Piano Spa 6: by Chester Tan and Tat Tong

It all started with a casual conversation with Tat Tong, a chart-topping music producer from T2 Productions. I told him about my past Piano Spa albums and he got inspired to produce instrumental albums. After discussing with Warner Music Singapore, Tat asked me if I would like to produce another new Piano Spa album. After giving some thought, I agreed.

The album was completed by end November, and after a few days of sorting out the licensing details, the contract was signed. And before I knew it, the album is out in stores. I first spotted it at HMV Marina Square on 27 December and excitedly informed Tat. 2 days later, Warner officially announced it on their Facebook page.

Piano Spa 6 (PS6) is Tat's first commercial instrumental album. His versatile composition styles offer the listener with an enchanting, whimsical, and moving experience. Through PS6, we get a flavour of Tat's musical calibre which reflects his vast experience in music-making.

For me, PS6 is my 5th release. After writing entirely for PS1 to 3, I collaborated with Fred Lin for PS4 and then Fred did the entire album for PS5. That was 2008. After that, Warner Music refreshed the Piano Spa series by releasing several compilation collections.

I am grateful to Warner Music for their continual support in the Piano Spa album series. I'm also privileged to produce this brand new album with an experienced musician who has produced a growing list of #1 songs in the Asian market, and whose portfolio includes music veterans like Kit Chan, Joi Chua, Karen Mok, Sally Yeh, Show Luo, plus rising stars like Christian Bautista, Jonathan Wong, Tay Kewei, Derrick Hoh.

Piano Spa 6 is now available at all good music stores. Visit our facebook page to listen to music samples.

Track listing:
CD1

1 - Awaken Dreams
2 - Daisies and the Sun
3 - Spring Bloom
4 - Last Summer
5 - Motions
6 - Old Time
7 - Our Wedding Moment (with Pachelbel's Canon)
8 - Returning to Love
9 - The Final Ember
10 - Impressions of a Broken Road
11 - There is Nothing Else to Love
12 - Twilight Passion
13 - Wishing Him Well
14 - We're at the End of Our Days


CD2

1 - Forest Dreams
2 - In The Air
3 - Fireflies
4 - Sunday Morning
5 - Walk
6 - March
7 - Enchanted
8 - Remembrance
9 - Reverie d'Amour
10 - Gnome Dance
11 - Coming Home
12 - Entering The Eternal
13 - Day's End
14 - Love of my Life

Best of Piano Spa: Serenity

Warner Music Singapore has released the second Piano Spa compilation since "Piano Spa: The Timeless Collection" in April 2010. This new compilation, titled Best of Piano Spa: Serenity, is the perfect companion to the "Timeless" compilation. You will be pleased to know that there are no duplicate tracks between the 2 collections.

This new album collects 4 CDs totalling 48 tracks from Piano Spa 1 - 5. If you have missed the previous 5 albums, there is no better time to get both compilation albums.

Get your copy at all good music stores before they sell out.



International Order: please click the below Paypal button to purchase at US$29.95 including shipping charges.

Christmas with HP - AMP-lified

Hewlett Packard (hp) invited me to a blogger party event to showcase their latest lifestyle products. The PR people from Waggener Edstrom has put in a lot of effort to make this event a unique experience. First, they couriered a box of jelly beans, a sweet teaser. Then at the event itself, they went all out to infuse fun and interaction among the guests with ice-breaking games. I also like the way they planned the execution of the product walkthrough: assigning guests to different stations so that the crowd is spread and rotated among the product showcase.

Some of the products that were launched include 

1. HP ENVY(14) Beats Edition, the first HP notebook built for music.
2. TouchSmart Desktop PCs, computers with touchscreen plus HP's exclusive Touch software.

3. HP ENVY(17) 3D, letting you watch 3D movies on the laptop.

What caught my eye was not the latest products, but this:

It's not the HP laptop I'm eyeing on, but the item below it and next to it. It's a HP USB Media Docking Station and HP Notebook Projection Companion. The docking station supports any device via standard USB ports, and once docked, you get audio and extra USB ports to use all your peripherals with the connected device. The Notebook Projection Companion, as you can see, is extremely portable and powerful. I can imagine bringing that around for mobile training or use it in my room.



