Shueh-li Ong - Featured Electronic Music Artist

Shueh-li Ong is an artist who wears many hats. As a composer, synthesist, producer, songwriter, marketing and business strategist, digital media designer, and journalist one quickly learns that Shueh-li is a talented and prolific artist. Right at home in the global village, her work covers as many styles as countries that she travels to each year. You can hear it in her work. Drawing on traditional, classical and contemporary influences. Ong's music combines diverse melodies and intricate rhythms that fuse folk, jazz and avant-garde influences with electronics into a sound that is all her own. Adept at playing the theremin, Shueh-li is also a performer that takes to the stage like a fish to water. I interviewed Shueh-li to learn more about this dynamic artist from Singapore. Read what she thinks about electronic music today and much more.

Tell us a little about yourself and how you got started as a musician?

I like to think of the journey into the uncharted territory of my creativity as the staring point, but my guess is that you are interested in how I got involved in the activities that earn a musician a living? That I would say, began at university in Australia; where I was playing mainly solo gigs to make some cash (piano, synth, voice). Later, a pub gig which gave me work twice a week over the weekends, 5 hours at a stretch helped me save for my first lot of equipment.

I was always searching for new and alternative ways of doing things. So my “conventional” musician’s life playing solo gigs, and thereafter joining a Top 40‘s cover band, eventually seguewayed into staging interactive multimedia performances utilising 3D animation and realtime performance techniques. I co-ran a midi studio during the week days while experimenting in the aforementioned performance techniques, that is until I moved to Singapore to work in the multimedia industry. My multimedia shows did not make me money until I was more established.

How did you discover electronic music?

Well, the short version goes like this. My father had a 2 track recorder when I was a toddler. According to my parents, I would pick out tunes I heard on the radio on my toy piano but I knew there was also electronics because of my papa. So when given the opportunity to learn more about it while studying for a Bachelor of Music degree I enrolled immediately. My piano performance and electronic music study took place concurrently!

I have to mention here that I did not enjoy my formal lessons as a kid. My teacher was big on preparing exam pieces (we followed the ABRSM London curriculum and I acquired my Grade 8 by the time I was 15) and had no interest in cultivating my “ability”. If not for my high school teacher, who insisted I audition for and was consequently accepted into the conservatorium in Adelaide, I would not have been at the right time and right place with Tristram Cary as my first instructor in EM. My continued interest in EM was fanned by Dr Jeff Pressing.

Who are some of your favorite electronic music artists?

This is a tough one. I admire the work of various artists from all the genres. But if I were to define an electronic music artist as someone who writes in the more traditional EM genre rather than someone who uses electronic music instruments in a band, here are some I used to enjoy; Tomita, Wendy Carlos, Jean Michel Jarre, Klaus Shulze, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Laurie Anderson, Bryan Eno, then you have bands Kraftwerk, Art of Noise. Depending on whether I am interested more in the playing style or production methods, there are current artists and from the more popular styles I admire too.

What inspired you to focus on the theremin?

After my stint in the multimedia industry in Singapore, I decided I really wanted to return to my love of making and performing music in a more mainstream way. I had been doing various things like music for theatre and live shows and there were people asking for “my CD”. So I felt I needed to consolidate my work into what I call my sound, which is who I am part-present-future. The theremin which I had ‘admired from afar’ became a crucial part of my instrumental fold along with the guqin and tin-whistle; representing my music tech, Chinese and Aussie heritage respectively. My vocal work was an important character in the portrayal of my songs. Synth programming and performance techniques already constituted the bulk of my work. As I got to be more well acquainted with the theremin, I found myself intrigued by how hard it made me work. I wanted to advertise its charm and timelessness. I made it my goal to stage it in ways to vary its personality when I produced it in the studio and played it in concert. The first time I performed the theremin live was in my Electronic Opera ‘Metal and Music’.

What do you like about working with Synths, and not?

The most interesting part about working with technology is the scope that it offers the handler. I like the synthesizer because the sky’s the limit and I love how it allows me to express in playing. Despite how the synth is portrayed as a male instrument, I feel it allows me to exude my feminine charm and sex appeal when I can stroke velvety sounds and melodies as well as aggressive synth lines from it. I am a different woman on the synth. Someone once remarked they couldn’t believe how music like “that” could come from a person like me. The synth is my first love with the theremin jealously vying for this position!

Anyway, not long after I was introduced to the life of a synth player at university level, I adopted it as my very own with Jeff Pressing’s extended synth techniques’ a big part of how I lived and breathed music. I love playing the synth, as much as I love sitting down at the piano. They bring out very different emotions and intentions in me because in a way, they are associated with different stages in my life.

I can’t think of anything I do not like about working with Synths except that I need to lug around a speaker to be heard!

Are you into the synthesis aspect and creating your own sounds?

Because I have a penchant for making things, one of the things I do when I am writing/ producing in the studio, is creating sounds. I was ecstatic when UsaProgmusic’s Mark Elliiot remarked that my 3rd CD ‘Xing Paths’ had “New, original and engaging sounds abundant throughout this wonderfully crafted album”.

