We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Shangshu Shi a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Shangshu, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?
I wrote an entire concept album at the end of my undergraduate years as my final portofolio. It took me around 2 years to finally finish the album. It starts at my worst moment where I found myself troubled by all the problems: Relationship, academic, future, self-doubt, you name it. I constantly doubt myself for a possible future, as I truly can’t see one existing. It was that time when I got to see the theatre produciton “Sleep No More”, a immersive theatrical production that is based on the story of Macbeth. I felt that I was deeply drawn into that story and felt like there is some kind of responsibility in my to write a story before my life comes to an abrupt end or whatsoever. Thus begins the journey of me writing this concept album. I spent days, weeks and months constantly writing different stuffs while reflecting what’s the meaning of each track, each melody or even each notes to the overall concept of the world that I am trying to create. There are even nights where I just slept in my school’s recording room just trying to create motifs or ideas that I find to be meaningful. I think in the end the result both makes me feel like I am capable of doing things that I didn’t imagine myself being able to, but also knowing the fact that there are plenty of space for me to continue improving onto.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I am a composer/sound designiner who writes music and designs sound for various kinds of media, such as film, video games and etc. The desire for me is to create a service that provides all kinds of sonic material to whatever the media people are working on. If you are a film director, I will help you design music and sound effects. If you are a game designer, I will do the same while helping you incoporate all of these stuffs into your gme.
The journey of these kinds of work begins in my high school years, where I found myself gradually losing interest in theatrical writing/directing, but gradually more interested in writing music. I found myself eager to understand all aspects of the music so that I can create it myself. This pumps me into the journey of studying music in my undergraduate school where I got my first gig. A game designer came to me and ask me if it is possible for me to write game music for him. I gladly took the gig and wrote some music for him. It was then I found out how much interest I had in designing sound and music for different kinds of media form.
I think the experience of me doing music for others puts me into a pretty distinct perspective from others who wrote music as a personal expression experience. I like to put myself in the world of others, understanding what their creative desire is, and trying to convey that kinds of idea through the lens of music and sound effects. I found it to be really meaningful when I can create music that matches others’ creative desire.
This becomes one of the most important aspect of me that I am proud of: I can not only create some kind of sonic expression, but I can use my empathy and understanding of others to enhance that kinds of sonic expression so that it becomes a mutual experience.
We’d love to hear your thoughts on NFTs. (Note: this is for education/entertainment purposes only, readers should not construe this as advice
I should feel excited about new technologies or new advancement in the virtual world that distincts from the rigid human society. However, I do constantly found that most of them are merely a fragile reflection on the society, therefore both meanless and replaceable in the same time. This is what I felt about NFTs as well. I clearly understands why people are hyped about it. The potential of it bringning down the “ownership” of the society and the fact that you might be able to truly “own” a digital product is luring. However, it seems that people gradually lost their insterest in NFTs once they realized that they can’t even keep what they own in the real life.
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
What I learned about “getting things done” started to come back and haunt me in the recent years.
I used to procrastinate a lot, waiting for the last moment to get things done. This caused me lots of trouble as I constantly find myself in trouble spots where I had to cram lots of thing in a really short period of time, where lots of things will simultaneously go wrong. That is when I started to feel a sense of anxiety over things that is yet to be done. I started to do things earlier and to try to do things as soon as possible so that I can avoid all the accidents.
However, I gradually realized that this kinds of “getting things done” mentality has caused me more anxiety and problems than before. I am constantly panicing about all the potential problems or accidents that may come later, and eagered to deliver a pre-finished products that might not take the test of time. I became extremelly impatient about what I am doing so that I just decided to sacrifice the quality so that I may get the quantity. It is then I realized that I am just using a form of fear over another form of problem.
Therefore, at this stage of my life, what I am trying to learn is balance: A balance between getting things done quickly and getting things done patiently.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.ladymint21.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shangshu_or_mint/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shangshu-shi-05a68b26a/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYgvHkfXNbJl7vsQ5G94Ywg
Image Credits
Conducting Photo Credit: Diego Clavixus
Recording Session Photo Credit: Zichan (Lydia) Chen
Performance Photo Credit: Chenghan Liu