Senior Chong No is known for coming to school with his guitar, and casually plopping himself down in the hallway and singing. Within minutes, a small crowd forms around him. Sometimes he performs songs that he has already rehearsed and other times he improvises based on his current mood. If No’s songs are simply for entertainment, “they are just so silly and funny that you once again feel connected to your inner child,” senior Peky Huang said.
“Once my repertoire was good and I had my peers’ approval, meaning that they were listening and not leaving, I started bringing my guitar in to school,” No said. “I’ll cover mainstream songs, like Katy Perry [songs], to make people laugh.”

Music has been part of No’s life since he was young. At age three, he began to listen to church choirs with his parents. By eight, “I had really gotten in to it,” he said.

At the end of last year, No started a band, East 12th Street, with fellow Stuyvesant seniors Daniel Suh and Brian Woo, whom he had known since fourth and seventh grade, respectively. The three worked well as friends and well as musicians: “What could go wrong?” Woo said. The band writes its own songs, and describes its music as “spanning across the genres of punk, ska, pop, ballad and straight-up rock n’ roll,” Woo said. No sings lead vocals and plays electric guitar.

“We have a Ying-Yang sort of relationship when it comes to our music,” Woo said. “My playing and vocal styles tend to shift over to excitement and some aggression, while Chong’s tend to shift to the side of relaxation and freedom.”

No also has solo gigs playing at the Five Points Variety Hour in Chinatown and at the Youth Galeria in Queens. He continues to pick up gigs through word-of-mouth. No would “love to continue music as a living, but I know that there aren’t a lot of careers available,” he said. He admits that he is not very active in sending his music to record companies, but believes “what will happen will happen” and relies on word-of-mouth to introduce him to new audiences.

Over the summer, No took his guitar to Central Park and jammed. “There’s this one tunnel that has great acoustics,” No said. “It’s like practice for me, like when I play in the hallway.”

No is currently working on releasing a five-song solo-extended play, a preview album of his performances. He hopes to sell some copies in school and raise money to be able to make an album later with his band.

This fall, math teacher Jonas Kalish heard No sing first-hand. After telling Kalish that he had written a song for him, No came to the classroom with his guitar “and was basically pleading me to write a college recommendation for him,” Kalish said.

“It was a funny song, and he had a great voice and didn’t hold back at all,” Kalish said. “It was hard to refuse.”

At school, No participates in band, chorus, and A Cappella, and performs in the Culture Fest and Norimadang, the Korean Culture Night.

“His voice impresses me the most,” said senior Ray Min, one of the directors of A Cappella. “His vocal range and the timbre that he has when he jams with his band or sings with us, or serenades a girl, just makes you feel uplifted.”

“He’s a great person to work with,” Min said. “He’s often the frontman solo kind of guy but he’s great with the entire group, giving and taking inputs, and having fun all the time.”

No says that he likes to keep a low-profile and tries not to draw too much attention to himself. Nevertheless, his playing has attracted an audience, and No enjoys being in a large school because of  “[the] people who I don’t know coming up to me and telling me that they like what I play,” he said.

Others call this humbleness and say that this is what makes No unique. “Before Chong sings for the class, he usually starts by warning us that what’s to come isn’t all that good and apologizes for hurting our ears,” Huang said. “People think he is just making a joke. Because his singing and playing is actually truly good, he continues to practice and play, in hopes of continually getting better.”

“He’s one of the best musicians I’ve met so far,” Min said. “His music brings out his whole character: likeable, confident, creative, and funny.”