Some shots I took during the event:

Check out more official photos to the event here.


From now till 31 December 3010, HP is giving Christmas shoppers great offers every day, at http://hp.com.sg/store . Visit now to find something to buy for your loved ones.





To ride on the festive cheer, HP is challenging me to think of ways to AMP my Christmas.


Well, seriously, I have been doing so many photo shoots for this year, but in contrast, I only composed 2 piano tracks. (Listen to them here and here) While my photos mostly impress the person whom I am shooting for, my compositions (since my Piano Spa album series) appear to reach out to a wide audience.


So if I have time (and inspiration), I would sit down and compose a whole lot more music, for people who matters a lot to me.


In fact, as I was drafting this blog post, I decided to start my AMP-ing and worked on my third composition for the year. This song is dedicated to my wife who has just returned from a business trip last night, and how I missed her presence in the house, and waiting for her return to my love.


Returning to Love (3:50)





Read about how other bloggers AMP their Christmas at the HP Singapore Facebook page.

New composition: There Is Nothing Else To Love

I composed this song in one take. It sings of despair and desolation, of loneliness, of lovelessness. Of trying to find a way out, of crying out for attention, for directions. But still, there is no answer.

Listen from last.fm

Piano Spa: The Timeless Collection

Piano Spa: The Timeless Collection. 4CD collectors set. A selection of 60 best Piano Spa masterpieces. Now on sale at all music stores.

I was caught by surprise when I visited HMV this afternoon. A quick call to my music agent confirms it. Actually, Warner Music has planned to release a compilation many months back, but I wasn't told when the release date was.

If you have bought all the past Piano Spa albums, then you can skip this compilation. But if you have not gotten a copy yet, now is the best time. The album is available for sampling at HMV, so listen before you buy. But well, it's number 2 on the HMV Jazz charts, so you can't go wrong buying this album.

I wanted to buy a few copies (yes, even I had to pay for my albums), but I forgot to bring my RBS credit card, which offers $5 HMV vouchers for every $50 spend. So I'll get a copy next time, and then I can listen down the tracks on this blog. But at one glance, most of my favourite tracks are in the compilation.

Thanks to Warner Music Singapore for this compilation, so that people who have missed the earlier albums can finally get a copy. While stocks last, and believe me, you will not find the album in stores 12 months from now. Call that "limited edition" if you like, but I think the cover design is already worth owning it.

Oh, and while you are at the store, you might want to check out "Rock On Piano". Rock songs never sounded so good on piano. 2CD 24 tracks, arranged by Chester Tan.



International Order: please click the below Paypal button to purchase at US$35 including shipping charges.

First Composition for the Year 2010: Spring Bloom

I christened my song to my new home, where it gives me new inspirations to start composing once again, after months of hiatus.

Listen: Spring Bloom by Chester Tan (5:01)

I only realised after I uploaded the track that the composition has references to 2 pop songs, an English and a Mandarin. See if you can catch the similarity.

Piano Spa 4 - TV Commercial

Finally managed to record the TV Commercial of my latest Piano Spa album. The background music they used for the commercial is in CD1 track 2, "Colours".

Red Nano for the Red Dot

Today, the Straits Times (and probably many other national newspapers) features large prominent adverts on Red Nano, the new search engine created by SPH (Singapore Press Holdings) solely on the Singapore market. It makes sure that all the search results are localised to Singapore context. One of the methods is to pick up keywords unique to Singapore, for instance, street names, food terms, even Singlish.

So this morning I tested it out, using keywords like "Chester Tan", "Piano Spa", "Dance Photographer", "Ballet Accompanist", "Piano Composer", "Photo Story", "Rock On Piano". Happy to say, my site came up as the top of the search list, while some other keywords like "Wedding Photographer", "Portrait Photographer" came up within the first page.

What really surprises me is that when I search using the keyword "Timeless", my first CD album also came up tops on the search engine! Seriously, I have no idea how it got there.

