A Letter to the Noise-makers, From Jia Ying

My Love. My baby. My heart. My blood. My soul. EVERYTHING.Everything happened in primary. Everything started during primary school... when I first joined Tsun Jin's primary school choir as a pianist in standard 3, when I was just 9 years old...a seed was planted deep down in my heart. I love singing. I started singing when I was barely 3, my mom said I sang "Happy Birthday" in front of public, on stage during my cousin's 21st birthday party... WOW right? Lolx. That seed grew pretty healthy with the help of Tsun Jin's Choir Year 2000 under the guidance of Mr. Chen Zi Ping. We went to various places to compete and won various glorious prizes, making our school, our parents, our teachers, us ourselves... very proud indeed. Then when I realize I had to graduate and leave all my "bestest" friends who were ALL choir maniacs, I thought... "Hey. Why not we ourselves form a choir?"

Co-incidently, my mom runs a small music school business and I can use her studio for practices. Considering getting free air-condition, free rooms, free piano... HAHA... and free advertising to increase choir members, it was no big deal if the choir's name became "Simshen de Classic's Youth Choir" instead of "Gan Jia Ying's Youth Choir" Eh? Lolx. (Note: Simshen de Classic is the name of my mom's small music school... which is currently expanding quite well. Lolx, and is no longer small.) So Simshen de Classic's Youth Choir was formed in year 2001 among me and some of my friends from primary school. If I was not wrong, there were around 10+ of us at that time, barely reaching 15... so we sung small pieces for chamber choirs and had lots of fun growing up together. For annual activities, we performed small pieces in huge performances organized by Simshen de Classic, and for the rest of the days... we had fun singing together, and making our lives miserable by tackling with harder and harder and harder repertoires. But hahaha... we had fun.

Members came and went, the choir grew larger... and one day in December, year 2002. I heard from SOMEWHERE that there was going to be an INTERNATIONAL CHORAL COMPETITION held by the Singapore Arts Council HERE in GENTING, MALAYSIA... My first was of course "OH MY GAWD. There's an INTERNATIONAL Choir Festival going ON HERE in MALAYSIA!" Then the next thing we know, is us heading to genting participating in the competition and winning ourselves a gold medal for folklore category and a silver medal for Junior Category. Oh, I missed a part. For the sake of the competition, the choir expanded quite a loud number and even named ourselves Simshen de Classic's Junior Youth Choir - LittleNoise. Or in short, we're known as "The LittleNoise Choir" where we had our very very very FIRST ever concert, organized by our patron of course...Simshen de Classic and performed by OURSELVES! YAY! Hahaha...

The next thing after winning the competition in year 2003? We were WHOOOSHHH to Singapore, June year 2004 and was the ONLY choir team representing Malaysia to WOOOO the Singapore Audience during the "Choir Jubilee" of their country's art festival. THEN we got wilder. We started thinking of ways to attract the audiences back in our hometown. Because music isn't very well developed here in Malaysia, and it's VERY hard to get audiences' support if you're doing Classical all the way. PLUS we are all teenagers! Who would like to stand for 30 minutes singing JUST Bach, Handel, Messiah, Mozart.... PURCELL! Who wouldn't prefer songs from now like... Disney, Musicals, Kelly Clarkson, WANG LEE HOM? Lolx. So I started re-arranging tunes for the choir to sing, and with the farnee and great guidance of Mr. Mulu Lau, one of the very reknowned choir masters in Malaysia who is also known to look like Elton John! HAHAHAHA~! The LittleNoise Choir fair really really well, and started to gain some fans around. Haha... bringing in more choir members of course.

Everything went from wacky to totally WILD when we staged our VERY VERY own Originally-scripted and re-arranged Musical. Haha. Well, it was only originally scripted with songs from all over the places, all kinds of genres, all sort of composers. But it was New... and the audiences loved it. No... WE LOVED IT. Lolx. Of course during the process of preparing ourselves for the HUGE thing, we had ups and downs... choir members threatening to leave, parents complaining, friends argueing, things turning upside down, the sky falling, earthquakes, volcano explosions... okay. Gone out of topic. Lolx. It was hard. Very hard. Especially when WE are doing everything ourselves: Renting the hall, printing tickets, selling tickets, counting ticket sales, backdrops, props, practice times, script, bla bla bla blabl abl bal... of course the singing part we have teachers to guide. But asides that, everything else was on our own! So when the concert was over, which, by luck... a small but great success (to us)... everybody was gleaming with pride, wishing that we could all do it again, and again and again! The pressed loved us too! Haha... Yay... that's another great thing.

Then this year, we brought ourselves to another level. "Okay, last year we had it originally scripted, bringing songs together from all over the place. This year, what are we going to do to show that we've improved?" It was a hard decision, but since we are totally insane and have no sense of logic or fear or well, we're NUTZ. Because we decided to go FULL. Yea... FULLY ORIGINAL. "You must be mad..." yeap. We are. "Midnight Puppet - The Musical." The first 100% FULLY ORGINAL Malaysian Musical by TEENS. All songs, all lyrics, all scripts, all dance choreographing, all acting, all props, all costumes, all EVERYTHING. Was it tough? Nah.... How can it be... EASY??? It was HELL. Of course, not trying be modest. But I won't hide what I can do, I am afterall the mastermind behind everything. But with it comes an AWFUL lot of stress. And handling stress, is stressful... but look on the bright side, I lost 7 KGs. Hahahahaha... On 29th and 30th July 2006, was two very very memorable nights that I believed No Noisemaker that had been part of Midnight Puppet would ever ever forget those experience.

