Heaven to Earth

Original by Brian Cao, aka Brian the Amateur

(Listen at the bottom of the page)

One day when I was sleeping, I heard the main melody while dreaming, and it was so good I had to wake myself up and hum it to the voice recorder on my phone. I sat on my bed to wake myself up, raced to the piano, and recorded it on my piano. I recorded the main melody first, then added embellishment to it, and it was so good, I had to make it my final main melody.

I always knew that I had to start writing my own songs instead of doing covers other people’s songs. I just never knew that the first song I will ever write is a piano song. I mean, for God’s sake, I only learned piano for five years, and only picked it up for over a year ago. In the school where I learned the piano, kids are all the better than me, and most of them, I believe, is at Level 10 now; but, how many of them actually have their own song handy? This is why this song is so important to me: I am actually a musician!

My song is not just a “G, C, Em, D” in a loop; it is a complicated and sophisticated piano song that takes time to practice. To tell you the truth, I first laid out the groundwork on the physical piano by playing the easy version of my song and then getting it digitally through Logic Pro X. Then, if I had a good part I need to substitute it in, I either play it through the physical piano or add it on the computer. This is why, even though I have already published the song onto all music platforms, but for the ending, I was still practicing how to play because it was added on by a computer. Now that I have finished practicing, the video will be out very soon.

Album Cover

I had been thinking about what the album cover should look like on my first ever song, and I am overall satisfied with the result. At first, I thought about whether if I should show my face in it, you know, leave a legacy. Then, I decided against that, because, frankly, it will take too much space and make people mistake the song as a lyrical song.

This is still on my electric weighted Yamaha piano, the one you can see the full glory of on the Music page. I took the picture from a few different angles, and used the posture of a repetitive chord in the piano song “Summer” (A, Dm, E, A).

My mom told me there were too many rings on my hand, and all my friends said otherwise.

From the left, my sister gifted me the Chrome Hearts ring, my mom and dad together gifted Triton ring, my mom gifted me the golden ring, and my sister gifted me the Bvlgari ring. You can read more about it here…

At first I didn’t have the gold ring on, but when I finished shooting the first set, (timed shots, because I am all alone, sad) I saw the ring lying there, and it hit me, that if the gold ring is the only one with color, it will look a lot more cooler. That’s how I went back, put on my suit jacket just to show a sleeve in hot summer, and got the album picture here.

Didn’t spend too much time on this one, because there’s not much photoshopping needed; just needed to adjust the light and color.

Also, this is the first time I am using the “Unconditional Love” logo, you can read more about it here…

Naming

When I first recorded the main melody, it reminded me of the melody of “Por Una Cabeza”, a tango song which I believe people have all heard. I never knew what language is this title from, but I know the Chinese translation is “一步之遥“, a rough translation would be: “only a step away”. It sounded very poetic and sophisticated, so I decided to name it in a similar fashion. Since “Por Una Cabeza” is a happy song, and my song is sad, that’s why I decided to name it as “天地之隔“.

“天地之隔“ would translate to be: “The Distance Between the Sky and the Ground”. Yes, this was the working title of my song, and I was so glad I didn’t choose it. It was too freaking long. I knew it would be a bad title, but I didn’t have a good one, so when I send samples for people to critique, I used the first word “Distance” as the title.

Contributors

I have to mention Jasmine Moni Guo, a friend of mine who is a TA majoring in Music Theory. We met each other in German 2; she learned German for major requirement, and I learned German, well, you can read it here. She gave me massive help on my “solo conquest” of writing this song. For example, she gave me tremendous inspiration on the bridge in the middle (1:29-1:44), and made the song a whole lot better than it started out to be. I bothered her so many times to listen to my song, and she gave me pointers every time, until the very last time, where she said there’s just no more pointers from her. If you are at UCLA majoring in Music Theory, or related majors, take her TA section, she’s awesome. She has been playing the piano for 23 years since she was only 3!

Also, shoutout to all the people who helped me by listening and giving me their ideas (in alphabetical order)

• Alice Deng

• Kihyun Jo

• Joy (I don’t know her last name lol)

• Professor Deborah Larson

• Dymond Lee

• Yujia Li

• Meiqi Pan: Dongbei Beathoven

• Mike Xu

Ideology

Heaven to Earth, to me, is the longest distance there ever will be. I am, obviously, on earth, and I dedicate this song to my sister, who is above the stars. May you be in peace my sis.