Haha this is so exciting! Feels like as if this search engine is created for me!

Red Nano is really great, not just because of the above. Now, using Red Nano, I can search for sites that is truly from within Singapore. No longer do I need to dig through pages of Google to find relevant local sites.

Piano Spa 4: It Is Out There

Piano Spa 4 is out for quite a while, but I could only confirm today when I bought a copy at the CD shop.

This time round, Piano Spa 4 is truly a 'Various Artists' album, because Fred Lin also contributed half of the album.

Fred Lin is a friend who is now based in Shanghai developing his music career by working in a large record company.

Thanks to him, PS4 is a reality, because I wasn't able to produce 30 tracks to meet Warner Music's deadline.

When I get the chance, I'll get him to autograph CD2 and CD3, and I autograph CD1 and CD2. Then we will both autograph on the cover sleeves. Haha.

He did a nice job blending with the "Piano Spa" style. But he also presents his own style in this collection.

Does that also mean that I will not write any more "Piano Spa" albums?

I won't say anything for sure.

When I finished Piano Spa 3, I was told that it shall be the final collection. But here you have it, the fourth album.

But as I looked back and listened to my compositions, from PS1 to PS4, I find great change to my style.

If you dig up some archives I wrote about Piano Spa, PS1 is a collection of "nice-feeling" spa music, not much melodic form, true to the new age style.

Then PS2 comes, collecting some of my favourite compositions. PS2 contains all the tracks previously released in 'Timeless'. It is a more emotionally-charged collection meant as a solo-album, so there are more depth in the melodic structure.

PS3 further develops the song structure, with increased number of solo piano compositions. It presents feelings of hope and desire.

For PS4, I composed the first 16 tracks. Originally meant for a solo-album project, it was held for over a year before we decided to release it as a collection. Except for 'Colours' (CD1 track 2), all the 15 tracks are solo-piano. 'Chimes' is my shortest track ever released by me - only 1 min 30 seconds. I didn't extend it because it conveys what I had to convey in that 90 seconds.

Some tracks in PS4 have stories behind their existence. 'Colours' was originally composed with lyrics for a short film project but the film producers decided not to use the song. 'After the Waves' was inspired by the aftermath of the Indian Ocean Tsunami disaster on 26 Dec 2004 (now you will listen this track in a different light).

Today I was having lunch at a restaurant and I heard them playing this album over the sound system. I was surprised that they got hold of this latest album in such recency.

Like I always say, get one before it's out of print, then you will never be able to get it. Ever. Don't believe me? Try looking for PS1 or PS2 in music stores. I know many piano lovers out there puts Piano Spa as a 'wishlist', 'to-buy' item, notably students who have no earning power. I do hope it's still available when they do decide to get it.

The Piano Spa series is not another new age atmospheric music that blends with the background. In fact, after experiencing spa treatment for the first time in Bangkok, I am embarrassed at how Piano Spa is not 'spa-ish'. In perspective, Piano Spa is a series that showcases Chester Tan's signature piano styles.

Rock On Piano TV Commercial

My album has been on sale for 2 weeks, and people has been telling me they saw the ads on TV very often. But I did not manage to see it on TV myself. Until today.

Rock On, Piano Spa!

Some news on my music albums.

First, my latest rock song piano album is out. ROCK ON PIANO is a 2-CD 24-track piano interpretation of some of the best soft rock songs on the planet. I have not got hold of one myself yet, but it should look like a DVD box, like this:

Second, my Piano Spa albums have extended its presence to the mobile domain. Currently, SingTel and StarHub are offering selected tracks for download into your mobile phones. Now you can enjoy relaxing therapeutic songs anywhere you go. But if I were you, I would grab the 3-CD 30-track album instead of downloading. At about $20, each track costs only $0.60, and you can convert and download onto whatever player you got. I do hope you can still find them, because music stores typically do not keep stocks of "old" albums. In time, Piano Spa albums would have become a collector's item. In fact, only the first press comes with the elongated packaging. Subsequent prints are packed in the normal thick jewel casings.