Let me lay it on the line. On Monday, June 18th, I was exploring Seoul as I had done over the previous few days, and after looking through some large shopping centers nearby (and buying nothing), The views from my walk that day were beautiful, so here’s some pictures below.
I decided to sit down and play Ocarina for a hot second. I got some compliments and smiles as people walked by, and as I was just about to pack up and leave, these two cute girls approach me. As a single lad, I had no qualms to this, and they asked me if I knew about Korean Thanksgiving. They were attempting to explain a Buddhist ceremony, and they said that at their temple they do that ceremony for foreigners.
They invited me to go to their temple, and since I had no plans, I accepted. We went on the Subway a few stops, a line switch, and then a few more stops before the 5 minute walk to their temple, which was just the 2nd floor of a building they rented out. The long journey made me a bit suspicious. Because there were other foreigners there seeming to be having fun, my suspicions reduced until they handed me a form to fill out. It asked for way too many personal details, so I made sure to lie on some of them. As soon as they seemed less shady, they had to take several steps back.
I filled out the form, and then they find one of their friends at the temple with better English to help explain things to me. They taught me how to do some oddly specific traditional bows, put me in a traditional robe, and then told me briefly how the ceremony worked. And then I went into a separate room to do the ceremony.
The two girls and some sort of priestess woman were in there, and they said to have a dead relative to pray for and a wish for yourself. The ceremony went on, and the priestess performed a lengthy chant while we were in a bow for about 15 minutes, which caused a bit of neck pain by the end. Next, there was some sort of choreographed bowing, where we’d bow, take a few steps left or right, bow again, and so on. We were also told to not look towards the shrine.
The priestess would occasionally tell us to think of our wish, and as it went on, my wish became please don’t kidnap me. Given that it was a Buddhist temple full of foreigners, there for that type of ceremony (or even who came back just to hang out), that was going a bit down the deep end. But given the excessive information they wanted and how long I spent in the shrine room, I got a bit stir crazy. Eventually, the ceremony ended when we were given a paper to burn and poured ceremonial wine (from a convenient store).
Miraculously, when leaving the room, my belongings were still there, the foreigners were still there, and they went on to explain the ceremony further while giving a variety of fruits and snacks to me. They said how the bowing and such is to respect your ancestor, and that the eventual burning of paper helps them if they died young or unnaturally go to heaven. They said how doing so gives you good karma and how doing good gets you good. At that point I realized what was going on.
The ceremony and food were to get me invested in them mentally thanks to the time commitment and that they were doing me a favor, which, as someone who read Cialdini’s Influence, realized that this was by-the-book sales technique. They then asked for a donation to their temple, saying how it’s entirely run by donations. On top of that, they showed pictures of how they help take care of elderly people with Alzheimer’s. As someone with family members who are or were afflicted by it, that really tugged on my heart strings. They said how in karma, if you do good now, you get good later, meaning donate here and you will be blessed. They weakened my defenses through everything (which was probably their plan the whole time), so I made the 50,000 won ($46ish) recommended donation.
The cute Buddhist girls asked me to come again the next day, and after seriously considering it for just a moment, I told them that I… uh… forgot that I had made plans with people from my hostel that day.
Yeah.
I felt the whole experience was worth the 50,000 won, since it was so unique, they gave me food, and it appears to be for a good cause. I have been under-budget every day on this trip, so that gives me even fewer restraints in donating. Would I come back there? No. Would I recommend getting bamboozled by Buddhist girls to have a strange ceremony, fear losing your things, and a smooth ask for a donation? No to that either. My hostel mates who’d been in Korea for months say they’ve faced similar tourist traps man times and that I shouldn’t have given in. And they’re right.
But did I have a memorable experience that I don’t regret spending the time and money on?
To many successful creatives, success is a mystery. Those who have it often don’t know how they found it, and those who don’t are frustrated for not having it yet. Even more complications arise when we all have different definitions of success:
being able to completely sustain myself via streaming games – or
having XYZ number of followers/subscribers – or
growing my influence enough to get promotional packages from gaming companies – or
having a small, regular audience I can connect with for the fun of it.
With streaming (or any creative endeavor), no matter what your definition of success is, it generally involves having an audience, and audience building can be a confusing task. For the sake of understanding, I’ll be using an analogy inspired by prolific author, blogger, and podcaster Tim Ferriss.
The Spearhead Technique
Imagine your content is a spear, with the tip being your early creations and the body being what you make later. If you want to pierce into any communities, you’ll have to start with the spearhead – the narrow point at the end. This means that you have to drastically narrow down your immediate target audience. Pick a several niches you currently belong to and make people who share those traits the group you target most first.
For example, I am a young adult gamer with a mind for productivity who plays music and has a decent level of involvement in the Super Smash Bros eSports community (among other things). If I were to attempt at rapidly building an audience, I would likely make content on how to rapidly improve competitive play in Smash using myself or a friend as the test subject, as my viewers likely want efficient tutorials to improve their play. It’s a fairly unique niche for content, but I also have to see how much competition I have. When people like ZeR0, Beefy Smash Doods, and many other Smash creators exist (who have significant rapport in the community), my spearhead’s target is already fairly occupied, so I’d need to either alter which niches I choose or narrow down my target audience even further.
A huge reason many creators fail is that they are too broad with their target audience – by trying to appeal to everyone, you become generic and don’t appeal much to anyone. When you are starting, you must build a core, devoted audience before you try to broaden. It’s why I gave up Let’s Playing on an old channel. I attempted to appeal to everyone with excessively broad content, and because of that I never developed a core audience. Larger channels like Game Grumps on the other hand, are made of already successful individuals and already have their core audience, so they can broaden successfully. Too broad a spearhead, and your niche is guaranteed to be occupied.
To narrow your spearhead, you either need a more unique combination of niches, or you need more specificity in the ones you already chose. however, it also must be something that people are looking for. If your niche is tutorials for a ten year old game that very few people play anymore, then you’ll likely have a tiny niche that has a small chance of expanding. Chances are content already exists for those old games and many things you do will just be recycling things that have been done.
To expand on my Smash example, if I were to further narrow down my audience, I could make myself a channel for rapidly improving Smash play by interviewing top players, networking at local events, and making a series where I train a new player to at least a beginning competitive level using the tips I make content about. Similar content has already been done, but this specific combination of niches has very little competition.
Sample questions could include:
What are your most effective training methods?
How do you improve your play against your worst matchups, both in terms of specific characters and other players?
Who has been your biggest influence as a smash player, and who has helped you most get where you are today?
What do you listen to when you play best?
These could be done while playing against them over Wi-fi, and there are a number of ways this spearhead would likely work. The Smash Community has a large, devoted audience that I could begin tapping into at local tournaments, building connections and producing content for them. Then, interviewing top players would allow me to retain my niche, but expand it to a larger audience. Making a series training a new player using information from the interviews would appeal to the audience I’ve built and to a broader audience of people who watch the game but don’t play it.
When events like EVO have TV coverage and hundreds of thousands of viewers on Twitch, you know that the market I’d expand to exists.
Putting it Into Practice
Last winter, I experimented with an extremely-focused approach to streaming. I started playing a couple different games on Twitch, and after finding some surprise success in Super Smash Brothers and Fire Emblem: Heroes, I decided to go all in on Fire Emblem. For 7 days straight, I streamed FEH to between of 5-10 viewers, and by the end of those 7 days I became a Twitch Affiliate.
