Esie (Esther Chung)

You're listening to Lynxcast, a music podcast that showcases students, alumni, and faculty from the University of Colorado at Denver's College of Arts and Media and Department of Music and Entertainment Industry Studies. Hi, I'm Essie, and I am a singer-songwriter/producer, and, yeah. Hi, Esther, Essie. Thanks for coming. Thanks for being on Lynxcast. It's great to see you. It's been a while. Yeah. Thanks for having me. Yeah. You graduated in 2019 with a degree in performance. Yes. Right. Vocal performance. Yes. Yes. Essie, tell me about how you got here as a musician. Where did it start? Where did the journey start? Okay. Yeah, so I grew up in a very musical family. My mom was a singer, and growing up, we did piano or violin, and I kind of bounced around on instruments, so I started off on piano and then also kind of around the same time violin. Okay. That's awesome. Okay. I wanted to pursue visual art initially, so when I was elementary school, middle school, such a long time ago, I actually planned to pursue art and fashion. Cool. And then I kind of pivoted around high school, and, yeah, I don't know why. I just was always drawn to singing, and I asked my parents if I could take voice lessons, and then I ended up going to art high school, and just kept pursuing it since then. Are you from Denver? Yes. So I went to Denver School of the Arts. You did. I was going to ask. Were you doing Suzuki violin and piano when you were young, or just sort of generic lessons? For violin, yes, it was. You did. And how old were you when you did that? I think I started around when I was four or five, but honestly, I haven't really touched violin in a while. No, but that's amazing, because I'm a Suzuki person, I'm like a big component. I was trained kind of way late in life, became a part of the whole community. I teach guitar players, the little ones at a summit once a year. I've been doing it for like 20 years, but yeah, I'm sold. It's so good for developing excellent year training skills, oral skills, and that probably helps you on so many different levels or helped you at the time. And then piano as well. Piano, I think, I just, I don't really remember, I think we just kind of used just piano books. And is that the instrument you write with? I usually write with guitar. Oh, nice. And when did guitar come into the picture? So I started playing guitar around my junior year of high school. Oh, wow. Yeah. So was that formal or did you just pick it up? I had just picked it up. My siblings play guitar and, you know, we always had a guitar lying around at my house. And, you know, at that time, like YouTube was such a big thing. I mean, it still is. And so I would just use YouTube tutorials to learn, yeah. And you are one of the few people that were brave enough to take my commercial guitar class on Friday morning. And that's, yeah, that's a tough class and you got, I mean, just getting through that is huge. Yeah. I need it though. There's so much for you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that was like my first, I guess, formal, like class for guitar, like I had never really, yeah. You're kidding. Wow. I think to that point was just self-taught. No kidding. And then it was a huge learning curve, definitely. I'm really impressed, Esther, because that's a hard class to be your first formal guitar class. That's really hard. Thanks. Yeah. But I mean, it was so good. I learned so much. I definitely think it was like a crucial part of my journey as a guitarist. Oh, thank you. Yeah. And then you took it. And you also took performance practice with me, which is also just such a fun class. Yeah. We love that one. So you have an EP called Lupin that you've just finished with how many songs on it? There are six tracks. Six tracks. And Drew sent me the link the other day and I said, oh my God, I have to get Esther on and do a podcast episode and feature the music because I thought it was so beautiful. And then Drew said, you know, she worked so hard recording it and really geeked out and got into the whole technical side of, you know, that part of music and of, I use the word production. I know some people think it's a different meaning, but you got into the production side of it. Heavy. And I can tell you put so much work into this thing. And I want to feature, we're going to listen to three songs today. And the first one, my favorite is time travel. So can you tell me a little bit about this song? Yeah. So I started really with a concept of time and when I started writing this EP, it was about a year or two after my mom passed away. And this song really just started off as like a concept of like, oh, if I could go to any moment in time, like, where would I go? And you know, a part of grieving is, you know, it doesn't matter like what you do with that person. If you could just have one more moment with that person, like, that's just something that you really long for. And that's kind of where it just started. And out of all the songs on the EP, this one took the longest, honestly, with a lot of breaks in between, because I would just, because I was really like drawn to the concept. And I knew that I wanted to include this on the EP, but it was just not coming together in the way that I wanted it. And so throughout like a year, it came together. And the first draft, it was pretty much a completely different song. Wow. Okay. Yeah. So, you know, I made a decision to kind of just leave that song and then take the lyrics that I wrote for that and try to figure out a new song to write. So, oh my gosh, you took the lyrics and started over with a new