This has probably to be the craziest gig I’ve played so far.

Rit (Rit Xu, the pro Chinese flute player!) has graciously invited me to play for a gig. I have known Rit from Secondary School where we were both in the Chinese Orchestra, and it is a surprise to see him at Buddhist Fellowship (BF) early last year! It is such a coincidence, because he told me he was a walk-in member; on his first visit, he had come alone. Rit also played the Chinese flute in the recent Passage of Time musical, which ended about a week before.

So we’re playing a gig this Friday night at the Asian Civilisations Museum at Empress Place. It is a corporate function: the company has booked a hall within the Museum for a Chinese New Year get-together. Rit tells me that Moses is also playing. Moses is a terrific erhu player, we were both in Temasek, who wants to become a conductor and had gone to Russia to study for a short while. There are two other musicians whom I’m meeting for the first time: Samuel, the violinist, currently at the SAF Music and Drama Company, about to be discharged soon, and Xueqi, a pipa player from NAFA.

Okay, I’ve forgotten to mention that I’m playing keyboards.

Rit explains what my job is, after I ask him what songs we are to play that evening. ‘Just continue playing, try not to stop.’ In other words, I have to try to string all the songs we are playing into a medley.

‘But how do I know when to change songs, and in what key?’

‘It’s okay, I will tell you.’

This time I am terribly nervous about the gig, because here we have five musicians who are going to play together without rehearsal and… how on earth am I to inform the rest that we’re going to transit into another song?

Rit lets us know which songs we ought to begin with, and then he’d do his solo while we can rest – and I can think about what song we should do thereafter.

So we go on stage. The first number is Over the Rainbow. My fellow musicians are great improvisers – they provide the counterpoint on the fly and seem to understand telepathically when they should take the lead melody.

On the fly: yes, that’s the word.

As we’re about to finish with Over the Rainbow, Rit whispers to me, ‘The Moon Represents My Heart.’

I nod. We finish playing. I begin the introduction for the next song.

Rit: ‘In D,’

Stunned for the moment. I am playing a C-major chord. Without thinking I simply hit a D-major chord and replayed the introduction.

For those who are not sure about what I am saying, when you transit between chords – i.e. a few notes put together and sounded simultaneously – you can either produce a smooth, or jarring, passage. Certain chords have relations, so that when you place these chords in a certain combination or a certain passage, the whole package sounds good.

Having said so, a leap from C-major to D-major chord, so suddenly and brashly and without any transitory harmony in-between, that can be pretty ugly.

After that my fellow musicians were guffawing away in good cheer: ‘Wah, best, you just leap from C to D!’

At the end of the first set (we have to play two set that evening), we’re really – as Hokkiens use it – hooting. ‘Hoot’ means ‘whack’ – we have no plans, no scores, no prior agreement. Just you-look-at-me-I-look-at-you; somebody initiates something and the rest play along; me playing 1, 6, 4, 5 (chords in a scale) while struggling to decide what song to play next; me playing 1, 6, 4, 5 again and Rit telling me what song to do next and in what key. Transit, transit, and off we go.

The second set is much better, because we compile a list of repertoire during our break, based on the consensus that at least two people (including myself, since I am providing the meat of the pillars) know how to play it. We’re under some pressure to include a Korean song as apparently there’s a Korean guest with us tonight. We have troubles because one of us knows a particular number, but the others might not know. Moses suggests playing the theme song from ‘Jewel in the Palace’, but I do not know how to play that. Nevertheless, playing improves because we’ve finally had a chance to rehearse, albeit during the first set of the gig. At the same time, according to Moses, there are less people in the audience, so we’re less aware of ourselves.

At the end of a day, it’s a great experience: five people coming together in an immediate meeting of minds under pressure. There’s a sense of adrenaline compared to gigging alone; you have to be alert all the time.

Speaking of which, Southeast Asian musicians do that! Go watch the fiery exchange of musicians in Hom Rong ‘The Overture’, I have the link posted on an earlier date (apologies, because I do not write my posts in order. However, I post them according to the dates that they occur).