TUTOR SPOTLIGHT: KANE CHONG
Kane is the friendly face you see when you walk into the Lewis Eady guitar showroom on Saturdays. He is also a multi-talented musician who has just completed his first year of teaching guitar at Lewis Eady Music School.
LEMS: Let's start from the beginning!
Young Kane at the Lewis Eady Rock School holiday programme.
KANE: I started playing the guitar when I was 8-years-old with my father, and the rest is history! When I was 11, I attended the Lewis Eady Rock School holiday programmes, forming bands and performing songs with others. After this experience, I continued to play in bands and started writing my own songs and music, picking up a range of other instruments in the process. I was also involved in high school choirs, jazz bands, concert bands and orchestras. I've just finished my degree in audio production and continue to write and produce music.
LEMS: Tell us about your performing life.
KANE: Nowadays, I do mainly acoustic performances - stripping songs back to their rawest form in terms of the story, the lyrics, and the emotion of the song. I want the audience to listen to my performance and feel every bit of that song, whether it's a cover or one of my own tunes. My inspiration behind my performing is the ability to connect to an audience.
LEMS: You teach guitar at Lewis Eady Music School and work in the retail store on Saturdays.
KANE: Yes, I've been working in the Lewis Eady retail store for four years. I've enjoyed meeting many musicians in the store - being surrounded by guitars all day is a bonus! I'm now finishing my first year with the Music School, and I've had a blast! The Music School has allowed me to further my teaching skills and helped me grow even more as a musician.
LEMS: What do you want to achieve from teaching music?
KANE: More than anything else, I want to inspire my students to keep going with music and pass on my passion and love for music, in the hope that they too will grow a love for music. I try to teach songs my students will enjoy learning and then infuse lessons around skills and techniques that they can use in any song. The greatest thing that I can do as a teacher is to inspire the next generation of musicians and pass on what I've been fortunate enough to learn from my teachers.
LEMS: Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
KANE: I'd love to be still playing music on stage and also writing and making music, whether for myself or working with others. Maybe even teaching a bit, but who knows where the world will be in 10 years! A quote that I now like to live by is, "Life's too short, Make the most of it", and each day I strive to do just that. Live like there's no tomorrow and play music that lives forever.
Lewis Eady Music School delivers instrumental music lessons to 1,300 students at 30 partner schools across Auckland and our music studios in Epsom. Enrolments are open for music lessons in 2021.