Music and Friendship

I just got back from Dewangga Sakti's gig in Singapore held on June 7th-8th. It was Dewangga Sakti's first cameo in the city state. The band also did their soft launching of the EP Mabok Kepayang in Singapore. As a musician in Dewangga Sakti I am happy and proud to see the first fruit of our labour is now riped and ready to be enjoyed by listeners out there. But what is most important to me, this trip to Singapore has left something meaningful to me as a musician in the band.

I have been active with music band for more than 10 years now, first with Cryptic Malediction and then Dewangga Sakti. The love and passion for a particular music has drawn me and other bandmates together to form our bands. But I can say music alone does not sustain a band. It is the bond and friendship created whilst making the music that hold us together as a band. My equation to this formula is music + friendship = great survival band.

Without friendship I don't think my bands can achieve what they have got now. Sure you may ask why friendship is so important? The answer depends on how far you want to drive your band. I can simply put advertisement for a guitarist, drummer and vocalist and quickly form a band for a project either to perform or produce an album. I can do it with a complete stranger. But I dont think I can do it for more than 3 years if I don't perceive other bandmates as friends as oppose to mere bandmates.

I say like this because there are a lot of ups and downs in moving together as a music band. I am not talking about a band who just gather for a jam during the weekend and collect music materials together. This is about managing a group of peoples towards serious goals and maintaining consistency and improvement at it. The process of achieving those goals require a lot of sacrifices, commitment and hard work. Along the way, you could see peoples' attitudes, obstacles, excuses, laziness, ego, anger and frustration. What better way to understand and overcome all these problems? To me the answer is friendship.

Some may say it should be professionalism. But professionalism alone is not enough and in fact you could only behave in a professional manner if you think it is your profession. To me being a bandmate is not a profession, it is a passion.

My bandmates and I in Dewangga Sakti faced many obstacles in producing our first EP Mabok Kepayang. It may sounds simple to produce 5 songs and print it on CD but behind the scene it deals a lot more with cooperation, voluntariness, understanding, love and respect to each other. The works for the EP have made us closer to each other and reinforced our brotherhood in music. Moving forward I pray that we would be able to understand and cooperate with each other more and avoid past mistakes and loopholes.

Coming back to my Singapore trip, apart from the traveling fatigue and lack of sleep I had so much fun and laughter with my bandmates. I laughed so hard that I trapped air in my lungs and ripped my abdominal muscles (my theory only !). It is very rewarding to have a really good time after hard days work. The Singapore trip was special to me because it was the first time Dewangga Sakti got to travel outside Malaysia in full board. In our previous trips only some of us were able to travel and perform overseas due to the client's requirements.

In Singapore Dewangga Sakti have embraced En Wah Yun Kua as a new member. He plays percussion and is very good at it. He is my bandmate now and definitely a friend. I hope he can bring a lot of improvement to the band and vice-versa. I look forward to create more beautiful musics with him and bring benefit to other peoples out there.

"In the rhythm of Life, we sometime find ourselves out of tune, But as long as there are friends to provide the melody, The music plays on."

L-R Standing = Mohsen, Syamsulfaiz, Wahyun, Zulkifli
L-R Sitting = Irwan, Norman, Azman, Raof

Scandalous !

Couldn't hold it anymore !

Dear Honey, How are you? I am currently at ...


Still scandalous !