What I did was find a game I was knowledgeable about and enjoyed (FEH or Smash), stream regularly, and find a community that wanted me there. One viewer invited me into a discord community to advertise FEH streams to “thirsty viewers,” and about half of my views were thanks to them. I haven’t streamed in a few months, but in that week-ish-long experiment, I learned the importance of focused content to attract a community and of involving yourself in a welcoming, pre-existing community with that focused content. While I didn’t make ultra-focused content, having a live stream for viewers who wanted it when others weren’t making that content was enough.
To Summarize
Your content needs to start as authentically you as possible before you insert yourself into a broader range of content. Your content is a spear, and you’ll be a lot more effective with it if you use the pointy, focused tip.
This post covers Ocabanda’s concert forward. We worked really hard coming to this point, and I’m truly thankful for all the experiences we got to share together, from a concert, to late night Mario Party, to losing our sanity at a Thai restaurant near Mt, Shasta.
Saturday – The Concert
Early morning rehearsal. We all filed down to our rehearsal room earlier than any other day and we had some big decisions to make. I argued that we should simply cut Festive Overture because, given our lack of deep rehearsal time, it wouldn’t be concert ready in 3 hours. Those three hours would be better spent honing the songs we already know well.
The rest of the band agreed. Festive Overture is not immensely difficult on any singular part, but rather for an ensemble to put together given its insane speed, syncopation, etc. No matter how much individual practice we put in, it would’ve been a miracle to put it together for this concert, so I’m really thankful we pushed it back to a later performance.
We had a great rehearsal on the songs we were actually to perform, and as the MC, I worked on what to say during transitions between songs. We got dressed, then headed to Downtown Seattle to the concert venue.
Me, deep in thought practicing my lines with Nicholas in the background
The first half of the concert was solo acts from Jordan, David, and our sub Henry. Jordan did some really cool duet pieces with Tad, David played two original pieces, played with a video sent from Milt, a fantastic Japanese Ocarinist, and Under the Sea, and Henry had the fastest fingers I’d every seen on the classical pieces he performed. After a short intermission, Ocabanda was up.
Our set had great pacing thanks to Tad and David’s ideas for order. The audience was small, but great, and I was told my MC bits went well (though I thought I could’ve done better). The whole process felt a bit rushed compared to past performances we’d had where we had upwards of 5 days to rehearse, but it was still a fantastic time for everybody!
After the concert, we all the Ocarina players went down to Pike’s Place Market, lined up, and marched an Ocarina song composed by Nicholas, arranged by Jordan. The tourists and residents asked a lot of questions, since most people don’t know what an Ocarina even is, and we played for an Ocarina maker who’s set up shop there for 30 years. She had always wanted to go to the Budrio Ocarina festival, and she was, in her words, happy that the festival came to her.
Ocabanda then went to Roxy’s friend’s apartment’s rooftop for a celebratory barbecue, and we eventually got back to the hotel to rest for the next day’s activities.
Side-note: Vegan meat is surprisingly good
OUR MIXTAPE IS HERE!!!!
This is the same text as the last blog post, I’m lazy. Kill me 🙂
Ocabanda’s first EP is here! Check out our Bandcamp page for unlimited online streaming and a pay-what-you-want (above $5) to download! I’m happy the music we recorded at freaking MAGfest is finally available!
Our difficulties over, the next day was a relaxing and intriguing series of panels. David, Jordan, Nicholas, and Henry all presented about various Ocarina-related topics. Nicholas talked about using Ocarinas as a music education tool and about teaching Ocarina (particularly to children). He gave some great examples on his teaching methods, told some amazing success stories about his students, and later on played a lot of the games he plays with his kids with us.
Next up, we had David, who gave a really interesting presentation on the history of Ocarinas and Ocarina ensembles, which had some footage from a big ocarina collector’s shelves including some original Ocarinas by their inventor, Giuseppe Donati.
Jordan gave a workshop on arranging music for Ocarina, where he did a live-arrangement of a song from My Neighbor Totoro at an unimaginably quick pace. It was impressive and definitely inspired people in the room to try arranging.
Next, we had a break with Nicholas’s games before Henry’s presentation on advanced Ocarina technique. He covered extending the range well past the alleged limits, improving finger skills for quick parts, and utilizing alternate fingerings to stay in tune. It was all really helpful information!
I don’t know how it ended up this way during Nicholas’ games
After the panels, we went out for dinner at an Italian restaurant with Ocarinist and Grammy winner Nancy Rumbel. She was incredibly kind, a great conversationalist, and though I had never heard of her until then, a wonderful musician. It was a great time with some great great food and great people!
We returned to the hotel room, and we finally had the chance to play Mario Party. I was ready to end my friendships with all Ocabanda members. We played Mario Party 6, and I demolished them. It was gratifying to see all the Mario Party videos I watch paying off.
Despite the hatred Mario Party begets, we had so much fun! At least I did… hehehe
Tad and I played some Super Smash Brothers after my victory, then we all went to sleep. We were leaving tomorrow, so we needed some rest!
Monday – Return of the Josh… and Camping
Josh had to go back to Portland Friday night, but we had made plans to stop by Portland and take him with us on a camping trip near Eugene. But first, we have to get out of Seattle.
One by one, Ocabanda members packed their bags and parted ways to the airport. David, Roxy, Ella, and I, however, had a road-trip to do. After some goodbyes, the four of us piled into the luggage-packed rental car and drove to Portland.
I switched cars to be with Josh, and we headed south to Eugene, made another chicken nugget break, then turned east to the campsite. David told us there would be a mile hike from parking to the campground and no bathrooms, but luckily, there was a parking spot at the campsite and an outhouse nearby.
This time, we arrived in the evening while there was daylight (though mosquitoes are most active at the twilight hour we came at), so it wasn’t scary at all setting up the tents. However, our hatchet broke, so chopping wood was going to be a major problem. I tried sharpening a relatively axe-shaped rock, to no avail. We then asked the next campsite over if we could borrow his. He agreed and turned out to be a super cool dude.
Then, we had a relaxed, fun time getting our food ready, and enjoying a night by the campfire. We walked around as it was darker, and we wanted to check out the lake we were situated near. We stopped in our tracks when we heard a sort of moaning growl. David thought it was a motor, but most of us thought it was a bear and hastily returned to the camp. That sound kept going every so often the whole night and the following morning, so we theorized it to be a baby bear stuck somewhere (since it didn’t sound like a mature bear).
We had curry for dinner (and breakfast the next morning), hung out around the campfire while watching the stars blink into the sky, and then got into our tents. Josh and I had the dream of gaming in the woods, so we managed to play Super Smash Brothers in our tent at night, and it was wild.
Tuesday – Let’s GET HOME
We rose that morning to go look around the campground, and finally went down to that lake we were too scared to see the night before.
After some exploring, cleaning, and packing, we parted ways once more, and the final drive was exactly how it started: Roxy, David, and I. We headed south for many, many hours and stopped at a couple Starbucks along the way. Near Mt. Shasta, we stopped at a Thai restaurant called Phuket. It probably wasn’t pronounced the way we imagined, but it was our breaking point for sanity on the road.
Those pandas are just trying their best
We left Phuket around 7:45, and after several more hours, our sanity lowering even further, and a couple rest stops, we made it back to my house, but the story doesn’t end there.
Late at night (but 15 minutes after arriving), Roxy told me she had to get something from the car. I thought I unlocked the door for her so she could go in and out without an issue, but either I locked the door or she locked it on her way out, and she was stuck outside. David and I both knocked out while this was happening, and eventually we heard the doorbell ring.
Surprise, it was the police! They asked if we knew her and I said she was staying here. She, in her politeness, didn’t want to disturb us if we were all asleep, so she didn’t ring the bell herself, but my neighbor saw her outside and called the police on her. On one hand, that’s a vigilant neighbor, but on the other, she was doing nothing wrong. However, the police did enable her to come back inside and sleep in a bed rather than a car. And on that strange note, the day ended.
