Don\u2019t Shoot The Pianist \u201cOverwhelmed\u201d (Courtesy Eugene Chan)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nYou went from a cool programming job at Microsoft in Seattle, to renouncing it for something even more hip: coming to Toronto to pursue music. In many ways, you stepped back in time \u2014 what brought about this reorientation?<\/b><\/h3>\n
I wouldn\u2019t say I stepped back in time, though I won\u2019t deny that there was a bit of nostalgia involved. Music was always an extra-curricular activity for me when I was getting my computer science degree, but after I graduated and started working, I didn\u2019t really have time to practice anymore. Eventually, I just got frustrated that I couldn\u2019t perform at a level I knew I\u2019d once been capable of, and I started to miss working on music, having high-level conversations about music, and just generally being involved in the world of classical music. In fact, don\u2019t shoot the pianist was an expression of me missing the experiences that my friends who did study music were going through. It was a way for me to say to those friends, \u201chey, I understand you, we have some of the same shared experiences, and you find the same things funny as I do.\u201d Then a few strips went viral, and then I wasn\u2019t just talking to my own friends in music anymore, musicians everywhere were part of my audience.<\/span><\/p>\nBut at some point, it wasn\u2019t enough just to tell jokes about classical music. Drawing don\u2019t shoot wasn\u2019t going to fill the void entirely, and wasn\u2019t going to make up for not practicing and not progressing as a musician. So I said, you know what, music\u2019s always been an extra-curricular activity in my life, the side hobby \u2014 what if I were to make it the main focus and pursue a degree in music? So I put in a few applications. It wasn\u2019t easy getting back onto the scene. Five years away from the piano and\u2026 well, it\u2019s not that your technique gets any worse (although it does), but you forget what to listen for when you\u2019re playing. Your ability to listen to yourself just gets worse. I have a sample of my playing from early in my first year. It\u2019s amazing I passed any auditions. I\u2019m just thankful that someone was willing to take a chance on me.<\/span><\/p>\nIs there anything Jamie Parker and your other mentors have imparted on you over the last four years in Toronto?<\/b><\/h3>\n
For sure. The most important thing I\u2019m learning is to treat a musical performance as a mode of communication. You have your text, but the purpose of that text is to be delivered in a way that evokes some feeling, some emotional reaction in the listener. I find I\u2019m often guilty of treating the text as a to-do list: I have to play this phrase legato, then I have to nail this jump here, there\u2019s a subito piano here, then a crescendo to forte, etc. But a to-do list doesn\u2019t make people feel emotion. You can\u2019t just deliver your lines. You have to have something to say.<\/span><\/p>\nTell us about how awesome K-pop is, don\u2019t shoot nearly converted musical forms on one particular April 1st.<\/b><\/h3>\n
It\u2019s more of a guilty pleasure, but it\u2019s pretty awesome nonetheless. To be honest, I used to be rather elitist about the whole classical music thing. You know, like not listening to the same pop trash as my peers made me an intellectually superior person. Then it was, hey, look, pop music that uses more than four chords and even has secondary dominants! Then it became a scene to follow, an identity to have as part of a \u201cfandom\u201d. Next thing you know, I\u2019m driving a thousand miles to go see Girls\u2019 Generation live at Google\u2019s headquarters. I don\u2019t regret it one bit. It opened me up.<\/span><\/p>\nYour other side hobby, fashioning Post-it notes into Pok\u00e9mon-shaped wall art\u2026<\/b><\/h3>\n
Oh boy. So there was a pretty good culture of practical jokes at Microsoft. Someone would go on vacation for a couple of weeks, and then they\u2019d come back, and every last thing in the office would be wrapped in aluminum foil. Or bubble wrap. Once my manager came back from paternity leave to an office door that was completely duct-taped shut. From the inside. [\u2026] So one of my teammates goes on vacation, and I got this idea. You go through a lot of Post-it notes when you\u2019re developing software, and at the time we had these bright yellow ones in huge supply. So I found this sprite of Pikachu, did a few measurements, and reproduced the whole thing on his office wall, pixel by pixel, with Post-It notes. The hardest part? Finding a good colour to emulate black. [\u2026] Funny enough, the same colleague went on vacation the next time we moved offices too, so Charmander showed up in his next office.<\/span><\/p>\nAnyway, when I got to music school, I wanted to reproduce the stunt. So we have this practice building which used to be a university dormitory, and a couple of rooms for whatever reason don\u2019t have sound paneling. They just have bare walls. They\u2019re almost impossible to practice in because it echoes so much in there. So the summer before my final year, I did another Pikachu in one of the rooms that had no sound panels. I kid you not; there was new soundproofing in that room within one month. I can\u2019t be sure that the Post-It art had anything to do with it, but I\u2019m taking credit for it anyway.<\/span><\/p>\nYour take on viola jokes?<\/b><\/h3>\n
Mostly overdone. They\u2019re the blonde jokes of the music world, and most of them aren\u2019t even specific to viola. But I\u2019m not above cracking my own from time to time, though.<\/span><\/p>\nMetronome: yay or nay?<\/b><\/h3>\n
Rarely, and only as a diagnostic. I prefer the tape recorder \u2014 it tells me when I\u2019m not listening closely enough to myself.<\/span><\/p>\nBernstein or Karajan?<\/b><\/h3>\n
I prefer Karajan as a musician, but I have to imagine I\u2019d enjoy playing for Bernstein more.<\/span><\/p>\nAilee or BoA?<\/b><\/h3>\n
Forever Girls\u2019 Generation.<\/span><\/p>\nToronto or Vancouver?<\/b><\/h3>\n
I\u2019ve been at home in both cities. I still cheer for the Canucks, though\u2026<\/span><\/p>\nBut let\u2019s be real: what do you miss about the West Coast?<\/b><\/h3>\n
The constant rain, of course. Ha. Just kidding. But seriously, probably the abundance of nature everywhere. At my parents\u2019 home, I could look out the back window and see mountains in the distance. You don\u2019t get that so much in Ontario.<\/span><\/p>\nIs the pianist always the goat?<\/b><\/h3>\n
No, that would be the page-turner.<\/span><\/p>\nAny chance of politicians waging wars against musicians soon?<\/b><\/h3>\n
Literal war? Probably not. Metaphorically\u2026 well, it\u2019s been tried. It didn\u2019t work.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"How does someone go from Microsoft software engineer to classical music cartoonist? We find out in an interview with Don’t Shoot the Pianist’s Eugene Chan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":10171,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[86,2,213],"tags":[215,214],"yst_prominent_words":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2023\/02\/dont-shoot-the-pianist.gif","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10168"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10168"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10168\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10177,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10168\/revisions\/10177"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10168"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=10168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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