments don't provide much clue as to where you're supposed to be harmony-wise either so if you mess up a line, things fall apart and chaos is pretty much what you get.
The pinnacle of the demanding nature of Sondheim appears in "Your Fault" and really is quite a beast to pin down. Rapid-fire sung dialogue that I start with "Well it isn't my fault, I was given those beans, you persuaded me to trade away my cow for beans and without those beans there'd have been no stalk to get up to the giant in the first place!" and then is replied by the Baker, then accused by Red Ridinghood, then I exclaim "No!" and Baker accuses me, then I say "No" again, and it all starts from me and doesn't pause for a beat till the very end. One screw up and the whole thing crashes and burns! Whoo!
We started off with four-days-a-week rehearsals from 7-10pm and our director Prof. Ferre really made Sondheim's intimidating libretto accessible to us. It's the question of "how do you eat an elephant?". Well, part by part, and slowly but steadily (with rice and some ikan bilis sambal on the side maybe? :P). I was excited to be Jack but also really quite apprehensive because of the whole deal with all the lines and singing the best-known song in the musical.
As I got my feet wet though, I found out that it really wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be, and I became really comfortable being Jack, whom I'd describe as a simple-minded, prone to daydreaming, earnest, naive, but good-hearted young boy who has a cute (or a bit disturbing) attachment to non-human objects such as his cow. "Giants in the Sky" is a great song since it gives every opportunity to react to what the song is saying. Through Acting 1 and Intro to Theatre, I think I've been "milking" the song quite well. Singing may be important, but vocally, there's nothing too challenging about it as long as F-sharps fit nicely into your range. What's I think even more important is the storytelling process that goes along with it, the whole excitement of the Jack's journey to the kingdom in the sky, being awed by the giantress, then being scared of her husband who wants Jack to chew on, and relief on coming back down to his mother, and wishing he could find a middle road between fantasy and real life. First it was all about getting the words and notes right, and when that was secure, I could begin gesturing and acting. It's become such a natural thing to do whatever comes to mind spontaneously in the song and I truly believe that as paradoxical as it sounds, practicing makes spontaneity work! Once you're comfortable with the song and the blocking, it's all up to you to reel the audience in. It's a real neat song to be sung by a young man and I'm glad I can.
One of Jack's scenes that becomes a turning point is towards the end. In the DVD this was done really rushed and I don't think it got nearly the attention that it deserved. It's when the Baker tells Jack that his mother is dead. It's hard because Jack hits a moral crossroad. From being bright-eyed and occasionally lost, he's contemplating revenge on the person who kills his mother. His boyish innocence is threatened and he grows increasingly upset and infuriated until the Baker sings "No One Is Alone" - an absolute gem of a song that can be quite a tear-jerker, along with Cinderella who sings it to Red-Ridinghood. The pacing of that scene is so crucial, because it has to build and accelerate, like a volcano that has to erupt till the Baker says in frustration "then kill him! ... no, don't kill him..." so I have to undergo a transformation that takes me to the dark side of Jack as we argue and then he brings me back.
Yet another thing that's hard is interacting with the Baker in No One Is Alone. He's an experienced actor who is in virtually every school play and is extremely witty and funny but if you see him down the corridor, he's hardly likely to even acknowledge you! First time we did the scene there wasn't even eye contact and it certainly felt kinda awkward, especially since I was kinda intimidated by his experience and his aloofness. Now it's from being angry, cold and distant, to warming up to his advice, looking into his eyes for assurance and placing my hand on his as it clasps my shoulder. Each time we rehearse the scene it gets easier to emote, to trust each other. Today, he put his arm around me and I put my arm around him and I was this close to crying and he said softly "it's alright". It was an amazing experience and after we got off our balcony scene and on the way to the auditorium, he gave me a thumbs-up and a smile. The thrill of acting! I'm just so glad I took the Acting class... I'm using so many techniques I learned there and finding out how well it works!
No One Is Alone and Children Will Listen are songs that will warm you up like a good bowl of clam chowder. The former ties the moral of story together and answers the question of what's wrong and what's right. Should Jack be responsible for the whole deed, should they kill the giant etc? Here's a snippet:
"People make mistakes,
Fathers, mothers, people make mistakes.
Holding to their own, thinking they're alone.
Honor their mistakes, fight for their mistakes,
Everybody makes one another's terrible mistakes.
Witches can be right,
Giants can be good,
You decide what's right,
You decide whats good.
Just remember:
Someone is on your side, (our side)
Our side, someone else is not.
While we're seeing our side, (our side)
Our side, maybe we forgot:
They are not alone.
No one is alone.
Hard to see the light now.
Just don't let it go.
