Roy was born into music. His grandfather, Henry Dragon along with his own father and all his father’s brothers were professional musicians. Roy started violin lessons when he was in Primary school and passed his Grade 8 ABRSM by the age of sixteen. Throughout his Primary school days, He was in the wind ensemble, playing the violin with a group of pianica and recorders and other violin players. He taught himself the guitar during his late Primary school days when his father tossed him his old guitar together with a chord book. With a background in violin, figuring out the mechanics of the guitar was easy and so his new passion for pop music fuelled the learning of this new instrument to an almost obsessive level.

When he went into secondary school, he picked up the saxophone in the St. Patrick’s School Band. Having a background in music, he learnt the instrument and was proficient quicker than his peers. As St. Patrick’s School band started attaining consistent Gold medals in the SYF competition when he was in Secondary 2, the band was very exposed to public performances as our bandmaster wanted as much exposure for them as possible.

His Junior College years at Catholic Junior College saw him getting involved with the String Ensemble. Although the string ensemble was not as active as his secondary school band, it ensured that his entire educational journey was filled with one form of music activity or another. It was during his JC days that he started frequenting Victoria Concert Hall to watch the Singapore Symphony Orchestra (SSO) on weekends.

Despite the fact that his father, Major(Ret.) Ervin E. Dragon, was the director of music of more than 30 years in the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF), he went in to the army just like any other sweat-smelling teenager, and endured Basic Military Training (BMT) and even Combat Engineer training. But it was an unfortunate accident that became the turning point in his musical journey. Roy injured myself during training and was downgraded after a whole year of training. It was during this time as a clerk that he was recommended and transferred into the SAF Music and Drama Company (MDC).

And so began his real training as a professional musician. Being around professionals was a humbling experience for him, and he turned humility into perseverance and practised as much as he could. Soon he was up to standard and performing professionally alongside these musicians which he admired so much. He performed from parties to functions to ministerial dinners and weddings, and he even had to dress-up as a clown for one particular gig at the opening of Suntec City Mall!

The 3 years at MDC was full of performances and overseas travel. They performed for the army as well as for the public in Rockhampton (Australia), Taiwan and Indonesia. They performed in trios, quartets, big bands, stage bands, etc. It was also during this time that he went for his Grade 8 in Saxophone, passed with distinction, and was invited to perform for the high-scorers concert held by the examination board.

Roy family’s advice for him was to pursue a degree full-time and get involved in music only part-time when he had the time to spare. Taking their advice, he went on to do a part-time Advanced diploma in Marketing which led to the Marketing degree course. However, after all his experience in the music scene, he found himself desiring more and more time with his music and so he abandoned his degree plans and pursued his music as a career.

This was when he started teaching on a full-time basis. Not only was it a stable job, it was a job which he could relate to. He started teaching music at Anglo-Chinese Junior School (ACS Junior) for a few years, then he taught keyboard classes at Bedok Green Secondary School. Now he teaches at the German- European School in the mornings and a private music school “The Music Lab” in the afternoons. Teaching enabled Roy to continue to practice his music professionally after teaching hours, so he became music teacher by day, and musician by night.

Roy’s love for music has opened up countless paths from musician to teacher and has enriched his life in ways that only following a passion-filled career could.