At the age of seven, most of us were just trying to get through our daily homework and the weekly tuition lessons, much less learn how to play multiple instruments.
For Lyla Ng, she has not only learnt how to play the drums and guitar, she has also made a viral cover of Sweet Child O’ Mine — the 1987 hit by American rock band Guns N’ Roses — with local actress Eleanor Lee on lead vocals.
The video has adorable moments of Lyla on the drums and electric guitar and providing back-up vocals, and also heartwarming interactions between Eleanor and the young girl. When the credits rolled, there was even a thank-you message to both Eleanor and her mother, local TV host Quan Yi Fong.
“LylaHZN and Eric gives a super duper thank-you to Eleanor Lee for the graciousness to encourage, inspire and help a little sister out [and] Quan Yi Fong for feeding Lyla Tu Tu Kueh (sic) with lots of love and laugh,” the message read.
It’s not surprising that Lyla boasts such talent for music as it runs in her blood. She’s the daughter of award-winning local songwriter Eric Ng, who has written for Mandopop artistes like A-Mei, Sandy Lam, Tanya Chua, Stefanie Sun, Rene Liu, Karen Mok, and Wakin Chau.
Since it was published on Sunday (Nov 1), the video has made its rounds among the Taiwanese and Chinese music industry with a combined total of more than 200,000 views over various social media platforms. It has even caught the eye of You Chiu-hsing from Taiwanese rock duo Power Station and Wakin.
The former sang praises of her skill with the guitar and drums while the latter said: “I’ve been watching her grow up into this young music talent!”
In an interview with Lianhe Zaobao, 44-year-old Eric shared: “My daughter asked me what the first song I learnt to play on the guitar was, and I said ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’, and she wanted me to teach her. For the past five months, she has been practising this song every day and now it’s the first song she has learnt.”
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Lyla takes guitar lessons at FM Pop Music School — co-founded by Eric — which aims to nurture and cultivate students by imparting knowledge in songwriting, performance, and production skills.
And since the video was released, Eric revealed that younger students are coming forward to enrol, especially for songwriting courses.
FM Pop Music School is gearing up for its second virtual open house on Saturday Nov 14, where participants will get to enjoy songwriting workshops. Local lyricist Xiaohan will host a lyric-writing course from 10.30am to 12pm, while Eric will teach a melody-composing course from 1.30pm to 3pm.
When it comes to training and shaping the young minds of the music industry, Ng said: “I’ve received a lot of queries from parents on how to teach their kids and I think the key is time and effort. You can’t just practise once or twice a week.”
