HOW CAN ACAPPELLA BE THIS AWESOME??!

Recently, this Korean acappella group's rendition of iPhone/Windows/Samsung phone ring and alert tones went viral on social media:

Little did thousands of people (myself included) know that this group, by the name of Maytree, is extremely successful and awesome!

I browsed their Youtube channel and boy, was I blown away by their cover of pop songs! Sharing a few of my favs below for your listening pleasure:

And this bassist is DA ROCK!

Their best testimonial has to be the countless 'likes' and comments on their channels. Seriously underrated and under-subscribed! Maytree is unbelievably good! I discovered their channel just a few days ago and have spent a few hours watching their vids lol. Their faces are rather likeable (and amicable) and their live showmanship is superb as well! 😍 I honestly wish for them to make it bigger on the music stage!

One fan even described Pentatonix as the "Western Maytree". 😝

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P/S: I was today years old when I realised one could insert emoticons on blogger... XD

Comewhat this chilly breeze and old school Jay Chou hits

It's just past midnight and the house is quiet... wifey and the kids are fast asleep. The steady breeze coming into the room is gentle and chilly. Temperatures said to hit as low as 24 deg C, NEA said of November. 

For some unknown reason, enjoying this breeze led to me plugging in my earphones to Jay Chou's hits from his first 2 CDs (i.e. ban dao tie he, an jing, jie kou, xiang hui dao guo qu, kai bu liao kou etc)... there's certainly no time travelling technology yet but this combo of chilly breeze and old school hits teleports my mood back to my carefree, naive, happy-go-lucky teenage years where we couldn't care less about things other than homework and what to do for the holidays...

feels

Yeah, and so listening to these songs are urging me to go emo-singing in a KTV lounge with my buddies...

1 min superstar 2nd place

Amidst the 100% WFH arrangement to cope with the Covid-19 outbreak, my company was concerned that staff were going crazy cooped up indoors, or feeling alone and dejected from the lack of mingling with our usual lunch kakis/team mates.

One of the activities they organised was a 1-minute Superstar challenge - to encourage staff to showcase talents, and encourage participation from family too.

The initial window period for submission was 2 weeks. However, due to a lack of participation, it was extended not twice, but thrice. That's how passive and unsporting the staff are... me included. Then the organiser XY texted me personally and asked me to participate. I was quite sian at first. Like, no mood to do anything leh. But we brainstormed and when I tried playing some songs at home with the ukulele, wyx4 was eager to join in and her interest spurred me on!

Submitted a short clip of us playing 细水长流, me on the uke while she played percussion (a baby shaker actually but it worked!).

Surprisingly we got 2nd place ($100) hehe! Timely money to buy some milk powder and groceries =)

Sold off my zhongruan

Thanks to second-hand online marketplace, I found a good buyer for my ancient zhongruan.

Bought it in Sec 2 (1998) for $200, so it's like 21 years now!? Truth is, I didn't like it very much and I don't think I used it for more than even 2 hours in total. Lol. It has been lying in my storage bed since, and I finally decided to rid of it one fateful evening. As it isn't a mainstream instrument I didn't think it'd be popular, in addition to 1 faulty fret and 1 broken string, I listed it for $15. Surprised it attracted a handful of interested buyers.

Coincidentally the buyer was someone related to my sec sch CO! Mingwei was a flutist from many years my junior. He's more famous as the bassist in the local acapella group, Micapella. So his wife said its for her FIL i.e. Mingwei's dad la.

So long, ZR. Hope your new owner can make merry music with you!