Bonus Round: Wednesday Cinnamon Rolls
David and Roxy, before we went on the trip entirely, asked about some vegan options for Roxy. I mentioned a cinnamon roll place called Cinnaholic in Downtown San Jose. We didn’t have the opportunity to go during Fanime or before the roat-trip, but Wednesday morning, we went.
David and Roxy were all packed and woke me up to get going. We headed to downtown, parked, then went to the store. I knew what I wanted, then David ordered, then Roxy asked what the vegan options were. The employee replied “everything,” and Roxy freaked out. She figured out what she wanted, and we all enjoyed some final cinnamon rolls before Roxy and David returned to Los Angeles and David flew back to Texas.
In short
This was one of the most memorable road-trips I’ve been on with some of the oddest combinations of circumstances happening. I had a great time seeing the band, despite the time with everyone together being too short and the fact that Steven was missing nearly the whole time.
Ocarinas have given me so much, so It’s my responsibility to raise awareness for the instrument! If you told me 3 years ago that this is what I’d be doing, I never would have believed you, but it’s happening and I’m so grateful.
Best of luck,
-Andy
If you’re interested in starting to learn to play Ocarina, I highly recommend Night by Noble. It’s one of the best made plastic Ocarinas I’ve had the pleasure of playing, and despite it being plastic I consider it performance ready. It’s great for learning, since any errors in sound you can’t blame on the instrument.
I finished my preparations, and left for SFO with my mom to leave the country late on Wednesday, June 13th. We arrived, I made it to my terminal, and got on my flight at midnight on June 14th. I sat next to a really nice man and his daughter during the 13-hour flight to Incheon Airport near Seoul. Between multiple naps, talking with my seatmate, drinking my first three glasses of wine (outside church), playing my Switch, and eagerly anticipating landing, I landed in Incheon having entirely skipped Thursday. Thanks to the 13-hour flight and 16 hour time-zone change forward, it’s like Thursday never happened for me.
Obligatory Plane food – was surprisingly decent bibimbap
Whoa. Where’d Thursday Go? I skipped a day, so this is quite literally the world of tomorrow…
Initial Exploration (June 15)
At the god-forsaken hour of 5 AM, I exited the plane and looked around the airport to figure out how to get to my hostel. Since I was in Korea, this task was much harder than in America. Eventually, I figured out the bus I needed to get near my hostel, rode it, and on that ride was totally glued to the scenery out the window. My first thoughts of Korea were how beautiful it is.
I listen carefully for my bus stop, Sungkyunkwon University, and depart from the bus. I made my way to the hostel, but it was locked until 9 AM. So, I walked to the nearby Starbucks, luggage and all, and attempted to order a drink. I nervously stood there, my first interaction with a non-English speaking Korean, and tried to figure out how to get an Iced Matcha Latte with light ice. Eventually the barista simply handed me the menu, which has some English in addition to Korean. Thus, I pointed at the green tea latte, said iced, and said less ice. The barista seemed confused at first, but he figured out by my traveler’s pantomime to display less ice visually and made my drink.
Oh my god, I did it!
I smile, hand him my credit card, and pay. Apparently, Starbucks is seen as a luxury brand and status symbol in Korea, so the latte was around $6.50 when it would cost me $4.25 in the states. I didn’t mind, since whether it was the jetlag or simply great quality, that was the best matcha latte I’d ever had. I stayed at Starbucks until the hostel opened, made my way over, and dropped off my luggage.
My check-in time was later in the afternoon, but they offered to watch my luggage so I could look around for a while before then. So, I walked in the area around the hostel and got a feeling for my surroundings. I tried a delicious pastry shop and had a vanilla-cream-filled roll. Next, I walked over to Sungkyunkwon University, and on the way stopped to play Ocarina in a garden.
I reached the campus, and I looked around the international building to try and find other English speakers. I parked myself in a Foreign Language Only class room, meaning people should be speaking languages other than Korean. Turns out they had a test in music history to study for, so I left feeling a bit embarrassed. I dawdled around the campus a bit longer, then made my way to the hostel for my real check in.
On the way over, I stopped at a convenience store to get some house-warming gifts for my hostel mates. I grabbed two huge bottles of Soju (Korean Rice Wine), chips, and juice for everybody to share, made my way over, set up my room, and started talking to my housemates. There were people from all over, from a bunch of Germans, some Colombians, several Scandinavians, a few other Americans, an Israeli guy (sleeping in the bed under mine in the bunk), a Russian, a Mexican, a Malaysian, and more. In fact, one of the receptionists is from the South Bay in California as well, just a couple towns over, which was a cool coincidence.
I went out and explored some more, then came back to the harsh realization that I’ve been more or less awake sine Wednesday and have only had a few naps since then. I vowed not to sleep until later, however, so it was a tough afternoon back at the hostel. I grabbed ice cream with a Swede and a Russian and relaxed at the hostel for a while. I talked to various people and got to know them better.
That night, I myself drank my first Soju in the Korea. I had one beer-sized bottle at 21% alcohol content, and as an inexperienced drinker, I took it slow and carefully. It tasted a lot better than airplane wine and went down surprisingly smoothly despite the high alcohol content. I ended up slightly drunk, and after talking and eating snacks with hostel mates, went to McDonald’s with Alejandro, the aforementioned Mexican. I ordered a Bulgogi Burger (the best McDonald’s dish I’ve ever had) as well as nuggets and fries to share.
We went back up, hung out some more, and I dozed on the couch for 20 minutes before finally getting to bed at 11 PM. All in all, it was an amazing day. I truly got the most out of it, since I was awake for so long, took full advantage of meeting my hostel mates, and trying the local customs. Korea has an insane drinking culture, and while I am underage in America, I am of-age here. I decided to partake here in the safety of my hostel, and boy, it’s fun – I seem to have decently high tolerance and know when to stop (speaking from a few days and more alcohol later).
In addition to the hostel, the food, and the liquor, I immediately fell in love with Seoul. It’s such a beautiful city with so much character, and time flew by while I was simply walking the streets to take in as many of the sights as I could near my hostel. I immediately wished I had more time to spend here after arriving.
Palaces, Wandering, and Clubbing (June 16)
I woke up at 5:30 AM, which is great considering my jet lag, rested in bed until 6:30, then went to a gym across from the nearby Starbucks. It was a $20 one-day entry fee, which while outrageous, I still spent so I could get some good exercise in. I went hard and worked my whole body, stretched well afterwards, grabbed some food on the way back, and got ready for the day in the hostel.
This time, instead of going all around the hostel, I picked one direction and walked. I ended up looking at two palaces about 7 minutes away while simultaneously participating in the Pokemon: GO community day to catch a bunch of Larvitars. While looking at these gorgeous palaces, I avidly checked my phone for the event. Don’t worry, I did appreciate the palaces immensely and spent several hours walking around and sitting in the awe of their majestic grandeur. I took many pictures, seen below.
Upon deciding I’d spent enough time with the royal buildings, I once again picked a direction and walked. I had some inexpensive and delicious milk tea, had a delicious Tonkatsu (Japanese fried pork cutlet) sandwich from a convenient store, and grabbed a (much weaker than last night) bottle of Soju for myself. I ended up walking around in a circular zig-zag pattern, rotating to head back toward the hostel but going out of my way to look at anything interesting along the way or to play some music on the streets with my Ocarina.