song? Yeah, because I really like the lyrics that I had. That's so hard to do, by the way. It's hard to divorce, right? Really hard to divorce yourself from original lyrics melody. Yeah. I don't know if people understand, non-musicians do not don't understand, really difficult to shift gears and divorce yourself from the original melody once you have the lyrics with it. That's actually really impressive. I mean, it's transformed a lot since. Cool. Yeah. It's not a new song, but yeah, that's kind of how I came across completing this song. All right. Let's give it a listen. Maybe if I turn the dial back, shut off my phone, I would believe that. I could travel through space and time, rewind to moments stuck in my mind. I got stuck in a daydream, counting the stars pretending I see, the rhyme, the reason why things pass by, there's a meaning to death and life, the space grows larger every day, I'm farther from you. Yeah, Esther, that's beautiful. Oh my gosh. Thank you. You made, well, first of all, the harmonic structure is really unique. I love what you did with the chords and the EQ choices with your voice. Really excellent. I really see the warm sound. Oh, thanks. Yeah, I like that and the really, really close mic sound, I love that. The background percussion thing is so cool and you did all this yourself. Yeah, so I produced and recorded it and then for Mix and Master, I had a friend out. In Nashville, his name is Joe Mark and I had him Mix and Master it for me. Nice. Yeah. Yeah, it was interesting when you were talking about the subject matter of it with your mom and you know, those of us that have lost parents or lost anybody, you know, grief is grief. Yeah, that feeling of like you said, it doesn't matter what you would be doing with them. It's just any moment, any, you know, five minutes, 10 minutes. I've had that feeling my mom died about 10 years, actually today, oddly enough, today is her birthday. Yeah, and I have that feeling quite often where it's like, God, if 10 minutes I would kill for 10 minutes just to sit at the coffee table with her, kind of tell her 20 minutes have a conversation. And I think the grief is this non-linear kind of thing. It's very fluid. Yeah. The comparison I always use is, you know, if you have a physical injury, over time it gets better little by little. Grief is so different because it can be just as intense 10 years later as the day it happened. It's just very non-linear is the way I describe it. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. But that's, yeah, a beautiful job on that. Thank you. It almost just a little tiny bit of it gave me a radiohead vibe, the harmonic structure. Oh, really? You were playing the complex harmony. I loved that. Yeah. It was really cool. Oh, wow. Thank you. What was the best piece of advice you ever received from another musician or person or teacher in this field? Or just a good piece of advice, maybe not the best? I think something that has really stuck with me is from one of my friends/teacher, I guess. So his name is Kiefer and he's a pianist/producer in LA, and I started taking production lessons with him a few years ago. But he is just like an amazing musician, has like so much great advice and wisdom for being a musician. And you know, I was showing him some of my music and a lot of the music that I was making at the time was just like beats that I was just producing, just short things, and I sent him a few and then he was just saying how a lot of my music sounded kind of like video game music. And then I was like, oh, like, you know, it's funny you say that because at that time I was playing a lot of video games. It was, I don't know if anyone knows, but it was Animal Crossing, it was a huge thing during the pandemic. But the music in that game is awesome, like it's great. And you know, I was like, oh yeah, like even before then, I had always loved video game music and like Final Fantasy or Zelda or Kingdom Hearts, and you know, he just really encouraged me to lean into that. It's something that makes me unique and that is a part of my taste, especially when you look up to certain artists or you want to sound a certain way, you might try to veer away from certain things. At least I know that I do. It's like sometimes I'll write a song and I'm like, oh, it kind of sounds too much country or like to pop and I don't really want to be a pop artist or you know, whatever, like just stuff like that, I'll have that dialogue in my head and you know, if you are drawn to certain music and you know, that's kind of what's just coming out of you, I feel like you should just lean into it more because, you know, you never know what will come out of that. And I think it's really important to have a diverse and open ear when it comes to listening to music and the music that you consume. Absolutely. Yeah. There's nothing wrong with just leaning into it and diving even deeper because, well, first of all, it's whatever music you make, you don't have to share it. That's a good point. Yeah. So it's just like, you might as well just lean into it more and see what happens. What have you been doing post graduation? After graduation. It was such a weird time because like the end of that year, that's when COVID started. Like yeah, started and then you know, I kind of had hopes to move and I was still really figuring it out after graduating. I didn't really have anything lined up in terms of like a job or anything and for the past few years, I've just been figuring it out during that time. That's when I started learning how to produce and really diving into songwriting more because I didn't really start writing songs until like my senior year of college, I think. Right. Because, I don't know, before then I just did vocal performance and you know, was singing like different like jazz standards or like pop covers, that kind of stuff. Yeah, that's late to start writing. It kind of is. