My Musical Career History

During my study in Bandung in 2003, I decided to learn singing techniques. I didn’t join a musical school but I learned from a friend of mine who was a very good singer with lots of experience. He had many trophies from singing contests, and sometimes was asked to teach other singers privately. Interestingly, some of his students were famous and popular, and often performed on Indonesian TV Programs, even on MTV, a well-known musical program in the world. So, I learnt it for free. I was pushed to learn because he thought I had singing talent.

Consequently, we spent almost a year of singing practice to complete the techniques. My skill improved but he thought that it would be better if we continued to develop it more as a musical band. Thus, he invited 5 musicians and 2 more singers before making the band. At the beginning, we spent time on conversations about our musical experiences and band concepts, but the most important thing about our musical concepts. This took several meetings before ending with a decision that R&B Soul was the genre of our music. Further, we spent most of our time on band rehearsals. The singers spent four times a week or three hours a day on vocal and music practice. We also spent 4 hours a week in a music studio to combine both the vocals and the music. In addition, we also practiced to improve our skills outside rehearsal sessions.

Eight months later, we had our first audition at one of the hotels in Bandung city, but we failed. It was unsuccessful because we were nervous and lost our self-confidence. After evaluating that terrible performance, we went back on stage and won the audition at the Kintamani Kafe. It was a musical cafe that we ought to fight first as a beginner in Bandung musical world and also a place where the band career was started from. However, this second audition was my last also. I had to stop singing because I had to prepare my English skills seriously before taking my master degree in the Netherlands.

In brief, the band is very popular now in Bandung. They have performed in many popular musical cafes in West Java, Jakarta, Yogyakarta, Lampung, Bali and even abroad for charity events. I hope the band is successful with their first album which is being prepared now.