While most other 10-year-olds are busy with after-school activities on the weekends, Lyla Ng is usually busking along the busy streets of Orchard Road, a famous tourist spot in Singapore.
The young performer first became interested in busking when she saw a pamphlet about the busking scheme in Singapore that allows people to perform in public.
“My father explained what it was. A few weeks later, he showed me some people were performing music at Orchard Road, and I asked if I could do it too,” said Lyla, who had already been playing different instruments, including the piano, drums, electric guitar and acoustic guitar at home.
The aspiring singer got her licence to busk last November, and she had her first public performance a few weeks later.
She has been busking ever since, belting out modern hits such as Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off”, as well as Mandarin oldies like Yao Surong’s “Jin Tian Bu Hui Jia”, a popular Taiwanese song from the 1960s. While her chirpy performances might make it seem like a breeze to sing on stage, Lyla revealed she used to have stage fright.
She has since become more used to singing in front of crowds with one trick: pretending the audience members are tiny ants.
This strategy was especially useful in May when Lyla was the youngest guest artist performing for 9,000 people at the concert of Wakin Chau, a Hong Kong-born Taiwanese singer known by his stage name, Emil Chau.
And now that she has conquered her stage fright, the aspiring artist is determined to make singing her career. In the past three years, she has already written four songs.
Her latest one, “Dreams Can Come True”, was written for the Singapore Youth Platform, which was part of an annual event organised by the Singapore Youth Festival to showcase student talent in performing arts.
“In the song, I wrote about musicians such as Olivia Rodrigo and Billie Eilish who inspired me … to be a professional musician,” she said. “I wrote [that] I wish I’ll be like my idols because they overcame their obstacles to do what they love.”
Just as “Dreams Can Come True” reminds her to not give up, she hopes others will be encouraged to take a chance on their passions when they hear her music.
Find the words in the puzzle below to test your understanding of the vocabulary in this story.
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