My whole adventure out began around 9:30 AM, and I returned to the hostel around 5:30 PM. At the hostel, I met a new roommate from Germany, and we went out for Korean Fried Chicken at a place with no foreigners inside. It was delicious, and despite accidentally ordering 2 plates of wings when we meant to split one, we had a great time and enjoyed the food. We brought the leftovers back to share, and then a bunch of people prepared to visit a club that night. I had never been before, so I decided to join in.
We took the subway, then a taxi, and we ended up in an area with nothing but bars, pubs, clubs, and 24 hour snacks. We all remained in one general area, but as an energetic lad, I checked out an outdoor dance floor instead of spending money to enter a club. However, it was pretty much just a way to club cheaply and outdoors. I danced for hours, participating in multiple dance battles, dancing with other groups of people, and generally having a great time. I did, however, twist my ankle, which was not ideal for the sheer amount of walking this trip requires.
We ended up returning around 4:30 AM, and that day ended up being a lot of firsts for me!
First minor injury in a foreign country (it’ll heal quickly)
First time experiencing night life… at all
First international dance battle
First time taking a Subway and Taxi in Korea
Despite the lateness and ending up being awake for 24 hours straight, this was a fantastic day!
The Lost Day (June 17)
I woke up 2.5 hours after sleeping and two things went through my head: OUCH, my foot, and Why aren’t I sleepy?
I struggled my way out of bed, had some food in the hostel and then rested while my ankle recovered. I wrote most of this post then, and once I was able to walk I showered and took a short stroll away from the hostel. I had more convenience store food and drank milk tea at Gong Cha, which also has locations near me so I could compare. Again, Korea was better.
I returned to the hostel and took a nap at 4:30 PM. I woke up the next morning at 5:30 AM. Looks like I recovered from my previous sleep deprivation!
My entire Korea trip is to go with the flow and see what happens, and so far, that’s been the best travel decision I’ve ever made. I’ve been open to doing a lot since I don’t have a strict schedule, so I’ve seen and done so much more than I thought I would in just 3 days. I did nearly no research on Korea, so exploring without an agenda and following people’s recommendations has made everything a wonderful surprise. One week here isn’t enough!
What is driving you to see the world, find new experiences, and leave home? Everybody has a reason, whether that’s to break the routine and change up the environment, to put checks on a bucket list, or to go to their dream country. Many people, however, travel just to brag about it.
Have you ever seen someone go on a trip, post lots of great pictures on Instagram, then every time you see them they talk about the trip they had? Some people may have just had a wonderful trip, don’t realize the extent of their excitement, and just want to share their stories with everyone they know. This is fine, though annoying. The dangerous waters are when people go on trips for the purpose of being able to brag about them. We all know that person who, whenever you talk about a great restaurant or something along those lines, says how the bakery in France he ate at 10 years ago was so much better, or that the sushi in Japan blows your favorite sushi restaurant out of the water. While this could also be someone excitedly wanting to share a story, they could have deeper motivations of travel for bragging instead of experiencing.
It’s hard, maybe impossible to tell why someone travels from the outside and based on what they say, so I hope that you all look inside to find the underlying reason you want to get away. If you simply want bragging rights, deep down, but still enjoy the experience of travel, maybe those bragging rights aren’t as important as you think. My point is, try to travel for the experience itself, not for Instagram posts. While it can be fun to brag about it every so often, making that your purpose takes you away from the travel itself and can get you thinking, What can I do here that will give me something to brag about?, instead of making the best of each moment you’re abroad.
I hope this got you thinking! And for clarity, I don’t mean to be pretentious and say sharing about your travel experience is a bad thing. My issue is with travelling for the sake of having an experience to brag about, which very few will admit to but very many seem to do.
I’ve talked about this in a few posts before this, but tonight, I’m heading to the airport to leave the country! I’ll be spending a week in Korea, three and a half weeks on a study abroad program centered in Kyoto, then a month of solo travel in Japan (mostly in Tokyo). I have a lot of feelings running through me right now, from excitement and nervousness to a bittersweet happiness about leaving things behind to test my independence. I’ll be having a ton of fun while missing home, but it’ll be a great experience overall.
Wait, but why?
At school, I am studying Marketing with a double minor in Music and Japanese. I’ve wanted to go to Japan for a long time, and though I initially wanted a semester or more abroad there, I realized that my graduation would be pushed back even further by doing so. I’m already on a 5-year plan for school, and I do not want to extend that further.
So, I did some research and asked some friends and learned about a summer faculty-led study abroad program in Kyoto. A professor from my college is leading it, and it’s a three and a half week deep dive into Japanese culture. My minor has a culture requirement, and this class covers it during the summer when I’d otherwise be doing nothing. In other words, I’m actually getting extra progress on my graduation while simultaneously being able to go to Japan.
Although the program itself is only three and a half weeks and I wanted much more than that out of a Japan trip, I found ways to extend it. First, I decided to spend pretty much the remainder of the summer (with 5 days before the next school year begins to recover) in Japan to make the most of my time there. That adds up to around an extra month after my program. During that month, I’ll be able to make the most of my remaining JR rail pass and try to see a city or two more, meet with friends in and around Tokyo, and eat so much Japanese food.
Then, when booking flights, I ended up using Korean Air, which had me on a layover in Seoul. I, on a whim, decided, If I’m in the area, why not stay there?, and that layover became an extra 7 full days in Korea. This is the part of the trip I’m most nervous about, since I don’t speak Korean and I won’t have any friends to see while I’m alone there. I think I’ll have a great time making friends with people from around the world at my hostel, wandering around the city, and eating so much Korean food.
If you can’t tell, I really like food, but I also want to lose weight (thanks to smaller portion sizes and healthier food overall) while I’m there. I’ll have to tread a thin line of enjoying food while not overeating (too often).
Language Learning
I waited until I had two years of Japanese classes under my belt to go there so that I’d be able to make the most of this travel as a language-learning experience. I can carry myself in basic conversations as long as it’s not too fast and doesn’t use advanced grammar I don’t know, and this trip will more-or-less be taking my language training wheels off.
In America, my Japanese speaking friends all speak English, either as a double-native-speaker or at least comparably better than my Japanese. On the other hand, in Japan, there are very few fluent English speakers, so I won’t be able to fall back onto English to fix any confusion in communication. I’m really looking forward to this challenge, and I hope that by the end of my trip, my Japanese will improve significantly.
Korean, on the other hand… I know nearly nothing, and I don’t have time to learn. This will be a great experience being in a foreign country where I don’t speak the language and will have to either learn really quickly or do my best to stumble my way through with traveller’s sign language (which isn’t a language at all, it’s just disgruntled pointing on maps while using a bit of Google Translate).
I’m excited for testing my skills in Japan and leaning more towards nervous for my time in Korea, but I know that when I get there, I’ll have a great time and (after navigating to my hostel) my fears will drift away.
But Andy, you play Ocarina. Are you bringing one to Japan?
Yes, I’m bringing a few with me! Two of them are the Night by Noble, one is for my personal use, and the other is a gift for my host family in Kyoto! My trip coordinator sent me information about them, and two of them are musicians, so I’m hoping an instrument I can teach is a decent gift for them.
I’ll be gone for a while, but this blog won’t be! I’ll do my best to post at least weekly updates. If I have any extra-special experiences, I’ll make special posts about those. This is a major, new, scary, exciting experience for me, and I hope all goes well! I’ve had plenty of other travel experiences before this, but none so long term or isolated. Here’s to a great first (more than one day) time out of the country!
