My Music Page!

For those sharp-11 enthusiasts out there, welcome! Hopefully you wouldn’t mind my naive effort in putting this page together. For those who can’t handle as much spice, you’re also welcomed. Hopefully you can start building you spice tolerance; you don’t need to like spice, but you need to appreciate it in order to have good taste.

Good musicians to check out

Just as an FYI, this list will mostly be comprised of saxophone players as I am one myself.

1. Michael Thomas: I had the pleasure of studying with him for a combined two weeks at the NEC jazz lab years ago. He’s a really nice guy, extremely knowledgeable, and plays fantanstic music. Most people (in musics, sports, etc) go through a period where they model their playing after someone they admire; I try to be like Michael Thomas in my alto playing even to this day.
2. Melissa Aldana: She’s my current “tenor hero”. She’s just… so good! She plays some of the most creative lines (for an example, check out the recording of her playing the standard Without a Song).
3. Lucas Pino: His (and Tony Lustig’s) rendition of Lines for Lyons inspired me to pick up a tenor saxophone. I would vote him as the tenor player with the best sound any day (yes, in the history of mankind).
4. Maria Schneider: Got free tickets to her concert with the Cleveland Jazz Orchestra once and I was probably the best thing that happened that year. It was crazy how articulate she is without using words; her music transports to her world where you see what she sees, hear what she hears, and feel what she feels. The only thing I don’t admire about her is her view on AI…

Some of my compositions

Just like how I write stories, I try to write music if I have time. I have one composition titled Yogurt that is written sloppily, so I’m not posting that. Hopefully, there’s one more to come.

Peanut Butter: This is my AP music theory project. It’s … ok. I would like to acknowledge Michael Hu for his help on many interesting things in the piece, Rintaro Fukasawa for offering to play the awful double stops, and Craig Sandford for teaching me music theory.