It All Started with 3

Once upon a time not very far away, My friend and i started this so to called Music School, it have been a ride going through all the hurdles in life and the school. We have lots of funny stories going on and if i have the extra money i will produce a tv series out of it... surely you guys will laugh your lungs out.
One of the story is this,

CAN you imagine we started off with limited capital and launch our trading with only 3 guitars?

Yup just 3 as you see beside. The photo is the real thing and real life. Well life's hard, frankly speaking. Lots of sacrifice have to be made, but i believe in " There's no such thing as Nothing for something" Although it's not a famous law or teaching , for me it's rule number 1. The more you put in, it will give back. The more people laugh at what you are doing you will have bigger desire to put more. Hence the return is huge. With just 3 guitars on stand, we worked from that profit until today, we have 2 stores containing 20+ guitars each. and looking forward to bring more in.
Luck?
NO... it's hard work. Being able to do the same things everyday by increase of difficulty each time we do it. It's like playing Tetris in the older times where every level will add speed and it's never gonna end.
Patience and believe in what you do is crucial. If you don't believe who is?

We made it from 2 brothers to a family of musicians here in Music Star Academy, not because we have the values as i said above but also what we give. We always believe in giving more to our customers and students and with their trust in us, We are what we are today.

I would like to thank all of you who supported us and believe in us all these years.

We will continue to bring more great future in music for you and your future.

Do you see it coming?

After the rain Sun and thunder, our first flag had seen it all. Now It's time for a new flag to continue to represent the school where we provide our best education for musicians all around.
Yes, we are here. Always have..

Music Star Academy coming along the new year

July 2013 - Music STAR Academy, finishing our 2 years and 8 months

Getting ready to proceed with our third year and preparing for our fourth year. Many have learned and many have gone through, we are growing and learning on every step of the support you guys have given , just like in life. Every ups and downs provides us lessons to be learnt. 

Students to us are like brothers and sisters alike, we give our 110% on every lesson and make sure you gain on every lesson and together find solutions to you musical difficulties. We made that promise and forever will provide such professionalism .

Recently we launched " Star Shirt" , which is a black t shirt with the MSA logo in front putting the star near our hearts to represent that music comes from our hearts and expression and we are committed to provide students with our best . The bold word " I'm a Musician" is crossed in our backs , because we are musicians. Every student here will be a all well rounded musician.

With much challenges up ahead we will and we will still provide the best music education to everyone here.

Thank all of you for supporting and ever learning music.

Prog Album Must Hear & Download

Have you guys been bored listening to the same old stuffs, I know some hardcore genre fans will denied the fact of being bored at the favorite genre but HEY, come on. Will you? be bored? sometimes? Hearing that same riff with some alteration in the next song? Same stuff with different ways?

I do, for me Music is VERY BIG, Why Limit it? Yes i have my favorites, but it don't stop me from listening to others and understanding them. It sometimes make you love your favorite genre more.
I start listening to Oldies then to Boybands, to Pop songs in the radio until i end up in Grunge. After that I turn to hardcore in Metal genres. But i turn to Blues and then Jazz, from there i got to Bossa Nova and new age, the classic fingerpicking blues to environment music. I even have cds of sitar and Tabla recordings, the middle east folk songs. Man i can go all day all night. My ears have been very good taken care of.

SO what i'm going to share with you guys today is a bunch of old cds i took off my old rack. Oh yes. The prog years.... I have been so crazy for them...Prog is the ultimate time where musician taken composition to the highest limit, shows you where no man can go, or thought possible. My vocab for Prog maybe ain't that big but i can share with you some to start off with.

Opeth - Watershed

Man i love this album, It's sophisticated, mature and dark. Mikael's dissonant chords in a major is dark and gruesome. Don't even mentioned his vocals in this. The songs are well arranged and i really love the classical guitars in this. The whole album is a killer.

Pink Floyd - Dark side of the moon

70's great album, what can  say about pink floyd? Legendary, starting off with the clocks ding aling... I can't forget it all. It's like a journey when you listen to this album, David's bending makes me goosebumps... 

Dream Theater - Trains of thought

Students from Berkeley Music school, form the best band of all time. Portnoy's drums and Petrucci's shredding, change my world completely. John Myung's bass is amazingly awesome. If you listen to this with earphones you might not want to take them off until you have reached the end of this album, superb sounding with time changes and super shreds!!

 
YES - Fragile

STEVE HOWE ! I really love classical guitar arrangements here, it makes me smile everytime i listen to this album, "we are heaven " Is one of my favorite tracks here. If you're lost in life This album will bring you back in track and go along, really i tried it!

Tool - 10000days

Yes! poly rhythmic guitars and wonderful vocals, everytime you listen to it, it'll be different. it just blow my mind away. 

Well that a little to start off listening to strange music, easy to understand then to straight off listening to bands like, Genesis, King Crimson, Gentle Giant, Van Der Graaf and all...

Listen and blow your mind!  