It’s 5:30 in the morning, We were up until 2 the night before due to poor decisions, packing, Fanime being the day prior, and several other causes, but we had to leave early. David and Roxy were shooting a video in San Francisco and they needed golden hour lighting – and there was no way they’d wait for evening golden hour. So, we hit the road at 6 AM to begin the trip to Seattle for the 2018 Ocarina Festival – featuring a performance from Ocabanda, panels from some skilled Ocarinists, and the opportunity to meet members of America’s scattered Ocarina community.
Side-note: I’m splitting this into two posts, since it’s so long it’d be the equivalent of reading a 13-page paper. Part 2 will come a week from this one posting!
Tuesday – The Long Drive
We arrived at San Francisco before 7 AM and parked at the Palace of Fine Arts. David and Roxy were collecting footage for a cover of a certain Disney song that perfectly matched the aesthetic of the setting.
We spent at least 4 hours shooting, which was equally frustrating as it was fun, since I wanted to hit the road and get to our destination faster. We were driving to a mystery location in Oregon (only David knew about) and had a long road ahead.
After shooting, we made another stop – still in the Bay Area – in Sausalito. It’s a picture-esque town, a tourist attraction, and happens to have a Starbucks that we worked in for around 3 more hours. We were trying to figure out how to get CDs of our studio recording from MAGfest made and distributed in time for our concert on Saturday, which took a lot of thought and energy. David’s laptop died, so we were forced to move on and hit the road. However, it was rush hour in the Bay Area when we left.
We headed north, then east to get around the Bay, and while we were stuck in traffic getting to Highway 5 at 5:30 PM (nearly 12 hours after leaving my house), I was dismayed to see that Google Maps estimated only a 90 minute drive to get back home if we were to turn around then. Of course we didn’t turn around, but it showed with absolute certainty that we were behind schedule.
We eventually escaped traffic and drove North, stopping in Weed, California for gas (and chicken nuggets), took a much needed mental health break at 10 PM at night, then kept going North.
Eventually we crossed the Oregon border and entered the land of no sales tax, but we had a mystery to solve. About a month earlier, David sent me a series of cryptic messages with a strong implication towards us camping or him leaving me in the woods to die.
At 11 PM, he exited the highway and started going to the mystery location in the pitch black of an un-lit Oregon backwoods night. I knew (or at least was 95% certain) that David wouldn’t really kill me, but given that late night, the darkness, and the sudden loss of cell service, I was getting a bit freaked out. I did enhance my freaked-out-ness as a comedic bit in the car, but it was freaky. We eventually arrived at a campsite – at midnight.
What I thought would be the last thing I see before David kills me
David handed Roxy and I pamphlets on what to do in case we encounter bears or mountain lions, which certainly didn’t help how freaked out I was. While we were pitching the tend (at midnight), I kept darting my eyes around and I saw a pair of animal eyes. I’m going to die, right here, right now, I thought, but upon further investigation, it was a pair of deer and I saw one eye from each deer, making it look like a menacing pair.
These were the deer that peered at me in the night. The ones that I thought were mountain lions
The purpose of this camping trip was to look at the stars at night, but as soon as the tent was pitched, I burrito-fied myself and slept. If I’m asleep I won’t be aware of the mountain lion eating my face off… or the beautiful stars above that I completely ignored.
Side-note: To confirm, I did not die. Just making sure
Wednesday – To Portland We Go
At 6 AM, I suddenly woke up to an intense cold, and couldn’t fall asleep again, until David and Roxy got up and put more blankets on me when they left the tent. I slept in a few more hours, we looked around the campsite (with daylight this time), and got on the road to Crater Lake.
The death trap was actually quite pretty during the day
Around noon, we arrived up there and Oh my god there was a lot of snow. It was nearly summer, and it looked like winter, but had a Spring temperature of ~62 degrees Fahrenheit. I connected to the internet to download Oregon on google maps, message my parents that I’m alive, and get some other communications done, then met with David and Roxy to explore, take pictures, and throw snowballs at each other.
Crater Lake was a fun, beautiful diversion, but we were once again set back on time to get to Portland. We next stopped in Eugene for Chipotle and Starbucks, then continued north to Portland. We arrived around 7 PM at Ella’s house, met her boyfriend Josh and some of her family and friends. David, Roxy, and I went to Josh’s house to set up for the night, admire Josh’s immense Dragonball Z collection, and pet the kitties.
David and Roxy slept early, but Josh and I went out for some food in Downtown Portland with Ella and their friends at Le Bistro Montage. They had some intense Mac n’ Cheese, turned leftovers into aluminum foil animals, and despite their location in a shady area under a bridge, had a really nice interior. Apparently the trend in Portland is nice interior, let the exterior die. Over the course of the night, Josh and I developed a major bromance, that would further blossom over the upcoming days.
Thursday – To Seattle!
I switched cars and rode with Ella and Josh to Seattle. The three of us stopped at an Asian grocery store to buy cans of thai tea, and then everybody made a stop at Voodoo Donuts, a popular donut place in Portland. I made a poor choice and ate two donuts, but they were pretty delicious. Josh, a parkour instructor, earned himself a free donut by doing a flip for the cashier. It was rad.
We continued on the road, stopping only for chicken nuggets, and picked up Jordan from the airport. We made it to the hotel, met with everybody else in the band and other festival attendees, and went for ramen at Kizuki. This was my first time meeting our sub for the concert, since Steven couldn’t make it on Saturday. The ramen was good, and we went back to the hotel to knock out.
N U G G E T S
Side-note: I 100% have an addiction to nuggets
OUR MIXTAPE IS HERE!!!
Ocabanda’s first EP is here! Check out our Bandcamp page for unlimited online streaming and a pay-what-you-want (above $5) to download! I’m happy the music we recorded at freaking MAGfest is finally available!
Bright and early, Ocabanda met to rehearse our music, and one song took all of our energy and attention: Festive Overture. I underestimated this song, not realizing it was in double time and had many tempo changes, so I struggled through the whole rehearsal. The whole band struggled, and we majorly stressed over it the entire time. We took a lunch break at Chic-fil-A and got back to work.
We touched most of the rest of our music during that rehearsal, and then at 4, we broke to work on small group and solo stuff for an open mic that evening. David, Jordan, and I rehearsed the same arrangement of Mononoke Hime that Daniel and I performed at Fanime. We all eventually made it to the venue for the open mic, which was someone’s (very nice) home near Seattle, rehearsed some more there, and got down to watching everybody perform.
One of our Youtuber friends, Carlos, lives near the venue and came to . He knows the band and the band knows him, but this was my first time having any length of conversation with him. He’s a real nice guy and a crazy musician, so check his YouTube channel (linked on his name).
One of the solo acts – David, but not the Ramos variety
After the small group, the rest of Ocabanda came onstage, and we performed a short, 3-song set with Steven. He wouldn’t have had the chance to perform with us otherwise, so it was really nice having the full band together! That went great, and then we split… to go to Chipotle. Carlos came with the Ocabanda people, most of us ate, and then we actually part ways. Some of us stayed up late rehearsing and doing other necessary activities like responsible people, but I played some Super Smash Bros with some people in the hotel room.
Was it a good idea? Yes. Was it a good idea given the circumstances of Festive Overture being the death of us all? Probably not. However, it all turned out okay in the end…
That’s it for Part One!
Find out how the concert went, learn about what the panels were about on Sunday, and you’ll possibly here a story of Smash in the woods…
If you’re interested in starting to learn to play Ocarina, I highly recommend Night by Noble. It’s one of the best made plastic Ocarinas I’ve had the pleasure of playing, and despite it being plastic I consider it performance ready. It’s great for learning, since any errors in sound you can’t blame on the instrument.