Things will come out right now.
We can make it so"
Technically, it is Jack's fault when you boil it down and he should have been fed to the giantress and justice would be served as per the witch's advice. Jack's survival and the death of the innocent giantress who only wants revenge for her husband seems incredibly unfair, but it is addressed in the song. "You decide what's right, you decide what's good". Not everybody sees the situation the same way, and while many would think Jack was deserving to die (the Witch namely), there are those who don't and they protect and stand by him, even if it meant killing the giantress. Moral values are re-examined in the musical and many songs, superficially entertaining though they may be, contain a lesson or two to be learnt.
It is with great fortune that we have such an amazing cast put together. I love working with all the fellow actors and that's not something lightly said. They are all so fantastic and I reckon we definitely match the DVD's talented cast, sometimes dare I say, even improving what they do! We play off each other a great deal, and those that I don't actually get to work with, I love to watch!
Tonight was the final dress rehearsal and it was the best one we've ever had! I only messed up one line (and that was in "Your Fault" ack! but we still held together and made it to the end) only thank goodness, cuz I missed a line yesterday and messed up an entrance and came in early on another line. Couple days ago, I came in with my hen and said "Mother look! The most beautiful har-- uh... hehe..." Yesterday, I came one without my hen when I was supposed to and was miming the best I could so it was quite an improvement today.
I have some pictures in my camera, but I took too long typing and it's really past my bedtime now so I'll get them up as soon as I can.
Take care peeps! :)
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| Man... I really miss all of you... the friends from choir, from high school...
Quite admittedly, it gets stifling here sometimes and the whole "unique" culture here can make a free-spirited, open-minded performer and individual a rather sad one. Sure I get my chances to be crazy and wild sometimes, but there are men with tranquilizer guns aimed at your carotid arteries ready to squeeze the trigger if you get out of hand. Oh well... it's a price to pay I guess.
That being said, my professor pulled me out of PCC and gave me a job in school working under him, which is truly a great privilege since my hours have become really flexible this way and I get to learn stuff related to my major while I'm at it. I took a few pics of PCC before I left and here they are!
The "backdrop" of the stage is a waterfall across a lake. That covered thing at the lower center is the imu, an underground oven where porous volcanic rocks cook whatever you put inside - the pua'a (pig) for example.
This is the waterfall near the front entrance of the luau, where the workers wait in a line beside the low rock wall to seat the guests.
And this is how a third of the interior of the restaurant looks like. It seats up to about 600+ people and as a team, we ensure that everyone's fed and happy.
This is a pretty bad pic of the hot line. It was hard to take a pic of it since guests while filing in and I didn't want to look odd trying to take a snapshot of the food. From bottom to top we have: Island Fish (mahi-mahi), Teriyaki Chicken, Kalua Pig (shredded pig from the imu), Chicken Long Rice, Sweet Potatoes (which are purple for some reason) and Steamed Rice.
And here are a couple of Korean workers and a local worker who I got to pose beside the pig. About fifteen minutes into the show, we have to lug the pig across the stage using the imu board (the board on which the pig is placed). It's quite heavy so the guys usually carry the board while the girls carry the table underneath it.
And that's me on my last day with Marya (left) and Pritika (right) - both of whom love teasing, and pestering me. Girl on the left is carrying my bag and they are in fact holding me hostage since it was my last day. Weird smile on my face can be read as oh-crap-they-are-going-to-get-me-now, as it is customary to be splashed with a variety of things, from ice water to salad dressing. Fortunately, the two boys who did it only hurled a rather large pail of freezing cold water - as I had a rehearsal as Jack fifteen minutes later. It's kinda sad to have to leave actually... I might return to work there after May's China/Mongolia trip.
Okay then, I've gotta go back to finishing up quite a few articles of homework due tomorrow. Hope to see some of you guys online someday perhaps!
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| Whoo! Another busy semester, packed to the brim with credits and I'm enrolled in all nearly all possible vocal ensembles including...
INTO THE WOODS!
I was the accompanist and one of many auditionees vying for a role in the musical. I sang "Mr. Cellophane" and "Dancing through Life" - just sixteen bars, and did some cold-reading of an excerpt from "The Emperor's New Clothes". I didn't think I did that well since I was still flustered from sight-reading some of the most difficult pieces ever invented to torture the audition accompanist - Sondheim is definitely one of those to blame and so is Jason Robert Brown. Then I played for callbacks for certain roles and I had heard that other people had already gotten parts and I was getting more and more worried that I wasn't selected at all! I was pretty miserable for that entire day since the musical director - also my vocal teacher, made no mention of it. I resigned myself to the unhappy notion that well, maybe I wasn't what they were looking for...