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Late compared to like most of our students, but that's really cool that you kind of got the bug as a senior and yeah, it's really, really cool. You know, songwriting and producing was something that I was always interested in, but I am the type of person that really needs structure and it wasn't until I joined the Singer Songwriter Ensemble, where I was consistently writing and finishing songs. Right. And being forced to, yeah. Yeah. Because. You had to deliver. Yeah, I mean, I like to think that I'm a free spirit and like an artist and like, I don't need a schedule and I just work on my own pace, but like, no, I really thrive with structure in my life. Right. And so just having something where there was accountability and you know, that that was really helpful for me. I never really had a vision to release a project until I started writing this EP. Okay. I'm not sure why I just, I think part of me was intimidated by trying to set out to write a whole project and finish it and produce it and all that stuff. And then also around that time, my mom had gotten diagnosed with cancer and so that also complicated it. And so for a few years after graduation, I was just really dealing with that and she passed away 2021 in the beginning of 2021. And so like from 2019 to 2021, it was kind of, you know, working with and dealing with her cancer diagnosis and, you know, just trying to work through that because we were living together at that time and I was one of her main like support. That was immediately next to her, you know, right? And then in 2021 she passed away and then for a few years after that, I was just really, you know, trying to deal with grieving and coping through the loss of a parent. I feel like after graduation, it's just been a lot of growing pains. Yeah. Lots of learning, lots of, lots of reflecting. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. So it's been a process like, I wish I could say that it was just like, oh, right after graduation. I just decided I was going to write something, but, you know, I'm very thankful for how everything's worked out. Like, you know, you can't really change the past or anything. So it's like, you know, it's, it is what it is and, and some beautiful music came out of it. That's great. Thanks. Right. Yeah. Yeah. It's so good that you put your energy into that. It helps the grieving process. Yeah. I'm still writing and producing and teaching on the side too. So. Cool. Nice. How many students do you have? Not that many. Right now, three. That's right. It's a good place to start. Yeah. That's awesome. Let's, let's listen to your next one. It's called used to know and tell us, just give us a quick introduction to this one off of the EP. This song, it was at a point where I was just getting used to how much life was changing and aside from losing a parent, like I feel like your twenties are very turbulent and like you're, you're just going through so much change and yeah, you're really figuring out who you are and what you want to do and just so many different aspects in your life are, you know, beginning to come together and changing and something I've realized over the past few years is I am very bad with change and I'm very bad at coping with change. And even though I know that usually when change happens, it, it's fine. You know, everything eventually gets in its place and you don't even realize how different things used to be. You know, and so that was kind of the idea of this song is just dealing with change and for this song specifically, I was just reflecting on how different my life looked, you know, before losing my mom and then afterwards and you know, part of me was really sad because I'm like, oh, like I want it's like I wish that I appreciated the time that I had prior to that a little more, you know, and I feel like it's something you don't really realize until you don't have it, you know, I tend to ruminate on the past a lot. And that's kind of where this song came out of. Nice. Let's listen to it. I'm so scared now. I don't want to think about how I went out all day. Seamless and unfulfilled. I'm so scared now. I don't want to think about how I went out all day. Seamless and unfulfilled. I'm so scared now. I don't want to think about how I went out all day. I don't want to think about how I went out all day. I don't want to think about how I went out all day. I don't want to think about how I went out all day. I don't want to think about how I went out all day. I don't want to think about how I went out all day. I don't want to think about how I went out all day. I'm so scared now. I don't want to think about how I went out all day. Seamless and unfulfilled. I'm so scared now. I don't want to think about how I went out all day. Seamless and unfulfilled. I'm so scared now. I don't want to think about how I went out all day. I don't want to think about how I went out all day. I don't want to think about how I went out all day. I don't want to think about how I went out all day. I don't want to think about how I went out all day. I don't want to think about how I went out all day. I don't want to think about how I went out all day. I don't want to think about how I went out all day. I don't want to think about how I went out all day. I don't want to think