I went through my schedule for the week in my head:
Finish finals, prepare for my panel, go to rehearsal 4 times this week, perform in 4 concerts, do my panel, get ready for the roadtrip after the convention ends, learn my Ocarina music, get ready for my Japan trip…
And after going through all those major tasks, I suddenly felt overwhelmed. It was Finals week at school, and it was my break compared to my schedule for the weekend and beyond. However, after having finished the Fanime part, I can safely say that I am thankful for all the difficulties because the end result of everything was amazing.
Day Zero – The Calm Before the Storm
I slept in to a comfortable time, content to know I had finished finals and was free from the responsibility of school. I did some housework, bought some new clothes, and then made my way to the Convention Center. Historically, lines for Fanime badge pickup on Day Zero have been anywhere from 5 hours to 10 minutes, and this year set a new standard.
There was no line, and the most time consuming part of the process was finding my QR code and getting the scanner to read it. I arrived early to account for line length so I could go to Joe Hisaishi concert rehearsal on time, but I suddenly had 3 hours to spare. I wandered around and talked to some friends, played Ocarina in the lobby, purchased the first of many street hot dogs, and made my way to rehearsal.
Rehearsal with Joe Hisaishi was a surreal, fantastic, and wonderful experience, and a hot dog beforehand wasn’t necessarily the best choice (given that I met him personally that night).
Side note: I have a separate post about my experience performing in the Joe Hisaishi: Live Concert, which you can see here.
Day One – One Short Day
I parked at my college (conveniently near the convention center) for free thanks to it being graduation weekend, then made my way to the convention center. As I do every year, I played some Super Smash Bros in the gaming hall then ran into some friends to explore the convention with. We played some games, looked at some cosplays, grabbed lunch for one of their birthdays at a diner, then scoped out the dealer’s hall to see how to spend money later on.
In the dealer’s hall, one cosplay that stood out to me was a Pikachu. Someone wanted him to hold a WWE champion belt prop, but it ended up looking like Pikachu had brutally consumed a WWE champ.
I played Ocarina while walking with them, and one person even stopped me, made a request for a Zelda song, and then hugged me in appreciation. It was unexpected but nice.
I took some reconnaissance pictures of the ocarina booth so my friend David could see if there was anything he wanted to buy from them as well, then headed to my first concert with Joe Hisaishi.
Side Note: I did not buy anything from the dealers that day. I remained strong.
Day Two – Return of the Daniel
Saturday rolled in, and after a shift at work and my Grandfather’s birthday party, I hurried to the convention center to quickly meet with friends, immediately leave them, and rehearse music for my Ocarina panel.
This was the first day my co-panelist Daniel, who I met at MAGfest when he helped Ocabanda in a major way, would be coming to the convention, and we had a lot of work to do to sound good. We found a relatively clear spot, and got our music out. We had 3 songs to work on: a medley from Mario Odyssey, the theme from Princess Mononoke, and some Zelda tunes.
Daniel and I – our faces with intent to kill after rehearsing music
After an hour we decided to drop Mario and focus on Mononoke. The Zelda music we spent a few minutes on and both knew what to do. These songs were all arranged for multi-chamber ocarinas, which are more or less 2 or more ocarinas in one that have more range and in some cases can harmonize with themselves by playing multiple chambers simultaneously. We got pretty comfortable with our music, definitely didn’t help some friends sneak into the con, and then we performed our 2/3 parts work in progress music for them. David was to be the 3rd part.
The music went well, and we then went to La Victoria’s Taqueria for some burritos and their famous Orange Sauce. Daniel, who doesn’t go to school in San Jose every day, rarely has this sauce and savored every moment of it. My friends and I had a great time, then the choir members among us made our way to the Joe Hisaishi concert of the night.
Day Three – THE PANEL
The choir had an early matinee as well as the usual evening concert, but I (with permission) skipped the evening one. In the brief period between joining the choir and the Sunday night concert being added as an extra performance, my panel proposal was accepted and they offered me the Sunday evening slot, which I took.
That morning, my friends David and Roxy arrived from Los Angeles, I gave David the Ocarina he’d be using, and I went to go sing. The concert was our best performance yet! I changed my clothes into my Dream Daddy cosplay to match with Daniel, and then David joined us for a final rehearsal. Daniel and I checked in for our Ocarina panel, set up, then it began.
Daniel cosplayed Craig (left), and I was Joseph (right)
I reserved a 100 person panel room, and at least 60 people showed up. Given how obscure ocarinas are in America to nearly everyone but Zelda fans, I was really happy with how many people showed up. Half of those people were friends coming to support Daniel and me, and the other half were the organic crowd with no undue influence from the panelists.
The flier for the panel. I worked hard to make it pretty
At the panel, I gave the majority of the information, and I set up Daniel as the jokester. We discussed the history of an Ocarina from creation to modern day, played a couple songs throughout, including part of Careless Whisper as one of the jokes and the Zelda medley with just Daniel and me. At the end I introduced David, and we played Mononoke before taking questions and ending the panel.
David told us to take a selfie, a good idea
I got great feedback afterward, and David, Daniel, Roxy, the Ocarina booth tabler (Laura), and I all went out for dinner at Veggie Grill before splitting and heading home. David and Roxy stayed the night at my house, and they had a great time meeting my cats to finish off a great day.
Over the next few days, I received many messages from friends asking on where to start with Ocarinas. My general recommendation is the Night by Noble Plastic Alto C – a great instrument for a starter/traveler. Purchasing through my reference link helps me and the blog, so if you’re curious about starting with playing an Ocarina, click above!
Day Four – The Final Day
I spent the morning making my purchases in the dealer’s hall, which was just an Alto G ocarina from Laura’s booth. There was one final Hisaishi concert, which I have more details about in the other post. David and Roxy attended (which was their main reason for stopping in San Jose), and we planned our roadtrip to Seattle for the Ocarina Festival at the end of the same week.
When I met Joe Hisaishi thanks to that concert – it was a great experience
In summary
Fanime was a great weekend with nothing but ups. While I would have liked to have had more free time at the con, I’m really happy about how I spent my time. I hosted my first panel, sang in multiple concerts with a legend, and got to see some amazing friends every day.
On top of that, it was the stepping stone for the road-trip to and from the US Ocarina Festival that Ocabanda attended in Seattle afterward. I’ve had a lot to be excited about, and I am immensely thankful for all these opportunities.
Best of luck to everyone,
-Andy
For a preview of the roadtrip, here are a couple pictures…
Just about everybody whose growth has slowed down, stopped, or reversed asks this question.
Why isn’t my channel growing?
I know I asked it many a time whenever I stagnated, and after 2 years of making videos with minimal growth and over a year of not making videos to look back on it with fresh eyes, I’ll answer that question for myself. Hopefully, you can apply what I’ve learned to your own channels after reading this!
I made Let’s Play videos
There’s nothing wrong with the Let’s Play video format – they’re easy to make, entertaining to watch, and great for regular uploads.
The problem with the great things about it is that tens of thousands of people also make Let’s Plays. It’s a red ocean market – you’re competing with other people. Unless you’re already internet famous, regular Let’s Plays likely won’t get you anywhere – by regular I mean playing a game, talking while doing so, and not doing much in the way of editing. These videos are usually entertaining, but there’s nothing unique about them aside from the person playing them. Your take on a game has to be more interesting and unique to your audience than other people, and unless you have rapport online already, that’s incredibly unlikely.
Additionally, episode numbers dissuade viewers because they imply that the current video requires previous videos for context. Notice how the first video in a series usually has about 4-5 times as many views as episode #23. Only loyal viewers stay for episodic series, and if you have that audience, go you. For the rest of us, we need to be different.
