Music & Drama Company (MDC) artiste Dominic Chin (@dominicchin.music) has loved music since he was a child. His family wasn’t exactly music-oriented, but his parents enjoyed singing and he grew up listening to compilation albums featuring the music of Luther Vandross, Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey. Wanting to emulate these singing greats, Dominic began recording covers for YouTube while in secondary school, with some videos going viral.
Dominic also plays the violin, an instrument that he started learning when he was just three and that he played for 11 years.
“Learning violin helped train my ears to the sensitivities of intonation,” he points out.
“Although the violin is no longer my instrument of choice, it helped tremendously in laying my musical foundation. I haven’t touched the violin since I was 14, but I can still play a few exam pieces.”
Obsession with music
As a teenager, Dominic sang regularly at his church. There, he received formal singing training to build healthy vocal techniques and help him cope with his voice change as he transitioned to puberty.
Dominic’s favourite singer-songwriter is Christina Aguilera and he considers her album Stripped one of the best pop albums ever written because of the “deep topics” it addressed, such as gender inequality and self-acceptance.
He’s currently obsessed with Billie Eilish’s new album, Hit Me Hard & Soft.
“The writing style, music production, instrumentation and vocal recording, and every beat and breath had an intention behind them,” he says.
Dominic admits that singing and songwriting come easily to him. As someone with ADHD (attention-deficit hyperactive disorder), the only thing he could stay focused on was music.
Through a music production class in secondary school, he learnt about various Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs) and figured out how to record instruments and make different tracks using a MIDI keyboard. Soon, he was applying what he learnt to songwriting.
Life as an MDC artiste
It was only natural that Dominic ended up as a singer-songwriter. Prior to joining MDC, he performed at weddings and in restaurants. This gave him a taste of what a full-time music career might look like, and he loved it, he says.
“I enjoyed taking songs that people had heard a million times and performing them my way.
“When I joined MDC as an NSF, I was initially asked to write original songs for the company. I ended up writing the NS50 theme song, We’ll Carry On. Soon, I was doing more than just writing. I sang in a boy band called Camokakis and started dancing as well. By the time I completed my National Service, I had fallen in love with performing with MDC. The culture of rehearsing, recording, dancing, and writing together was something I’d never experienced before.”
Creating meaningful music
Most of Dominic’s songs are about real-life events and feelings that he finds difficult to verbalise.
“Topics like grief, for example, aren’t easy to bring up over dinner,” he adds.
“I struggled to process some of the pain I felt when I was younger; writing music and performing made it easier for me to express myself. The late Star Wars actress, Carrie Fisher, once said, ‘Take your broken heart and make it into art’.
“The songwriting process is therefore cathartic for me. I wrote my latest single, Meant to Be, as a form of closure for my last relationship. It’s about letting go of what is not meant to be and living in the present. The song was written in collaboration with one of the NSFs in MDC, Lamin, who is also a music producer, and local singer-songwriter Oatmylk (Angela Hoten). It’s streaming now on all platforms, and I’ll be performing it at the upcoming HOMEGROWN event, presented and produced by Music & Drama Company in September.”
Dominic wrote and recorded another song, You First Believed, as a tribute to Singapore’s first Prime Minister, Lee Kuan Yew, a year before the latter passed away in 2015. Dominic wanted to thank Mr Lee for everything he had done for Singapore. Mr Lee enjoyed the video recording and sent Dominic a letter, in which he credited Singapore’s success to others who served alongside him.
“I never got to perform the song for Mr Lee while he was alive, but I later had the chance to sing it as a tribute to him at a Racial Harmony event, where his son and our Senior Minister, Lee Hsien Loong, was the Guest of Honour,” Dominic says.
“The performance meant a lot to me. The younger Mr Lee had tears in his eyes as he watched the video montage made for the song, and I wanted to cry, too. I will remember that moment for the rest of my career.”
Dominic also wrote We’ll Carry On to commemorate 50 years of National Service (NS50).
“The theme of NS50 was ‘From My Generation to Yours’, so I wanted to write something alluding to the passing of the torch, handing down the legacy of being Sons of Singapore,” Dominic adds.
“The song is about how my generation can only carry on and move forward in service to our nation because of the generations before us. To me, this song goes beyond just being an NS song. It represents a sense of responsibility and a duty to uphold all that I believe in life, family, and my country.”
Of all his songs, Dominic says that his favourite one to perform is Better, which was streamed over a million times and is from his album, License to Cry. He describes it as a “silly love song about how it feels to be in love”.
“A particular rendition of the song that I love performing is the one I did for MDC’s original video series, HOMEGROWN, which is up on our MDC socials.”
If you’d like to catch Dominic perform Better in person, head to the HOMEGROWN event, produced by MDC, in September.
“The event will feature special guests and some of my new songs – check out the MDC social media pages for more details,” Dominic says.
HOMEGROWN 2024
Don’t miss Dominic at the HOMEGROWN 2024 music festival on 4 and 5 September at OCBC Square. Follow MDC socials for the latest updates on the event: Instagram @musicanddramacompany, TikTok @musicandramacomp, and Facebook @musicanddramacompany
Main photo: FrameTheFolks
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