By Michelle Liang
For the Fall series of Arts Mag, I was fortunate to feature Jason Tang. He is a grade twelve student, who has an undeniable passion for engineering and music. He is active and always engaging with the people around him. In his spare time, he likes to make things with 3-D printing or Arduino. Seeing all the things he does around the school – from showcasing his otamatone to playing the saxophone in band – it is clear that his passion shines through his actions. I recently talked to him about his interest in music.
What would you like to share about your background?
“I’m an engineer. I like to make cool stuff. It’s interesting because yesterday, I just went to an arts university info session. I realized that art and engineering have an interesting connection. For my family background, my dad does software engineering. He has these pieces of computer parts, and sometimes I’d pick them up and build my own computer. He was also in a music band in college. As for my mom, she used to sing and still does.”
What is your philosophy on music?
“Well, my friend actually thinks art is all about reputation and making connections. But I disagree with him. I think for music, a lot of the songs are written with feelings, and you can get that emotion when you listen to them. Music is so diverse, from instrumental and classical to rap and hip-hop. For classical, you can feel it’s a story and can understand what the protagonist is going through. For rap or hip-hop, you can really feel the struggle behind the artist. I think music is very relatable.”
You said music is diverse. What would be your favourite style of music?
“I listen to all types of music. In a lot of ways, you can’t really define my favourite genre. Also, I think in the future, a lot of the music is going to be ‘genre-less’. The line is going to become blurrier.”
I’ve seen you making a lot of your own instruments. Can you comment on them?
“With a lot of the music I make, it’s just for experimenting and to see what I can do with them. For my otamatone, it was more of something I can show people, for gags. And for my jazz analog instrument, I was just experimenting around. I knew that graphite was a resistor and that the sound generated would vary by resistance. The first version I had was completely analog. It was producing sound based solely on the resistance of the graphite. There was no specific or distinctive note. The second version was tuned to a jazz scale.”
How does that work?
“A lot of times when musicians are improvising in jazz, there’s a scale they can use that basically sounds good with whatever tune they’re playing. When it’s tuned to a jazz scale, you can play any note in that scale and it will sound good in the backing track. That’s perfect for the instrument I have because it’s random and you can’t specify any note in particular.”
For the Fall series of Arts Mag, I was fortunate to feature Jason Tang. He is a grade twelve student, who has an undeniable passion for engineering and music. He is active and always engaging with the people around him. In his spare time, he likes to make things with 3-D printing or Arduino. Seeing all the things he does around the school – from showcasing his otamatone to playing the saxophone in band – it is clear that his passion shines through his actions. I recently talked to him about his interest in music.
What would you like to share about your background?
“I’m an engineer. I like to make cool stuff. It’s interesting because yesterday, I just went to an arts university info session. I realized that art and engineering have an interesting connection. For my family background, my dad does software engineering. He has these pieces of computer parts, and sometimes I’d pick them up and build my own computer. He was also in a music band in college. As for my mom, she used to sing and still does.”
What is your philosophy on music?
“Well, my friend actually thinks art is all about reputation and making connections. But I disagree with him. I think for music, a lot of the songs are written with feelings, and you can get that emotion when you listen to them. Music is so diverse, from instrumental and classical to rap and hip-hop. For classical, you can feel it’s a story and can understand what the protagonist is going through. For rap or hip-hop, you can really feel the struggle behind the artist. I think music is very relatable.”
You said music is diverse. What would be your favourite style of music?
“I listen to all types of music. In a lot of ways, you can’t really define my favourite genre. Also, I think in the future, a lot of the music is going to be ‘genre-less’. The line is going to become blurrier.”
I’ve seen you making a lot of your own instruments. Can you comment on them?
“With a lot of the music I make, it’s just for experimenting and to see what I can do with them. For my otamatone, it was more of something I can show people, for gags. And for my jazz analog instrument, I was just experimenting around. I knew that graphite was a resistor and that the sound generated would vary by resistance. The first version I had was completely analog. It was producing sound based solely on the resistance of the graphite. There was no specific or distinctive note. The second version was tuned to a jazz scale.”
How does that work?
“A lot of times when musicians are improvising in jazz, there’s a scale they can use that basically sounds good with whatever tune they’re playing. When it’s tuned to a jazz scale, you can play any note in that scale and it will sound good in the backing track. That’s perfect for the instrument I have because it’s random and you can’t specify any note in particular.”
In addition to your analog instrument, do you have any upcoming projects?
“Actually, yes. I’m working on an Arduino powered drum light. Whenever you beat the drum, it would light up a ring of LED around the drum.”
That’s very interesting. I’ve also seen you do some DJ last time. Let’s talk about DJ.
“Oh, yes, I can talk about DJ. Here’s how I actually got into it. In grade six or seven, we had school dances, and I was asked by the teacher to ‘deejay’ for the dance. At that time, ‘deejay’ was just playing songs from a few playlists. Then, in September this year, my friend asked me to “deejay” for his school dance, and I was like, ‘Okay, sure.’ But he told me that I had to actually deejay. So, I went on Craigslist, and I also bought a second-hand DJ controller. It was probably forty or sixty bucks. I told my parents I was going to deejay for this dance, and they were like ‘no you’re not allowed to go.’”
Did you end up going to the dance?
“No, but I still had the DJ equipment and learned how to DJ. I just didn’t go to the dance. The first time I deejayed in public was for the student life fair at the robotics booth. It wasn’t even related to robotics, but I was like ‘sure, why not play some music.’ Then after that, Ilhan came up to me and asked me to DJ for the diversity week. After that, Mr. Wong, from the math department, asked me to DJ for the basketball games. My first session would be on December 5th at Collingwood. I don’t know how that’s going to turn out, but I’m hoping for the best.”
What do you think of DJ, personally?
“DJ is very cool. Even though I don’t have the musical talent to express myself fully with music, DJ is very interesting because it allows you to show people what you think is cool. You can show people some new music, and they can tell you what they like.”
How does DJ work?
“Well, most people don’t know that DJ is just making sure that music is constantly playing. That’s basically lining two music together so that their tempo match, and then slowly incorporating one part of the song into the other so that they blend together. From the first song, you slowly transition into the second song. That’s DJ.”
Aside from playing the otamatone, making your jazz analog, and deejaying, I know you also play the saxophone.
“I do play the saxophone, but I wouldn’t say I’m good. It’s just a very liberating experience to me compared to playing the piano. I used to play the piano, and I had to convert notes between the lines and match them on the keyboard. With saxophone though, I didn’t have to. It’s just a different way of playing.”
If you had to pick an instrument that you’d like to learn to play, what would it be?
“I think I’d like to try playing the piano again. The piano that I used to do was all RCM and classical music that I wasn’t really into. But then after joining jazz band, I saw a whole different side of piano that’d be really cool to play and jam along with other people.”
Seeing all your musical talents, who or what has influenced your art and why/how?
“I actually used to live in an area in Toronto where there was a lot of African-American. I listened to hip-hop a lot. I think that’s my biggest influence.”
Do you have any advice for other artists?
“You don’t have to be an artist to create art. You can be in any field and create something that’s powerful for yourself.”
This is my last question. It’s a very broad question. What are your future aspirations?
“I want to be an engineer. But I would definitely continue music in university. I might join a band. Band is interesting. You get to know your bandmates and play on a different level.”