Unique takes on the Let’s Play can lead to growth, (such as through heavy edits, challenges, playing indie games before their release, or many other options), but most people don’t take that route in favor of what’s easy. With college, a job, other commitments, and poor time management, the easy is all I had time for. It’s one major reason I wasn’t growing, especially because I was inconsistent with uploads.
Which leads me to…
I lacked consistent uploads
At my final YouTube year’s beginning, my upload schedule was great. I posted two videos a day, had a solid schedule for what I’d upload, and had a balance between new, indie, and classic games. This lasted for several months, and I had consistent, organic channel growth. However, my personal schedule changed and my recording and editing schedule didn’t adapt. For the last few months of my channel’s existence in 2017, I’ve mostly had one episodic Let’s Play video a day of games people aren’t searching for or interested in – not a formula for growth.
At this point, I did most things wrong to stimulate growth – inconsistent uploads, and poor game choice.
I lacked relevant videos
I primarily recorded the games I wanted to play. As a hobby, Let’s Plays were a way for me to feel productive playing video games, but I, like many others, wanted YouTube to be more than just a hobby. I needed to make videos people searched for or that people shared for me.
Let’s Play style videos with that kind of power can come from Indie Games!
In my days of two uploads a day, I played a couple indie games a week in addition to my main series, and I often contacted developers, posted my videos to their itch.io pages, or shared in the games’ subreddits. Some of these videos had up to 500-1000 views, while others had 0-5. Many Itch.io game developers are usually incredibly open to sharing your videos, since it’s free publicity and review material for them, regardless of the size of your channel. It’s a win-win!
If Indie Games aren’t your style, try to put a unique perspective on what’s relevant right now, and try to promote or share it to the audience you want. Let’s Plays are the worst content possible to share in a subreddit, but tutorials, comedy sketches, montages, and many other Gateway Videos work. Would you rather watch episode #13 of a Let’s Play of a new game, or would you watch an insightful, comedic video that teaches you how to do something in that same game in an entertaining way?
I didn’t make Gateway Videos
Gateway Videos – I’m sure many of you have heard the term, and I’m sure many of you know what they are. For those of you who don’t know, they are essentially videos that require little or no context to enjoy, that have subject matter people might click on by themselves, and that you could successfully share. No Let’s Play is a Gateway Video (unless you have great editing, no episode numbers, and really, really entertaining content). As I mentioned in the previous section, Gateway Videos include and are not limited to: tutorials, montages, funny moments, music videos, comedy sketches, indie spotlights, reviews, and theories.
I didn’t know what type of Gateway Videos I wanted to focus on, and that was one of my biggest weaknesses as a creator. I couldn’t decide, so I didn’t make them. Therefore, my content stagnated – I did nothing new, nothing I could share, and nothing people felt drawn to watch. Rather than making a pile of gateways, I built a wall, and my disengaged viewers were proof of that.
In Summary
I wrote this article as a personal reflection. My channel had many bouts of stagnation, and deep down I always knew why, but I internally complained about it. Why does that person who started a year after I did have 100x as many subs? Don’t I deserve that? The answer is no, I didn’t, because I wasn’t making what attracts and retains viewers. Some people do get lucky without a good explanation, but making better content will make it much more likely to get lucky. Making unique content that won’t get lost in your viewers’ feeds, keeping a regular schedule that makes you easy to follow, and creating shareable, relevant things will all help those formulas work for you.
There’s a lot to think about when your channel isn’t growing. It’s not that you have no talent, bad ideas, or a lack of effort. Apply yourself to what will make your channel grow. That may not be the content you want to make all the time, and if growth isn’t your goal, then keep doing what you enjoy. YouTube, Twitch, and other creative success is attainable. Be consistent, relevant, and engaging to your audience, and it’ll be a matter of time and effort.
Best of luck, everyone.
If you found this article helpful, I have more posts and some social media links~
I scrambled through the 24 Arias for Men book with my dad to find something that worked best for my voice. My audition was in a week, and I needed my song to be perfect, since I knew my sight reading wouldn’t be. The day came rolling, and they called my name. I knew I’d get in, but I was freaking out on the inside. I had the opportunity to sing with Joe Hisaishi (a.k.a. his birth name, Mamoru Fujisawa), the composer for the music from Studio Ghibli movies and one of my greatest musical influences, at his North American concert debut. But for now, let’s take a few steps back and see how it all started. Also, while this happened the same weekend as Fanime con, I’ll be writing about that in a separate post. If any ideas aren’t fleshed out about the convention, you’ll see them in that post.
The Audition
My friend David from Ocabanda messaged me mentioning he may be in San Jose during Memorial Day Weekend. I asked him if he was going to Fanime, he said no and that he was planning to come to a concert – Joe Hisaishi Live. He sent me the Facebook event, and I saw that there was an option to audition to sing in the choir for Symphony Silicon Valley. I thought I was probably too late, but checked out the link anyway.
Turns out, I was good to go and had plenty of time to schedule my audition, and after a couple technical issues I had it planned for the end of April. I sang Vittoria Mio Core, a male standard Italian Aria. Despite totally fumbling on my sight reading (I have a hard time with that without context to listen for), I was let in on the spot. Totally ecstatic, I shared the news with my friends and prepped for rehearsal 2 weeks later.
Rehearsal
We had 4 rehearsals to learn the music – over 40 pages worth. Given that. we went as fast as lightning through the music and somehow got it all ready. Before the 4th rehearsal, we received an email that Joe Hisaishi may be coming to observe that Tuesday night, which needless to say left us all starstruck and excited beyond words. After reading that email, I wrote him a letter of gratitude to thank him for his music among other things. Sadly, he decided not to come observe, as it was the same day that he flew in from Japan. However, the idea that he’s real and that we could… meet him remained.
The San Jose Center for Performing Arts
The next night, we met at the concert venue, reviewed some troublesome spots, and mid-way, we saw him walking in. The maestro Joe Hisaishi walked in with his daughter and two assistants, introduced himself, then stepped up to conduct us.
SWEET BABY JESUS, HE IS REAL!
He gave clear and concise directions, communicated them kindly and calmly, and got us to be exactly how he wanted in just an hour. We had a break, then rehearsed with him once more with the orchestra added. Hearing all the music with full instrumentation got me tearing up. I have such a deep connection with many of these songs – about a third of Ocabanda‘s repertoire consists of Ghibli music – so hearing them in a full orchestral setting brings back some great memories. The rehearsal went fantastically, and we left for the night. I did not, however have the chance to give him the letter.
Yet…
Meeting the Man – Thursday
On Thursday night, after some small surprise musical changes in our scores, we did a (almost) full run of the concert. We opened the next day, so we better be able to do a full run by then. It went great, and during our break in the middle, I decided to try and find an opportunity to present my letter to him.
I went to my backpack, got the letter, put it in my binder of music, and tried to figure out how best to approach it. I saw that Joe was busy with some orchestra people and I didn’t want to disturb him, so I thought it might not be best to do it then. Next, I looked around to see if there was anyone affiliated with him who could give him the letter for me, since I my main goal was just to get it delivered. I saw his daughter Mai sitting in the audience, so in Japanese I asked her if she could give him the letter for me. Whether it was my poor Japanese saying “Can I give him the letter” or pure dumb luck, she told me to wait until after rehearsal and give it to him myself.
AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!
