Lee Hom's " Forever 1st Day " Album Diary

89/07/08~89/07/14 @Part 5

Dear Friends,

"Don't Be Afraid" was inspired one fine autumn afternoon in Boston. I lied on my back in the Fens Park grass and let the setting sun warm my shut eyelids. This simple soothing melody entered my head and I think it captured the moment better than any photograph I've ever seen. What can I say, it's a simple song, from the heart.

"The World of Wild Imagination" is a complex (but not complicated) song. It may take a few listening to get used to, though. Personally, I enjoy listening to music that challenges my ears, so it's not surprising that this is my favorite song on the album. The arrangement of this song is divided into five sections, the rap, the verse, the chorus, keyboard solo, and the outro. Each section paints a different picture of what it feels like to be courting a girl who is already taken. The sections go from chaotic, to cool, to indifferent, to excited, to accepting.

In the chorus section, I play a Latin piano rhythm, which in Spanish is called "montuno". This brings a bit of Latin summer flavor to the jazzy harmonies used in the background vocals. The augmented fourth, otherwise known as the "tritone", is an interval in the melody occurring many times as an F# over a C major chord (for example in the chorus, the words "my heart" and "one dream"). This interval, a favorite of mine (and also my idol Leonard Bernstein's), is central to many of my compositions. This sound combined with the Latin montuno rhythm creates extra heat making this song all the more danceable.

The outro section uses a descending chromatic scale in the melody and more sophisticated chords in the piano part creating a smooth "Jamiroquai-like" texture.

"Love is a Stage" is my tribute to the years I spent playing the drums and guitars in rock and roll bands. Nods to Led Zeppelin, Guns N Roses, the Who, and U2 are all apparent, but less obvious are lines from Gustav Mahler's 4th Symphony for example, which is played by the analog synthesizer before the chorus "Aih Tai Ku (Love is too bitter)". Mahler, who was Leonard Bernstein's idol has always been a source of inspiration to me. His compositions are full of thought and attention to detail, each of his symphonies are truly masterpieces. Like Mahler's attitude towards composing, my music also strives to be different and accomplish more than meets the ear.

"Love's Notebook" is an R&B-style ballad. Emotional and pain-filled, the vocals cry and yearn to break free of the melody. The arrangement fools the ear into thinking that it is constantly changing and modulating up in key, however, it never leaves the key of A. This illusion creates a feeling of helplessness, summed up in the last line of the lyrics, "these wounds are just part of love's notebook."

In the song, "City of Pleasure", I tried to incorporate many elements of Chinese music and Chinese culture, without being too obnoxiously literal. Actually, I had a lot of fun creating this song. The melody in the verses is, like "Descendants", strictly five-note (Eb pentatonic) and uses call and response devices to enhance the melody's simplicity.

The real fun in composing this song was in doing the arrangement. First off, the song begins with the sound of hitting ping-pong balls, which I recorded with Janet Jackson's drum programmer Alex Richbourg. I figured Ping-Pong, a Chinese game that has been embraced by the entire world, added a different dimension to this song, and also could serve as a great percussion snare sound! In the middle section of this song, I also sampled a section of a Sony Playstation Kung-fu fighting game because Kung-fu is also an internationally embraced aspect of Chinese culture. Plus, the game just sounded great in the track. "City of Pleasure" also features instruments such as the gu zhen and er hu to give it even more of a Chinese flavor. In my opinion, the singing style and funky drum grooves played by Alex make this dance track an international sounding song.

"All I Think About is You" is a seemingly simple song, yet when you listen closely to the chord changes of the verse, it is evident that this is not the common pop song format. As a pop music composer, I often try to write music that can be easily accepted by the average listener, yet can also be appreciated by the critical ear of a trained musician. The E minor 7 chord, to F minor 11, to Db minor 11 in the verses is a moment that I am particularly proud of because of its non-cliche sound.

"This is Love" is an upbeat rock song. However, instead of doing the standard rock song approach with a live drummer, I wanted to try something different and used electronic drum programming. I think it adds an interesting touch. The verses are energetic and rhythmic contrasting with the slow grandiose melodic rhythm of the choruses.

"You Can Tell Me" is the closing bracket on the parenthesis created by track 1 "Introduction". This is the last song of the album, and by now, our emotions having been lifted up to extremes of intensity, excitement, dance, etc, and we are now put back down gently like the landing of an aircraft, back to reality. We end up where we began, on an airplane composing.

"You Can Tell Me" is a simple folk ballad from the heart. As suggested in the lyrics, I did in fact compose this song on the plane ride from Taipei to Boston. Later, I had my friends in the New England Conservatory of Music's Honors String Quartet record my arrangement. Beginning and ending with the string quartet suggests that there is a good amount of classical music's influence on the approach to composition and production of this pop album.

Finally, in the last verse, "In the meantime, I'll just keep writing new songs", the string quartet plays a line from my last album's song "Liu Lei Shou Xin (English version, Mary Says)" reminding the listener that these songs are all in some way reflections of my true experiences and feelings.

This is my life; I am a composer artist on the road. In my new album "Forever's First Day", I am trying to hone a craft, and communicate in a meaningful way with my listeners. This letter has given you some insight into the musical content of this album. I hope you will find our exchange to be a special one.

Yours Truly,
Homeboy