about how I went out all day. I don't want to think about how I went out all day. It's been a few months since I dreamt a different life where I sit next to you. It's been a few months since I dreamt a different life where I sit next to you. It's been a few months since I dreamt a different life where I sit next to you. You sure left us wanting more on that one. The lyrics are beautiful. Really captured what you were talking about, like the process, the part of grief, the regret part. The regret part of grief where if I had known this was going to happen, I would have done things differently. But gosh, beautiful. And again, the harmonic choices and structure. You really have some incredible stuff, really exceptional stuff going on. It's really good. Thank you. Yeah. Wow. Do you have performance anxiety and how do you deal with it? Do you're a performance major? I think just by doing it a bunch throughout high school and afterwards, I don't know. I don't know if it's like I have just become a bit desensitized to it or I've just gotten used to it. But I really think for performance, it's the more you do it, the easier it gets. I think another part is I just had to stop caring for what other people thought. That's a huge one. That's a big one. That's one of the big ones. Yeah. Yeah. It can definitely affect you deeply. Oh, for sure. I don't think I will really admit this, but I'm a little more self-aware now to where I will. But at least when I was younger, I just really cared a lot about what people thought of me, what my peers thought. If they thought I sounded good. I think there is an aspect of that that is important because it's like, you want to do your best. But you know, no one really cares that much about you and like no one really thinks about you as much. Exactly. Right. Yeah. That's one of those psychological things that we think in general, people think that other people are putting a lot of energy thinking about us and in fact they're not because they're thinking about themselves. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. It's just, you know, being as prepared as I could be. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Because it's like, if you have that preparation, then and you have really practiced a lot and you have it like in the muscle memory, in the memory of everything, you know, even if you are nervous, everything should come out. And if you like, as you do it more, it's just, it gets a lot easier. Right. So, preparing is a good approach. Yeah. All right. Let's listen to the next one. This is called Full Extent. Tell me about this one, Esther. Yeah. So, the idea behind this song was losing my mom, that was really like my first significant loss. And I almost feel naive with how I used to feel like losing a parent. Prior to actually losing a parent, it's like, you know, if you have a friend or family, like extended family member who loses a parent or someone, you know, often you're like, I'm so sorry for your loss. Like, I don't know what you're going through, but like, you know, I'm here if you need anything and you know, you can't really blame people who've never experienced that because it's like, they just don't know, but you know, going through, you know, losing my mom, I was just like, oh my goodness, like, you know, I had friends who lost parents, you know, when I was younger or like, cousins that had lost parents and, you know, actually experiencing it on my own, I was just, I was like, kind of mind blown because I was like, I can't believe this is how you probably felt, you know, I mean, if it's not exactly the same, you know, the intensity was probably just as much, you know, and so that's kind of the idea of where this song started and, you know, just writing about that realization. Okay, I love that. Let's give it a listen. When I heard about the news, I told you I was sorry for your loss, said I can't imagine how I'd feel in your shoes Wasn't sure how to help As in flowers and a card to your house You need anything I'll always be here for you But you never said a thing Maybe I should have asked more of how you were doing But you say you don't blame me for something I just couldn't know, shouldn't know As you sat alone that day Now you send me flowers too Didn't realize how much life could keep it on you How'd you make it out? How'd you still see the truth? I'm a shell of who I was Left to soak in all my worst qualities And I'm not sure if I'll make it out of here Tell me how'd you do it? How did you do it? Oh, you never said a thing I should have asked more of how you were doing But you say you don't blame me for something I just couldn't know, shouldn't know As I know how you felt that day I'm a shell of who I was Left to soak in all my worst qualities And I'm not sure if I'll make it out of here Tell me how'd you do it? I should have asked more of how you were doing But you say you don't blame me for something I just couldn't know, shouldn't know You never said a thing I should have asked more of how you were doing But you say you don't blame me for something I just couldn't know, shouldn't know I know how you felt that day Wow, Esther, that's beautiful That's so heavy and relatable, the lyrics And once again, just extremely well produced I love your choices I just like your musical choices All the way around All the little things that you did It's so interesting that you said that about your friends going through it before you had gone through it And at my age, it was something you see a lot of people deal with And it was always that thing in the office, if it was a colleague and they lost a parent and