BUT...
Come night time, a friend and a tenor par excellence came up to me excitedly and congratulated me. Still in a blur I gave him a quizzical look and he told me that I had gotten the part of JACK!!!
HOLY COW! (and there's a pun for you if you know the musical!)
Jack's one of the main characters of the musical alongside the Baker, his wife, Little Red Ridinghood and Cinderella. You'd know Jack as the beanstalk-climbing, giant-slaying young lad from good old fairytale anthologies and this is essentially the very same Jack! He's got probably the most famous song from the musical called "Giants in the Sky", which will put pressure on me to do it as best as I can. It's quite nerve-wracking going from playing mostly chorus members to assuming a lead role! I've gotta properly analyze my character, which is I think a lot of downplaying the histrionics since he's a daydreaming, naive, earnest, simple-minded youth, who also thinks a "piggy" makes the perfect pet.
What an exciting endeavor into Sondheim's music, which is some of the hardest composed for the musical theatre setting! His harmonies are oftentimes quite dissonant, with the song accompaniments barely hinting at what you're supposed to be singing. One song - "Your Fault" is probably the most intimidating to me since it's all really fast speech-like singing and it's an ensemble song where the cast needs to come in very accurately to prevent it from sounding like a big chaotic cacophony. Then again, there's also the issue of all the dialogue to be memorized! And what's more - here's a Malaysian who's gotta make sure he enunciates and articulates well enough to be understood perfectly and hopefully not sounding a bit at all chinese during the whole show.
OI... but that's the whole deal with theatre - a huge amount of effort, in a limited timeframe, with meager monetary compensation, with a lot of separate elements needed to come together as one magical masterpiece!
I have my teacher to thank for all this... he even wanted me to do the part of the baker initially - who has even more dialogue I think and even more acting, but the director thought otherwise and my teacher said that it was a bit too low for me anyway. He's also employing me as his "executive assistant" (giving me that title with a wink and asking "does that sound impressive enough?"), appealing to school to make an exception for me to work for him for a semester instead of the Polynesian Cultural Center! He pulls all the strings and breaks down all the walls for me again and again so I can be involved in his performing groups... gosh! What an awesome guy!
Today we start the first day of rehearsals for the musical! Can't wait!!! WHOO!
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| Well it was a crazy semester... every time I think I've crammed in the most credits to the shock of my peers and lecturers I manage to outdo myself the next semester. I've never thought of myself as an overachiever, but this semester proved to me that I'm experiencing some weird personality shift that has probably activated in an attempt to make up for not doing as well as I could in high school... :P
These last two weeks were really the climax to it all... I accompanied a senior vocalist for her recital and now I've become quite a commodity in the music department. We had the Concert Choir and Broadway Cabaret deliver a spectacular concert according to the audience and that was a lot of blood and sweat put in throughout this whole semester. I did my vocal juries and managed my high A at the end of the dramatic Italian art song "L'Addio". I got full marks for my vocal pedagogy project where we had to select a "victim" to work on vocally and record our progress. Then there were take-home exams, in-class exams, dictation and sight-singing exams, more accompanying, and I'm still two exams short of being free - I have to take my Bio final later and then my Psych final tomorrow morning.
At 5pm tomorrow, I depart for New York to visit my mom and grandma, which is the only reason why I'm going there in winter... it's gonna be teeth-chatteringly frigid I expect. A big mug of hot chocolate and mini-marshmallows should do the trick though...
It's amazingly how many leadership positions I have... I'm the leader of the tenor sectionals, responsible for training the tenors of the Concert Choir, the leader of the Hale Aloha luau... and now I'm the Vice President of the Singapore-Malaysian club for the upcoming semester. I think I'm more the kind of guy who can be contented with the simple things in life like kicking back, lying on the grass/beach and watching the clouds go by, or in doing things where I don't have the power to affect or be responsible for an entire organization... I tell the workers that I miss doing the stuff regular workers do because although the leads do physically less (supposedly...), we have this responsibility we have to shoulder if anything goes wrong since we call the shots.
Just yesterday, I had a lousy evening after everyone went back because the workers didn't take their plates to the kitchen, the runners didn't take away a full slop bin, I was physically exhausted and had to study for finals and I still had a meeting to attend after where I'd officially take on the the post of Vice President... the closing lead was a girl, so even though I'd like to tell women "hey, you want an equal world, go open your own doors and pull out your own seats", I felt sorry for her and stayed to help her close... I felt tired of being Mr. Nice and cleaning up people's messes, and shouldering all these responsibilities and as I walked back, I was really on the verge of tears...
