Sharing The Good News Through Music
WELCOME!
Hi!
I'm Robin Choo, a self-taught singer/songwriter from Singapore.
Welcome to my music site where I'll be sharing my songs, journey, experiences in music...and the Gospel 😊
Feel free to browse around and I hope you will find the content enjoyable and useful.
You can read more about me in the sections below.
Thanks and God bless!
Robin
MISSION & VISION
My Mission: To share the Good News to the world with my God’s given talents.
My Vision: A world of God loving and fearing people, worshiping Him and giving Him glory always.
MY MUSIC JOURNEY
First encounter with a musical instrument
I remember my family used to have an organ at home when I was young, and my father used to play on it. However, I did not get to learn it, and as it was hard to play (need to press the pedal to get sound), I did not play it.
Late 70's: Passion in Singing
Music has been a passion for me since young. I started listening and singing to English pop songs in the late 70's at the age of about 10. Being a Singaporean Chinese, specifically Hokkien, I learn and improved my English through singing English songs. 😊 Thanks to my elder brothers who introduced me to pop songs.
Some of the artists and bands then I listened and sing to then to are:
• Abba
• Andy Gibb
• Anne Murray
• Bee Gees
• Billy Joel
• Boney-M
• England Dan & John Ford Coley
• Kenney Rogers
Early 80's: Strum & Sing
At 13, I picked up guitar strumming with some guidance from my brothers. In secondary 2, I joined the school’s singing contest and managed to win the first spot with the song “I Make It Through the Rain” by Barry Manilow. 😊
Then was the time of cassettes and Walkman.
Some of the artists and bands then I sang and strummed to then were:
Alphaville
Air Supply
Chicago
Cliff Richard
Culture Club
Dan Fogelberg
Duran Duran
Hall & Oates
Howard Jones
Modern Talking
Toto
Wham/George Michael
Learning the wrong instrument
As my interest in guitar grew, I self-enrolled into a guitar course at Yamaha Music School, Plaza Singapura. However, I enrolled into the wrong one: classical guitar, and gave up after about a year when I realized it does not compliment my singing. 😅
Keyboard not for me but MIDI was godsent
Due to the popularity of synthesizer music at that time, I enrolled myself into a synthesizer/keyboard course at City Music. However, I realized playing the keyboard was hard for me, so I stopped after a few months. Thankfully though, I got to learn about MIDI and that kicked off my self-exploration of music programming with Cakewalk 1 DOS version. Someone who cannot play any instrument well can now arrange music by inputting note by note! God is good!
At that time, I bought a Roland Alpha Juno 1 (sounds great but low in features) and then a Casio HT3000.
Joined a choir
During junior college , I joined the ACJC (Anglo Chinese Junior College) choir as a tenor.
Wrote my first songs
I started writing songs after the A level exams and just before entering the army.
These are the titles of songs I wrote:
Please Don't Leave Me Alone
All This Summer
Snake Eyes
Valerie Girl
She Don't Care
Why Don't You Go
Sweet Revenge
You can tell from the song titles I was moody then.🤣 Guess when one is sad, one will get inspiration to write songs.🤣
Half of the songs above are "lost" as I lost my lyrics book and the mini-cassette tapes that store the recordings cannot be played anymore.
Only the first 2 songs were released in 2016 and 2020 respectively after 30 years! 🤣 Still yet to release "All This Summer" after so many summers! 🤣
Getting into the SoundBlaster Company
With my interest in MIDI/computer music, I did a video conferencing project in my computer engineering course in the university. The project used 2 SoundBlaster cards and 2 VideoBlaster cards from Creative Technology. Then, SoundBlaster was #1 PC sound card in the world. With my project experience, I manage to get a job as a software engineer in the company. It was a dream come true and I stayed in the company for 13 years designing and programming music software.
Music Silence for 25 years
For the next 25 years, work, family, kids, business overtook my passion in music.
Then came the inspiration
In 2016, I made a decision to slow down from work due to health issues. It was then I had a rush of inspiration and composed these 6 Christian songs:
For God So Loved The World
I Believe (The Apostles' Creed)
Do Not Love The World
If We Confess Our Sins
Our God is Good and Great
By chance, I found a good priced 2nd-hand Yamaha PSR-S970 arranger workstation. It was so good and easy that I managed to use it to arrange the first 4 songs. Using Ableton Live and Focusrite Scarlett 2i2, I recorded my vocal and released the first 3 songs above.
However, the feedback I got was the recording and production quality was not good, that's when I realized my limits in this area and need professional help. I took down the songs from online music platforms.
I spent some time trying to learn music production myself with Ableton Live with Ableton Push 2 but finally has to acknowledged that I am just not wired for such. 🤣
In the meantime, I wrote more Christian songs:
In 1997:
To Be Like Christ
In 1998:
Glory Be To The Father
Blessed New Year
Doxology
Getting professional help
In July 2018, through my brother Daniel Choo, I got to link up with Daniel Wong of Ardant Studio, and I commissioned him to arrange and produce 5 songs:
Thank God For Christmas (Released in 2018)
Sinner’s Prayer (Released in 2019)
I’m So Blessed (Released in 2019)
Sometimes (Release in 2020)
The Lord’s Prayer (Re-release in 2020)
Then in Feb 2019, Shirley Lim from my church got to know me through my song sharing and linked up with me. She just completed a music production course and she was interested to join me in my mission to share the Gospel through music. Since then she has helped me to produce the following songs:
May The Glory Of The Lord Endure Forever (Released in 2020)
Glory Be To The Father (Yet to be released)
Do Not Love The World (Yet to be released)
God is Good and Great (Yet to be released)
If We Confess Our Sins (Yet to be released)
Guitar Volunteering
In 2018, I chanced upon Volunteer Guitar Connection (VGC) on Facebook and joined them as a volunteer to bring the joy of music to the less privileged.
With VGC, I served in the following:
(2018-2019) Sunbeam Place @ Children's Society as a guitar trainer.
St Luke Hospital monthly ward-to-ward singalong.
St Joseph Home monthly tea-time performance.
(From 2019) Main committee as publicity IC.
Jamspiration
With guitar jamming sessions experience learned from VGC, I got the idea to evangelize to musician friends through “jamspiration”. A jamspiration is a session of Christian music jamming, singing, worship and fellowship. The first jamspiration was organized on 6 July 2019, 7pm - 9pm at my condo’s function room. Only one friend turn up! 🤣 Thankfully, in following sessions, more friends turn up. PTL!
What's Now & Next
That's a brief history of my music journey till now. 😅
Thank God for paving the way and using me for his purpose and for his glory.
For His glory!
Robin Choo
1 Dec 2020
Romans 8:28
"And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose"