My Musical Autobiography

This was the final assignment for the Music For Wellness course. That is now all finished up. I have added additional information to this blog post. I wrote the initial musical autobiography with a paragraph each. So each additional paragraph under every track is especially written to explain and expand the ideas. 

1. Vaya Con Dios - Nah Neh Nah

This song represents the music from the era before I was consciously listening to and choosing music. It belonged to the boxes of tapes that my parents had. I actually remember singing the ‘nah, nah, neh nah’ part of this song with my parents. I feel that this element of listening to the music of those who came before us holds some significance and can influence what we later listen to.

Apparently my parents had this digital wristwatch with various ringtones as the alarm sound. Before I was born, they would let me listen to all the various ringtones by putting the watch up to my mom's stomach. Perhaps that was my first exposure to electronic music. 

2. Dostlar & Edip Akbayram - Ayrilik (Baris K Edit)

Ayrilik means separation in Turkish and the singer isn’t talking about a kind of separation from a lover - although this has a place in my life as well. He’s singing about being a traveller and being away from his home for long periods of time. When I was seven years old, I moved to Canada with my mom and dad. I remember always looking at pictures of Turkey and listening to my parents’ stories about the motherland. Now, I live in Thailand. It’s one more level of this kind of separation. Not only am I far away from Turkey, but now also Canada which has also become the fatherland. 

This is the Baris K Edit to an old Turkish song. Baris K is a DJ who plays dance music. According to his Soundcloud, he's based in Istanbul. So as much as I can appreciate the oldies, it still comes down to dance music in my current phase of life. 'Gurbet' is the Turkish word used to describe living outside the motherland. I know this word well.

3. Soul Clap - Rock The Boat

This is an Edit of Aaliyah’s original track. The crossing of genres here represents my changing taste in music. I used to listen to a lot of hip hop, rap and some r&b. Aaliyah’s original track Rock The Boat was one of those tracks that played on the radio that I liked hearing since I was a pre-teen. Soul Clap’s house music transformation of the track represents my own big change from the world of hip hop to the world of dance music. I crossed into dance music like I had found a hidden treasure and never looked back. I still listen to some rap to this day but the place of dance music is much more important in my life.

This musical autobiography is just one version of what it could be. Perhaps it could look differently had I opened it up from a different angle. For example, I mention here that I used to listen to hip hop, rap and some r&b but I didn't even give one example of a track to represent that era except for this house music remix of an Aaliyah classic. That also goes to show the power of dance music in my life. It has made hip hop and rap music less significant in a way. However, it is worth mentioning that I have recorded rap in my music before. It started with the rap I made with The Brezel Boys in Tübingen, Germany. 

The Brezel Boys after our Christmas Party concert in Tübingen.

That was a significant moment in my life as a dance music enthusiast. To this day, I still use rap in some of my tracks. Some recent examples of such tracks are Count To A Million and Pencil People. I have amalgamated my awareness of hip hop into my passion of dance music.

4. Bob Sinclar - World Hold On

This track represents my discovery of house music which led me to discover all kinds of dance music - including some homegrown techno music happening right across the river from my hometown of Windsor. I got into house music through this overwhelming desire to create it long before I knew what it was called or how it was made. I never had a true desire to make music before this.

I wrote about the discovery of this track along with one more track I heard that sunny day in Turkey in this blog post about the birth of my dream to create dance music.

5. Delano Smith - Message For The DJ (Jimpster Remix)

This track represents my time of diving deeper and deeper into house music and dance music in general. It may not be a very well-known track outside of the house genre. However, this track would take any house-head all the way home. Years later, I ended up meeting Diamondancer, the vocalist on the track. I remember DJing at a venue in Windsor when she came in one time. I put on the track and she jumped up on stage to dance with me. Unforgettable. 

I just want to clarify how I met Diamondancer. I didn't meet her right then and there at the venue I was DJing in. I had known her already by then. I had actually met her about a year before then at a poetry reading I got invited to go to. It may have been the first of its kind that I went to and I'm glad I accepted the invitation.   At the event, somebody got up on stage to read poetry from a book she had published. She introduced herself as Diamondancer and I had to wonder if she was THE Diamondancer from Delano Smith's track. At the break, I went up to her table and asked if she was. She greeted me in the most welcoming and friendliest way. I continued to see her at similar poetry readings. In fact, that night I was DJing at Phog in Windsor, she had come to for another poetry reading. Apparently, the venue was booked with two different parties at the same time. I was there DJing for our community radio station's gathering. After I stopped DJing, all kinds of poets took to the stage. In fact, I drifted away from the radio station folk and sat close to the stage to listen to the awesome poetry. 

6. Dirty Vegas - Days Go By

This track also represents my house-music era but it has its roots long before then. I remember travelling with my uncle in Turkey and going to his friend’s house in another city. I sat alone in the living room watching a music channel as all the adults were in the kitchen. The music video for this came on and I felt something grip the insides of my stomach. I felt so sucked into the vibe, so entranced by it. I didn’t have a desire to create music then and there, but I fell in love with the song. I’m a house-head forever. 