I think that's why I like performing... you're responsible for yourself - for attending rehearsals, for learning your parts, for doing what the director wants you to do, for entertaining the audience and having a bloody good time while you're at it. I liked it when I was a normal F&B worker too... didn't have to attend meetings and be concerned about the overall improvement of our workplace... I just needed to be the best that I could in my given task. Trouble with me is that people like me cause I get along with quite possibly everybody, and despite me really being disorganized, last-minute, impunctual and spontaneous, people elect the Tyler they all like even though somebody else could do a way better job at getting the organization to improve than me. They like me so much, one girl told me "how am I gonna survive without you for two weeks?" hahaha... not romantically, but just that we talk and joke a lot... and I guess I get people to laugh a lot for sometimes just being random, (sometimes) air-headed me.
Such is my dilemma. Always being shoved (politely and with a lot of smiling) into positions of power that I either don't want or am clueless about. My motivations for filling in those positions are either because I feel that somebody needs to do it, and if no one else wants it, I'll take it because someone needs to take it even though I really don't want to.
Sometimes I wonder how it's like to be the bad guy... I just end up thinking how I'd look in leather and spikes... even in RPGs, I can't choose something that's "evil"... I'm not saying I'm this cherub of righteousness (I do like the flowing silk and partially bared-chest look though). I guess I'm generally disposed to think that everyone is inherently good and likeable, I want to make people happy and laugh, I want people to be loved. Given the chance, I'd lose a game so someone else could win - that's how I was in childhood, or I didn't like games with competition because I was afraid of the aggressiveness it brought out in people and the fact that there were people who had to be "out" of the game if they lost.
Ah well... I actually rambled more than I intended to... I'm supposed to be studying for biology. It's cathartic at least. Hmm.... I'll try and upload photos of NY when I get back... or maybe while I'm there. Talk to you guys later!
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| Why I haven't been updating:
Well, cuz life's been insanely busy... Take today for example!
7 am - Psychology 111, interpreted our MBTI (Myer Briggs Type Indicator) scores. Apparently I'm a pretty obvious INFP (Introvert, Intuitive, Feeling, Perceptive), scores that all flocked to one side of the rating spectrum.
8 am - Biology 101, did stuff on the biosphere and learned bout different biomes.
9 am - Practice for Sarah's recital. I've been unofficially recruited to play for a senior voice student's recital which is like 13 songs long.
10 am - Accompanying for Sarah's voice lesson. More playing!
11 am - Music Theory 3. Enharmonic modulations! Fun! ZzzzZZzz...
12 pm - A breather at last.
1 pm - Concert Choir
2 pm - Vocal Pedagogy
3 pm - Broadway Cabaret
4 pm - Vocal Master Class
5 pm - Jury Hearing for Sarah's Senior Recital
6 pm - Type out training proposal for boss
7 pm - Dinner appointment with bunch of Singaporean gal pals
My life has never been fuller... I don't know whether this is a good thing or not. I have a Bio test tomorrow... and that's about it before it's a short break for Thanksgiving, for which I am indeed most thankful for.
Mm, lots of stuff to update I guess but I forgot most of the exciting stuff already. Well, the Broadway Cabaret group went out for our first official performance across the island and that was pretty fun. I did a comic duet with this amazing soprano entitled "The Song That Goes Like This", which basically pokes a lot of fun at musical songs... lots of over-the-topness! We work with each other really well on stage, feeding off each other's energy. Only thing I didn't do in the song was the absurd high B at the end...
Mm, I learned to cook too. I cooked rice in my room and I opened a can of smoked clams (canned clams are gross) and I added salt to em and some sos chili thai to make em palatable. I also can make a decent onion omelette and fried calamari (I had to gut whole squid! ugh)! I have garlic butter prawns under my belt too! I'm glad I'm becoming self sufficient. I feel more like an adult already! :P
OOH! For my 20th bday, my friends threw me this surprise party! OoooOOOoh! They managed to chase me out of a friends house we always go to to play mahjong (AH YES, I know how to play mahjong now! PONG! HU LER! SAP SAM YEW! ZI MOH!) Hahahaha. No money of course. The justification behind that is, you can turn anything into a gamble - you can bet on soccer, or betting that you can launch watermelon seed further than another person can, so if it's in the name of pure, unadulterated fun, its okay. It's terribly addictive and raucous.
Anyway, they had this big poster up, faux wine (sparkling grape juice) and plastic wine cups. TWO birthday cakes (an ice-cream and a cheese cake) and two helium balloons (I love those! they're still afloat in my room!).
MM, well, now I'm 20! Hoorah! I lose the teen suffix attached to my age but that's about all. Another quiet, uninterrupted step forward in life. All the hullabaloo that goes with it sure is fun though! :P
Ciao!
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