We finished up rehearsing around 9:30, and as quickly as I could, I went to find Joe. I saw him going up to the Authorized Personnel Only area with his personal quarters. Dismayed, I waited hoping that he’d come back down. While I was waiting, my friend from the choir Ken stopped by and asked what I was doing. I told him how I was planning to give a letter to the maestro. Ken is a Japanese teacher, so he asked if I needed any help translating. I told him it was too late for my letter, but if I were to meet Joe personally, he’d be a big help. So, Ken waited with me.
A few minutes pass, and Mai and Hisaishi’s assistants walk by to go up. Mai acknowledges me, and about a minute after they head up, one of the assistants calls Ken and I up. We were absolutely giddy with excitement but did our best to keep it under control. Mai asks us to wait in the hallway, then went to her father’s room and called him out. We told him, “Good work at rehearsal!” and I presented the letter to him with Ken helping make my Japanese sound more formal. After a short conversation, I ask for a picture, Ken hands Mai his phone, and she took a couple shots of the two of us with Joe himself.
Walking back to our cars, Ken and I were totally amazed and awestruck from what just happened. We were the only two from the choir (who weren’t on staff) to have met with Hisaishi personally, and probably the only ones at all to have taken a picture with him. He thanked me for being his way in, and I thanked him for helping translate, and we then proceeded to gloat on social media. Hisaishi is comparable to John Williams when it comes to music, so meeting him was definitely a moment to remember (and brag about).
The next evening, at rehearsal before opening night, Ken and I mentioned to other chorale members what we did the night before, and to say they were jealous would be an understatement. However, meeting him was never the plan, and we more or less Forrest Gumped ourselves into that situation. I had the idea to write a letter in the first place from The Tim Ferriss Show podcast, where Tim mentions that famous people and high performers will appreciate much more a well thought-out item you can give them to look at later than a verbal assault for attention or an autograph. I’m guessing Mai bothered to help us see him at all because she saw that I was doing what I could to respect his time. Meeting him was easily the highlight of the whole experience, but our performances were just as exciting.
Opening Night – Friday
We had our final rehearsal that evening and worked with a marching band for one of the movies’ medleys we were singing. That went efficiently, and the choir went on a long break for pizza. Ken, another singer named Ryan, and I wanted to leave to check out Fanime. We were not allowed to leave the theater, so we settled with exploring the inside of the (gigantic) Performing Arts Center.
The choir room was downstairs, but we went upstairs. We found a door to the lobby, made friends with the head usher, found a much larger bathroom than the one we had been using, and at the top found a door marked Do Not Enter. We went back down, and a few minutes later the pizza arrived. I had one too many slices of pesto, and shortly thereafter, we met back to focus, and went on stage.
This is less than half of the crowd for each night
The crowd sitting out there was huge. The theater has a 3000 seat capacity, and there were no empty seats by the time we started. In the audience was one of my friends from school and some Youtubers (The Dex) I follow who were guests of honor at Fanime.
Here’s a Tweet exchange from ~25 minutes after the concert
The room filled up, and Joe stepped on stage.
The crowd went absolutely nuts when he appeared, and once they quieted down, he raised his baton, starting the medley for Nausicaa.
With selections from many Studio Ghibli films including Princess Mononoke, Ponyo and My Neighbor Totoro, the concert was full of wonderful, nostalgic music. I can’t say everything we did, but we had multiple standing ovations from the amazing audience, which filled us with joy and excitement for our next performances over the rest of the weekend. I even had some friends in the audience – not for me of course, but it was a nice coincidence. They even snapped a picture of me on the big screen!
Performance #2 – Saturday
Before our second performance, we had a couple musical changes for small parts, rehearsed a few other areas, and worked with Mai to fix some more places personally selected by her father.
After experiencing the thrill of opening night, we all were ready to get out there and sing again, and sing we did. Saturday night was a big improvement musically and logistically over Friday, as Friday was the first non-stop run of the music. Transitions between songs were faster, there were nearly no wrong notes, and the biggest difference was bows. Joe gave every soloist and section a chance for recognition after the finale, and after the encores, he shook as many people’s hands as he could and air-shook people he couldn’t reach. It was a nice touch for the performers to feel personally appreciated by the man himself.
We were equally as energized after this concert as we were on Friday, and it set a good precedent for the last performances! I again had friends in the audience, including one of my best friends, my Japanese professor, and a music friend I met at MAGfest hotel room jam, so it was really nice to hear from them all afterward. I didn’t see most of them after, though, since I was waiting backstage to briefly catch Hisaishi on his way out. I simply said, “Good work tonight!” in Japanese, and he made his way out.
Could not wait for the next concert!
Our Best-Overall Performance – Sunday
On Sunday, there were two performances, but I could only attend the matinee, as I was the lead panelist for The Ocarina Panel at Fanime that night. I first went to the convention to meet my friends David and Roxy who had just arrived from Los Angeles, then walked to the performing arts center. Our call time was 1:30 for a 2 PM concert, and after even more small musical changes, we took our places.
Everything went as smoothly as it possibly could, and there was even a surprise change in one song. At first, it was just a solo piano piece with Joe, but his daughter Mai joined in as a familial duet.
As a whole, Sunday afternoon ended up being the best concert we gave – which was fortunate, as my co-panelist Daniel was in the audience!
We both cosplayed Dream Daddy at our panel, I wasn’t in cosplay in this picture though
After finishing, I snapped a picture with Mai and thanked her for her help on Thursday. If it weren’t for her, I wouldn’t have had the chance to personally meet Hisaishi, so I was extremely grateful. It was only a short interaction, but I hope it reached her.
I left the concert, changed out of dress clothes, met with Daniel, and got ready for our panel.
One concert to go.
The Final Act – Monday
We shuffled into the theater early, and many choir members exchanged contact information, took pictures together, and reminisced before our final change in the music and rehearsal before performing. Our director Michael and the Symphony’s president Andrew told us how great it was working with us, how well the guest singers (the ones who auditioned, including me) blended with the existing Chorale, and how this was the best-selling classical music concert in San Jose ever. It was definitely an honor to be a part of.
But we still have a concert to do! And David and Roxy (plus some other friends of mine) were in the audience!
We filed on stage, lined up, and the impact that this was our final concert hit us. This was the first time pre-concert jitters hit me. Moments later, Joe walked on stage to his usual applause, and the concert began. There were more hiccups than average across all the musicians and technicians this performance, likely due to the jitters we all were feeling, but we had the best 2nd half we had ever done. Just like every night, the packed audience ended with multiple standing ovations, but the total applause lasted around 10 minutes between the finale and each encore.
Joe and the soloists took their final bows, acknowledged the musicians behind them, and it was over.
I spent a lot of time backstage afterward, and the ensemble took more pictures together. Some of us got another picture with Joe before he left plus a picture with the soprano soloist.
Outside, I got a group picture with Mai and personal pictures with some of his staff members – one of whom gave me his business card (which is a bigger deal in Japan than America).
He and I spoke together in Japanese for a couple minutes and I mentioned how I was going to Japan this summer. He wished me luck, and then it was actually over…
…Until I went out for boba with some of the singers and gave a couple curious people a mini-panel on Ocarinas.
I got home, had dinner, and couldn’t stop thinking about the wonderful experience that had just happened.
To Quickly Recap
This was one of the best experiences of my life. I know I keep saying that about various things that keep happening, but it’s true. I keep having life-changing, big experiences and I am so thankful. I rehearsed with a great choir, made many friends, met and sang with the living legend Joe Hisaishi, I’ll definitely need to check myself about bragging about this one.
Making a series training a new player using information from the interviews would appeal to the audience I’ve built and to a broader audience of people who watch the game but don’t play it.
The crowd went absolutely nuts when he appeared, and once they quieted down, he raised his baton, starting the medley for Nausicaa.
Andy Cormier 