It's not just another "musical". It's not MY musical. It's OUR musical... It's the musical that brought All LittleNoise members together. Everyone played an important part of it. With it brought friendship, love, fun, and of course "music". The LittleNoise Choir grew from just a choir that stood still and sing to one that can act, sing and dance at the same time. Think of it, how many choir does that? Okay... think it smaller. How many choir is Malaysia does that. Let me answer you, you don't need that long to think. NONE. N.O.N.E. NONE. The musical was a TOTAL BOOM... GREAT success. We even have our OWN musical soundtrack recorded, and it's selling now at RM19.90. Lolx. It's not Professionally done, considering that we're just a bunch of crazy students... but considering that, we actually professional. HAHAHAHA!
Now, I'm here in Beijing and the choir's having a new captain. And I'm hearing all sorts of nonsense... like who's quitting the choir, who's hating the choir, who's controlling, who's stabbing behind backs, who's not enjoying choir time, who's fade up of littlenoise and littlenoise is going to die very soon. It's just heartbreaking. All the promises I've got, all the passion all the love that I've seen in almost ALL of the choir members that claimed themselves to be part of The LittleNoise Choir is suddenly Gone. POOF. Like magic... vanishing into thin air. But this is not an object that vanished. It's feelings... it's memories! Some of them have been with the choir since they were 11? 12? And they've gone through every step, every hard work, every rock and stairs. Now just because there's no one right on top to cling everybody together, it falls apart? I don't believe that when I was captain, I was the ONLY one who loved the choir and the ONLY ONE to bring it together. Not that I don't believe in myself, but if you tell me that I'm the one doing all work, I'd tell you "IMPOSSIBLE." I don't have that strength, or energy or well, IMPOSSIBLE.

For those of you who had said that the choir was formed because of me, and now dies because I'm not there. Let me tell you this. The LittleNoise Choir existed because of me, true. But it wasn't JUST for me. Or you guys won't even be in choir, because if I am THAT greatly important, which I really don't think so... I can sing the choir myself. Right?For those of you on top of the piramid, those having posts and doing all the work. If you do not love the choir: Number one -- You WON"T be in it. If you've BEEN in it, you LOVE the choir. Who loves doing duties? Who loves being responsible for all the faults and all the troubles. But SOMEBODY's GOTTA do it. And it isn't FAIR if ONE PERSON does it all, right? SO... make that SOMEBODY EVERYBODY. If everybody shares the burden, then the work load wouldn't be as much.
The spirit is dying. Where's the spirit? Now all I hear is people complaining even to go for practices??? It's not just any practice. It's a GATHERING! A gathering for FRIENDS from all over KL, ALL OVER schools! Where can you find another place to know people from so many different places and different ages all at the sametime?? I understand it is hard work, but bringing people together has never been easy.You do not take leaves because you have a sore throat. Being in LittleNoise isn't about SINGING, for god's sake! If you guys notice, it's the spirit that matters. The thing that bounded us together isn't HOW WE SING... it's our spirits... it's friendship, it's LOVE. YES! It's sharing the same passion, doing the same thing, having the same goals. It's being US as young teens and having fun! If you've just been in LittleNoise for 2 days, I understand if you do not understand the LittleNoise culture. But if you're a member for 3? 4 years? And you're leaving because of your studies? because you think that the choir has too much work installed for you? because you don't LOVE It? and you think that the choir has NO FUTURE at all?

Who sets a future? YOU. US. ALL members. Who's fault is it if the choir has no future? YOURS. OURS. ALL MEMBERS. Don't give up hope on LittleNoise, don't give up hope on your friends, don't give up HOPE on yourselves! Just because you have to do an extra paperwork won't take you 50 hours off your week! Never say Never! Where's "Yay, we go! Go littlenoise!" spirit? What's happened to those wacky wild INSANE Noise-makers that I grew up loving all these years? There is a saying in LittleNoise, "Once a LittleNoise, forever a LittleNoise."Do not deny that, unless you tell me that you never liked every practice, every journey, every concert, every trip, everything LittleNoise does. And you've only been in that choir because you were forced to... by your parents. Hahaha... I'll hang myself if you tell me that. Because if my memory is correct, you guys even had to REBEL your parents to let you come for choir. And now, after all those times? You're just giving up? Like that? Are you satisfied? Are you happy? Would you not miss any members, any friends, any songs? YES? Okay, go ahead... quit. Let the choir die. *raises eyebrow* Eh???

If you are a noise maker, and you're reading this. Pass it on to another member and let them take a look at what I've written. It may not be very well written, but every word is from my heart. Hoping that you'll love the choir as much as I do. Before you close this page, I thank you VERY MUCH to finish reading this. It's a HUGE post I know... THANK you for reading! I've posted the lyrics to a song that I think you should sing, with your heart, to every word it says... then after that tell me: You've never liked the choir. And if you do, do that... I'll shed a tear for you, because you've wasted so much time to love something that later on only you found out that it was useless.

Listen, hear our voices sing
The LittleNoise Choir is here
We are special
We are not the same
Together we will lit your days

Watch out, see our spirits fly
The LittleNoise Choir is here
We speak one language
We share one dream
Together we will sing our ways

We’re gonna get up
We’re gonna be stars
We’re gonna work hard
Together we are one
We’re gonna take off
We’re gonna stand strong
We’re gonna hold hands
And make our dreams come true

So Come on LittleNoise
Say Yes Say High
Show them what we’ve got
Yeah ~ Bulls eye!
Let’s Clap it hard and Sing it loud
Go! Go! Go! Go ~ LittleNoise!

We’re gonna get up
We’re gonna be stars
We’re gonna work hard
Together we are one
We’re gonna take off
We’re gonna stand strong
We’re gonna hold hands
And make our dreams come true

"You can always leave LittleNoise, but LittleNoise never leaves you."