Fala Chen on Overcoming Obstacles to Pursue Her Music Dreams

With the recent announcement that Rising Star record label’s contract with Fala Chen (陳法拉) is ending after the release of her first and only album, many were quick to speculate the reason behind it. For TVB artists, they are considered the “biological child” of the company and thus receives special treatment when transitioning from a career of acting into singing. In a recent interview, Fala sheds insight into the amount of effort put into creating her first album.

When she was 14 years old, Fala immigrated to the United States from Chengdu, China. During her adolescence, Fala attempted to perfect her English and not Cantonese. It was not until she joined TVB as an actress that she had to start learning Cantonese.

Fala explained that in her music album’s 2-year pre-production planning, she felt pressured to enunciate Cantonese words properly. “Cantonese is probably the most difficult language to sing properly. The words need to be enunciated precisely. The slightest change in the way the language is delivered will not result in a smooth delivery. Listeners will scold you for not being authentic. Since Cantonese is not my first language, I had to spend more time focusing on the pronounciation.”

Fala said, “Singing is very different from acting. When you’re onstage singing live, you have three minutes to express yourself through the song. You need to use that short amount of time to connect with the audience and make them feel the emotions you’re trying to convey, which is very difficult!”

When Fala signed with Rising Star, she knew that she did not want to release a typical pop music album. Several years ago, Fala started taking voice lessons from a coach to prepare herself. She even insisted on re-recording songs from the album in order to achieve results closer to perfection. 

Fala’s musical background made her even more committed to delivering a quality album. With her grandparents as music teachers, aunt as a singing teacher, father as a piano instructor and mother as the owner of a dance studio, Fala was surrounded by music and performance arts while growing up. Both fields demanded extreme dedication to improve one’s skills.

It was not a suprise that Fala is such a perfectionist when it came to recording her album. “I’ve been exposed to music since I was a little girl, especially classical music. That’s probably why I pay more attention to the rhythm, beat and melody.”

Fala the Singer

Fala never thought that she would become a singer. After receiving a business degree in college, she thought of working in a typical corporate office job. However, everything changed when she entered the Miss Chinese International Beauty Pageant in 2005. From that moment on, Fala realized that she can attain her dreams of being in the entertainment industry, including releasing her own album. Fala asked, “If someone offers you the opportunity to release your own album, why wait?”

Fala hopes that when she is onstage, the viewers will not see her as “Fala the actress,” but rather as “Fala the singer.” She explains, “I know that when the audience sees me onstage, they will think ‘Fala is an actress, why is she singing?’ Look at Raymond Lam (林峯); he actually took voice lessons for many, many years because he truly enjoys singing, so becoming a singer was a natural step for him. But Raymond received much criticism when he released an album. If the audience is able to differentiate between the acting and singing, they will realize that acting and singing both require a certain amount of effort and hard work.”

Given the dedication and hard work that Fala put into her Beautiful Life album, perhaps fans will start seeing her in another light as “Fala the singer” and not just “Fala the actress.”

Source: ihktv.com

This article is written by Natalie for JayneStars.com.

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