you sign the card, or you know, and you say, hey, are you doing okay? You reach out to them in the beginning, maybe a week or two But honestly, it's out of our, it's something that kind of drops out of your awareness as a friend or as a, unless the persons are super close, close friends then you're talking to them everyday But like a colleague, for instance, you You know, for years, I just thought, oh, you know, and then they get better and that's how it goes, you know? Three weeks goes by or whatever And you're, I mean, that might sound overly simplistic But I had no idea, like you were saying, that it's just this intense thing that is almost constant And then after you do lose a parent or lose somebody close, and someone else around you does, then you understand that you start reaching out all the time and you're like, how are you doing? Like, I know, I know what you're going through It's been six months, it's been a year, it's Christmas, whatever it is, you know? All those, those anniversaries, those times that come around that are really hard And then you really shift your gears, you know, don't you? I mean, yeah, that's kind of how I viewed it Yeah, exactly Yeah, you just don't know until you've gone through it That's the way it is Yeah What accomplishments do you hope to achieve in the near future? Next five years or just? Um, I definitely want to release a full album Nice, and this will be a part of it Yeah, and so, I think that's like my like short-term goal right now is I'm just trying to start writing and working on new music, and Ideally, like, I hope to be working with other musicians and writing and helping produce for them And I know that's not very specific, but it dovetails in this thing that I was going to say earlier, and it's broken record, I say it almost every student, former student and current student, that amazing thing about MIS and CAM students is that you are all good at so many things that we that are that are part of our curriculum So you were a performance major, but you started writing as a senior in college, so you're a songwriter, you're an instrumentalist, you took that seriously in addition to singing. Production wasn't, you know, a huge part of your curriculum as a performance major, but yet that's what you're passionate about, you just got this fire, this inspiration, and that you're going down that road too So three of the four things that we specialize in, you're doing, they're a part of your life, performing, songwriting, producing, and it's hard to tell, I don't, it's not like oh you're an obvious performance person because of XYZ, you're just good at a lot of things, and that's how a lot of our students are, is that they're just good at everything, you know, and I just, I love that, this is just yet another example of a person who's just doing such good work in all these various areas, and taking them seriously, you know, well now it seems like production is actually becoming the most important thing, maybe, I don't know. Yeah, I would say so. Yeah, yeah. What are your favorite and least favorite parts about being a musician, or being in the music world? I will start with least favorite. Okay. I feel like there's a lot of like waiting, you know, like whether it's like just working on like a song for, you know, a few weeks, a few months, it's like, you know, like there's a lot of time before you get the outcome that you want. Right, yeah. Which I feel like that that's the case with most things in life, you know, but, and I think I'm a pretty impatient person, inherently, and yeah, I think that's one thing that I really struggle with is like being okay with things taking time, and like, you know, when I finished my EP, I kind of just wanted to release it right then and there, like I don't want to market it, I don't want to do anything, like can't I just like put it online, but then, you know, like I took my time, like, you know, made announcements, all that stuff. Right. Yeah, I think that's probably one of my least favorite parts, but it is also like kind of one of the best parts, it's like, if you like once you go through that, you really appreciate like the outcome of what you put time into, and yeah. The payoff. Yeah, yeah. That's cool. Yeah, I like that. That's a really, I love that answer. Yeah. Wow, that's awesome. Your music is so good Esther, I love it so much. Thank you, I appreciate it. Yeah, I mean, I didn't know you as a songwriter, I just knew you were a good performer, and I mean, I'm not sure in performance practice if you did original or not, did you? No, no, I don't think I did, because I took it my freshman year. Right, you weren't doing that at that point. Yeah, and then, you know, it's funny though, because I remember like every time, I feel like I ran into you a lot like my senior year, just because I was taking the commercial guitar. Comm guitar, yeah. Yeah, and I just remember you would always talk about songwriting with me, and I was like, oh, and you're like, I always think you're a songwriting major. I don't know why, and so you kept like bringing up like different songwriting techniques, and then you would like look at me, and I was like, okay, but maybe you had a hunch. Definitely, that's really cool. But yeah, it was just such a treat that Drew sent this over to me, and wow, I just love what you're doing. Thank you so much for doing this. Thank you for having me. Yeah. You've been listening to Lynxcast, produced by Associate Professor Paul Musso. For more information about the College of Arts and Media, visit us at artsandmedia.ucdenver.edu. I'm Brett Magnivitz. Thanks for listening.