Jeff (Pressing) was as strict about synthesis as he was about the art of synth performance. Whether in the studio or staging a show, I do all the technical designs.

What's your opinion of software synthesizes versus hardware?

I think it depends on the individual and how the synths are utilised. I use both. Do you have any favorite synths or other electronic gizmos.

Since I was introduced to the Kurzweils I have favoured them for their programmability especially to use in live performance. I have the K2500, K2661 and previously used the various modules. I also bought an Oberhiem OB12 from the UK a few years ago. I travel alot so I keep the synth arsenal slim. I do enjoy the Little Phatty, have fond memories of the Minimoog, Oberheim Xpander, TX81Z, vocoder; too many to list here and various algorithmic composition tools and modern synths including soft synths. I have also used custom made electronic toys in my shows, some made by friends, others I put together with friends. I am always ready to try new synths.

I hear some traditional Asian music influences in your playing. Is that something you try to cultivate?

Though I take pride in the preservation of my cultural heritage, I don’t deliberately replicate the music and sounds verbatim, rather, I encourage my influences to take on new meaning in my expression.

You are a founder of the group Xenovibes. Tell us about that. Are you still active with them?

Xenovibes began as my sound so I suppose you could say it will always be there. The group might perform if engaged to do so. However I switched gears in 2010 and began looking at new project ideas including a CD that I am shaping. I want to explore new avenues and share my work with more people.

What kinds of things have you been doing on your own?

My last project, was to arrange and produce a show for theremin and string quartet in Singapore. I am also working with several musicians in song-writing and production. These details will be made known when available.

How has your work with the theremin been received?

I have had much support for the way I use the theremin both in the studio and on stage. I have a sizeable international following who have been very generous to me.

On a side note, I have found that even when the sound of the theremin is well received on the CDs, people who have never seen the instrument live on stage with conventional ones tend to feel uneasy about it which then impacts on how they take to the sound. Then you have those who simply love it and want more.

You've been able cultivate a formal music career as an artist. Working and traveling as a performer. Can you share some of your insights and challenges about that in today's music environment?

Challenges? One thing that has not changed is competition. Taken in the right light, competition keeps one on one’s toes. The other culprits are money management, the ability to market oneself and knowing how to find work. Finally, keeping up to date with one’s tools. Musicians need to remember they are their own bosses and must be business savvy. Learn how to write and read contracts, negotiate, present, follow up, deliver, etc.

What is your opinion of today's electronic music scene with respect to style and
technology? The good and bad about it?

This is a tough one. I do not like to impose my opinion on anyone and hurt musical talent and potential new ideas without a chance to properly expound on my thoughts. But this I feel strongly about, technology is for the individual to explore and I love that we can benefit from its history.

Electronic Music used to be Music Concrete and in current terms is often taken to be esoteric and experimental music. It has also been used to describe New Age music and more commercially the dance/DJ music phenomenon. I would be lying if I said it does not irk me to hear people who have not gone through proper accreditation (academically and professionally) call themselves musicians just because they have a laptop they can make music with. But the pie is big enough for all kinds of expressions. Hey, I have been called experimental at one point in my career, and we all had to start somewhere, so.

Like the label of a musician, the term electronic music has stretched to cover a myriad of possible styles.

Has the glut of technology supplanted the need for artists to be musically proficient?

I think it depends on the work platform(s) as this would determine the talents that are sought after. Sometimes the service required means the strength of the musician must be tech oriented and other times, it is in performance. The role of a musician has certainly changed. Even though tools make things conceivable, a musically skilled position still requires a proficient and versatile player with a wide repertoire. This is my humble opinion.

What would you like to see change for today's electronic musician?

Everyone adjusts to change differently which makes for interesting music. Today’s musician has more tools and opportunities than ever before to get familiar with. The learning never stops. I can’t think of anything I’d really like to see changed, it is exciting times because of the way it is; good, bad or indifferent!

What are you working on these days?

Always on new projects and concepts, and I continue to practice my instruments daily and review their uses.

Has the Internet impacted with way your work? What's good and bad about it?

Definitely. I can produce a song and send it up for promotion and purchase the moment it is finished. Someone once remarked that there is too much noise online and that it is hard to stand out from the crowd. A new website to help launch your band is born every day and, look at the youtube phenomenon to ‘being discovered’. There is no sure fire way to success anymore except to try all avenues.

Where do you think electronic music will be in 10 years?

Well, there are loosely two parts to my answer. History tends to repeat itself and we get retro, and fresh possibilities will always emerge from the group of people into new sounds and new uses. But ask me this same question 10 years from now. I might have a different answer.

Where can people find out more information about you and purchase your recordings?

www.Shuehli.com and the usual social networking sites. You can also buy my recordings at Shuehli.com. I am working on a new CD and other musical activities, I invite you to join my mailing list to get the scoop at http://www.reverbnation.com/... Thanks for the support!