With the support of the "Gucci Timepieces & Jewelry Music Fund", two UG students from the Department of Music attended the Grammy Camp in Los Angeles, California, USA from 12 to 21 July 2014. Natalie Lam, one of the participants would like to share with us her life-changing experience.

The two-week journey was an eye-opening experience for Natalie. She was exposed to pop music industry which she has never experienced. Given her background in classical music, she found the music genres, stage body languages and music industrial processes inspiring and stimulating.

She expressed deep gratitude to her music combo teacher Larry Steen, a devoted and committed teacher who enlightened her the performance of blues, and dancing steps on-stage. She was particularly moved by the strong passion, commitment to music and the strive for excellence that teacher Larry and other musicians possess.

The camp gave Natalie a dramatic and a total different experience in stage performance.

In the first rehearsal, she was thrilled at the way these talent Jazz and blue players improvised the play freely by solely listening and memorizing others' play and without the help of sheet music. For tutti sections, the whole group repeated the performance until every member got the melody in tone.

This is totally different from her prior training as every musician has to play directly from what is notated on the music sheets without alternations.

Natalie said in appreciation that she would always remember their way of learning by heart and requiring everyone in the team to be in the ensembleship. This sets a good model in her future practices and performance.

The combo of Natalie named "Sus-Nation" on stage

Teacher Larry (right), an active musician in the US and the combo "Sus-Nation"