3) Learning to play the lead guitar

I moved on from just strumming to learning how to play the lead guitar. I wanted so much to learn how to play lead so I used to watch other guitarists play but it wasn’t enough. I knew I had to do much more than that. In my parent’s house there was a Grundig gramophone and I used to play the black vinyl records over and over again so I could pick up the songs and commit it to memory. With guitar in hand, and an ear as near as possible to the gramophone speaker, I slowly and painfully picked up the notes of the songs.

Michael Ho and I then decided to form a band as we were from the same school. We knew a guy called Christopher Choong aka “13” (Sup Sum in Cantonese). He played the drums really well and together with a young boy Thomas Ham, an Andersonian, we formed a band. Forming a band was easy but what about the instruments. We definitely didn’t have the funds to purchase expensive instruments being just school boys then. We cracked our heads wondering what we should do and our prayers were answered in our schoolmate Robert Ng whose father was a tin miner. As he came from a wealthy family he agreed to be our manager and would purchase all the necessary instruments for the band. Cool! In those days, it was really something to have a manager in the band but we didn’t see the necessity to give the band a name. We would gather at Robert’s house, a bungalow in Greentown for practices everyday. We would practice for an hour or two, then stop for a break. We really had a great time then, because at break time, his servant and “Mah Cheh” would prepare tasty munchies for tea. We worked really hard and played even harder then.