So this was actually a separate time to the instance I describe in the post titled A Childhood Dream at 17 where I was also travelling with an uncle. They are two different uncles at two different times. The time I heard Days Go By, we were in Bursa I think. And that must have been years before the second instance of travelling with an uncle and hearing house music because I didn't get the huge craving to create that first time around. I just felt seduced by the music. That's the power house music had in my life.

7. George Benson - Give Me The Night

This track represents my late-teens in which I had started partying. I had a small group of friends who would bump this song. It’s a song full of feel-good vibes and uplifting vocals. Today, this song has a double significance in my life. Apart from being a feel-good party song in my teens, it’s now a song I like to sing. George Benson’s Greatest Hits album turned into an album that I would use to just sit and sing along to track after track. 

We would listen to a lot of hip hop and Romanian music because of Paul, my friend who was from Romania. So actually, this kind of soulful music wasn't what we were used to hearing and perhaps that's what made this song stand out. It wasn't in a playlist of other music like it. It was the diamond in a bag of gems and other crystals.

8. Barry Levington - Vibes Is Right (Om Unit Edit)  

This track was part of the soundtrack to my exchange year abroad in Tübingen, Germany. It was one of those tracks we played on repeat any time a couple of my closest friends got together in a dorm room. There were a few other tracks like that but this one stands out for being a great vibes, uplifting vocals, and being house music.

This track was summed up my student life in Tübingen quite well with its title. The vibes were so right during that year abroad. That didn't mean we didn't have challenges. My challenges grew manifold as I was navigating around a new country and learning a new language. And perhaps having a more challenging life was one of the key ingredients to having a fulfilling life. 

9. Sahaja Yoga UK - Ana Ana Ana

This song represents my introduction to Sahaja Yoga and what would be the next level of my spirituality. I got introduced to Sahaja Yoga in my first month on the exchange year in Germany. Eventually, this song became one of the songs I loved to sing. It’s in Hindi but very easy to sing along once the lyrics are opened up. There is a great spiritual meaning behind the lyrics and a very energetic and joyful delivery of the message. 

I was introduced to Sahaja Yoga in my first month on my exchange year in Germany - that was in Konstanz actually as I did an orientation course there. However, I didn't start singing this song until more recently. It's a very joyful and very fun song to sing actually. Sahaja Yoga is the practice of spontaneous meditation. It's not like yoga where you do asanas and get into various positions. It's yoga for the heart and mind in the sense that it is a practice of union within yourself.

10. คาราบาว - เจ้าตาก (Carabao - Jao Tak) 

This is a Thai song that I can sing. I have sung it on little stages in bars dozens of times. It’s about a particular time in Thailand’s history when they need Pra Jao Tak to save the country from invading forces. He defeated the intruders and became the next king of Thailand. This song represents my time here in Thailand and all the energy I have put into learning Thai. 

At first I liked this song because of its driving beat. It is a folk rock song but I felt it could be used together with dance music. Then I started singing it and little by little I could sing more and more. Eventually, I was singing it at karaokes and getting up on stages at some of the bars I would go to. Thai people have been very supportive in getting me up on stage to sing this song. 

11. Ace Beaming Sun - Eastwest

This track also represents my time here in Thailand, characterized by an east meets west theme. This theme has been a part of my life since the day I was born in Istanbul, the city on two continents. The place of my birth was also a place where east meets west and that theme has taken on a new level by my being here in Thailand. I made this track in 2019.

12. Ace Beaming Sun - Yor Theng

The final track represents my following my dreams and just doing my own thing. It is also a track that I made in 2019. It expresses the freedom I feel when I just do what I enjoy doing and let time fly. 

(BONUS)13. Ace Beaming Sun - Pink Panther 

Here’s another song that represents my time here in Thailand. I made this track in my second year of living here. Everything was quite new and I was enjoying my life. The lyrics that I sing reflect that fresh energy from that time of my life here. In it, I talk about how Thai people are kind and humble and how the food is abundant and delicious. I haven’t uploaded this song so no link is available. 

(BONUS)14. Ace Beaming Sun - Words Of Confucius 

This is another track that I made. It is also unreleased but actually I want to release this track someday.  It represents the near-future when I am a bit deeper into my life as a music producer and have actualized more aspects of my dream of making dance music. 

Tracks 13 and 14 were my original picks for the submission for the course but then I chose new tracks, ones that I could actually give links to. I didn't include an additional paragraph for my own tracks 11-14. I just want to say that making your own music is a powerful tool for telling your own story. There's no doubt that telling my own story revolves around music for me. If the music that we listen to at different times in our life tells the story of that time, then it's definitely the music I am making that tells the story of where I'm currently at in life. It takes up a lot of my attention and imagination. I can't get enough of it.