Kids and Music 6: Get Aboard Henry Lau’s Freestyle Express [Born to Groove]

Let’s pick up where we left off with my previous post on Lau, Born to Groove, Kids and Music 3: Henry Lau has a good heart & knows how to work with kids [kawaii alert!]. We know he was born in Canada to Chinese parents and was headed for a career in classical music when SM Entertainment sent him to K-Pop stardom. Last year he started a series of videos in which he appeared with various young Korean musicians, Henry Together. My earlier post featured a young violinist, YoEun Seol. I also covered his work with Kwak Dakyung, a young jazz musician, at the end of my previous post in this series.

Henry worked with twelve musicians in the first season of Henry Together. Now we’re ready for a second season. But first...

Music Genius friends from Henry Together

Some of the musicians from the first season got together and did a collaborative performance of one of Henry’s songs, “Trust Your Face.” The music was arranged and the project coordinated by the guitarist, Sean Song.

Listen to how all the voices and instruments work and coordinate together.

Kids these days!

Now we’re ready for the first post of Season two, after which we’ll return to season one. It’s confusing, I know, but this isn’t about chronology.

Can We Do A Concert Through Zoom?

They’re all on screen chatting with Henry. Have they become a community? Henry suggests they get together and perform that tune that we’ve all heard a jillion times, “Canon in D.”

And so Henry leads them through putting an arrangement together. I don’t know whether or not it simply happened online Just Like That, or whether there’s been some behind the scenes work, and how much editing has been done. None of that really matters. What matters is that Henry is showing us that music doesn’t just fall from the sky. It has to be planned out and arranged.

So they give it a try (at about 3:32). Sounds a bit disorganized, no? Still, Henry is encouraging. They give it another try (about 4:24). They run through it, but we don’t hear most of it. They finish, Henry’s encouraging, but they all know better. After all, they are good musicians. They’re not fooled by this well-intended positivity. They work on things and we get the finished version, with Henry joining on violin (about 6:01).

Henry’s family having a little recital

Let’s leave Henry Together for a minute and see him with family and friends. His brother plays some stride (boogie-woogie), with Henry joining. His mother sits down at the piano, then his father.

Nine Year Old Piano Prodigy’s Fast Hands

Let's return to the first season of Henry Together. Henry meets young pianist, Seo Yul Shin in episode 6.

They chat. She tells Henry she’s ten “this year” (c. 2:04) and that she’s seen every episode of Henry Together. And she thinks that she’s a better pianist than Jichan (Episode 1). What does she want to eat? Chicken. He orders two fried chickens.

She says she was nervous in the car coming over, but not now. It’s cool “to see someone from TV sit right in front of me” (2:51). Ah, the melding of two worlds, TV world and the Real World. He brings in the chicken and they eat – as you may know by know, sharing a meal is part of Henry’s protocol for these meetings. And then, out of nowhere, she asks him his blood type (3:14): “Just the ideal type for a lot of people,” a remark she regards with well-justified bemusement. I'm sure many of Henry's fans want to know the answer to that question, but a ten-year old? Back to eating and more chit-chat. They talk about music lessons and stuff. “More cola?”

To music. She plays Chopin, Waltz No. 3, aka “Cat Waltz” (about 5:07). When she’s finished we hear off-screen clapping. Henry’s impressed. How does she react? “I made a lot of mistakes.” She may be a child, but you don’t get as good as she is without being rigorously self-critical.

Henry suggests that they play some Paganini together, remarking that eye contact is very important in collaboration (c. 7:13). After they’ve finished Henry gives the piano a glissando from the upper register down. She follows, doing it in the middle-to-lower register. “I’ve never tried scraping before.” “You’ve never done this? Try again. Mom’s not watching, right? Because my mom didn’t let me do this stuff either.” They play around until they get together on a gliss and a final note.

She starts playing a Piazolla tango (8:26). Henry joins in on violin (reading music laying on the piano), occasionally having intonation problems. I can’t really tell whether he’s sharp or flat, but he’s definitely a bit off here and there. But who cares? They’re getting acquainted. At the end she throws in a gliss to a high note.

Now Henry gets serious (at about 9:31). “Let’s just play what we feel.” She’s puzzled. He shows her, playing some arpeggios on the keyboard. She follows. “You’ve only been playing off the sheet music so far. Forget the sheet music for now. Today you just play what you feel. So far you practice a ton and you try to be perfect, but music is also about being free.” He works with her a little. She plays two hands. Henry joins in, one hand. They stop. Chat a bit. Start again, she’s on piano, he’s on violin. The video ends.

See what he’s going? Do you understand why I’ve entitled this post Henry Lau’s Freestyle Express?

Henry and Piano Prodigy Perform a New Song

Here’s their performance. They open with one of many sets of variations on something by Paganini – ending with that glissando she learned from Henry. Then Seo Yul Shin plays a solo (don’t recognize it, couldn’t make out the title on the screen), and another, Chopin’s “Cat Waltz.”

They conclude with the song they made up during their “getting to know you” phase (6:30). She decided to call it “Wind.”

Season One Reunion

Henry opened season two with a reunion of the musicians from the first season. Here it is almost without comment. Henry does say that he learned from his young prodigies, that they forced him to new music. Any reason to doubt him? No.

Coaching Bonus

Henry is doing a lot of coaching with these young musicians. I have two other posts involving coaching:

An interesting example of vocal coaching, Oct. 16, 2014, https://new-savanna.blogspot.com/2014/10/an-interesting-example-of-vocal-coaching.html.

Ride the Lizard, Valkyrie, Ride It!, November 15, 2013, http://new-savanna.blogspot.com/2013/11/music-ride-lizard-valkyrie-ride-it.html.