The Journey Begins

Since I have decided to take the 
New Grade 8 Guitar exams from Rockschool,
(which is a difficult decision before of my tight scheduled of running MSA, teaching my students and being a superdad & husband.)
Why not share my journey here, so you guys can see my results and preparation. The journey will be fun and we will learn along the way. SO if you guys are up to the challenge ,

  Go GET A Grade 8 book and LET's ROCK 'N ROLL!!!!!

SO first, as my style of completing this exam i'll go by my WAR PLAN..lol (gangnam style!)

So here's the plan, 
1) Set the goal .
 2)Set the time range & plan the strategy to achieve the goal . 
3) Prepare for war according to strategy set. 
4) WAR!

Simple? haha Sun Tzu Art of War!!! Now it's all about achieving the goal, nothing personal needed.

OK! let's see what is our goal.

I can choose to have Graded Exam or Performance Exam, Graded is more overall and performance is just "performance i guess" as graded exam you need to have technical exams , Quick study pieces and ear test which for me it's more challenging than to just play 5 songs and call it done. It's better to kill the bigger boss if we want to proof something right?

SO my decision: Graded EXAM.

Graded Exam:
3 songs
Technical Exercises
QSP
Ear Tests
GMQ

So the goal is to have distinction!!
In order to have distinction- i need to have 90+ for marks.

Which is 18 marks for each song
13 marks in Technical 
9+ in QSP
9+ in Ear test
5 in GMQ.

THAT"S The Goal.

SO what's after this?

SOng selection!!!

You can do it, If you believe YOU CAN!

-Dennis

MUSIC STAR ACADEMY - 1 YEAR 8 MONTHS

If Music Star Academy is a baby, she can now walk and run. Jump and scream, swipe ipads and dance around to nursery songs. She can eat rice and take solid meat. She will enjoy nature and point at birds.
So many achievements did Music Star Academy done, I'm like a proud father looking at it. Even the road is still far and more to come, the confidence to sprout like a giant tree.
If you guys still remember in November 2010, Melaka flagged a new music school. Now It's all grown up, now let me update you with what we have done, (ps: we're not lazy guys sitting in the shop waiting for customer to come...lol...)

1) We opened another branch in Bukit Beruang, now we have centres in Malim Jaya and Bukit Beruang.
2) We grew from 5 students in November 2010 to 145 students in July 2012. yay!
3) We  grew from 3 music Teachers to a total of 15 teachers. (feel the power)
4) We now holding Tanglewood , Spear & Woodies guitar Hanger in Stores.Pairing with Music Master Studio.
5) We are providing our own syllabus for Guitar, Bass , Ukulele & Drums.
6) We have our in house examination.
7) We hold Rockschool exams in Melaka.
8) We held School tours all over Melaka.
9) We give talks on Guitars and musicianship topics to schools.
10) We make you believe in us and grow together.
11) We provide corporate's music clubs lessons and certification.
12) We provide group & intense lessons to Universities.
13) We did a contest and giving free guitars.


These are what i can think of what we did so far.... I guess we did more than this.
What will we do in future?

Not promising anything right now, but it's all a secret. LOL....

But it all come down to you guys, ever supporting, ever believing in us. This is what makes us going and make us standing strong to provide you guys and future musician the true and unique guidance from all of us here in MUSIC STAR ACADEMY.

We will 

We WILL

WE WILL ROCK YOU!!

Thanks a million.
-Dennis Y

Being a Music Teacher

People thought being a music teacher is the same as being a academic teacher in school, but yes for the teacher who teaches music theory in school where everything is in the textbooks and corrected via an answer book. What I mean is a Music Teacher, the ones that teaches Piano and guitars,instruments…etc.

Music teachers need to be different, because music is very sensitive; it’s very hard to put to words when you want to teach something to the students that relate to emotion. 

How can you tell your student what emotion they should be feeling when they are playing Ode to Joy?

 The feeling of Joy? How will you describe the feeling of joy that you intended for them to feel? The joy of love? The joy of victory? The joys of having your enemy destroy? Do they even know how to feel when they play a tune like “Now & Forever”? as for a 12 years old kid, do they even felt a heartbreak with a girlfriend/boyfriend when they are playing some sad love song?

Everything needs to be very personal; a music teacher needs to get personal with their students. They need to know how they feel things if not 100% but at least 56% on their point of view in things. Because what the teacher teaches or educate will affect the student’s whole journey in learning the subject. If the teacher starts on a bad foot, the student will even hate the guitar.

For me, the most challenging part to teach is the groove, in playing music in any instrument. If you don’t get the groove, you don’t get anything even if you can play Beethoven’s moonlight Sonata perfectly that you don’t miss a note. If you don’t have the groove you missed it all. Getting someone to have groove is the upmost important thing that a music teacher needs. But unfortunately, most of the teachers that I find here, neglects that. They teach what is in the books and make the student pass exams without even telling them who is Bob Marley and the history of Reggae when they are playing a reggae tune for an exam. The student may have passed the exam, but they pass with an empty heart. Only on the outside you may see them playing music but in the inside… There’s nothing. This will always lead to giving up on music and do not care at all for the students when they reach a certain point. But for a student that contains the meaning of music, they will have music in their life until they breathe the last air in this world.