TAC Student's Song Reaches Selected as Finalist in Oakland Tech Week Competition

She's reaching for the stars—and getting pretty close. SFCM sophomore Lisa Lu's original song "Cosmic Ray" was selected as a finalist in Oakland Tech Week's Songwriting Competition in October, one of 15 overall from over 200 entrants.

Lu grew up in Beijing, China: Arriving at SFCM in 2025 for her freshman year was her first time in the United States. She studies with Jonathan Bingham in the Technology and Applied Composition (TAC) Department, and says he was the one who actually told her about the Oakland Tech Week competition—as well as helping her find her footing in her new home.

"We work on my songwriting stuff, which I think maybe he wasn't really expecting when I came in," Lu laughs. "But he gives really good advice. And he's just very supportive: He informs me about all these events happening in the Bay Area, and as someone who's not originally from here, I don't really have many connections or, so he really helped me get connected and pursue my interests outside of school, too."

Lisa Lu.

Initially, Lu's exposure to music was through classical piano lessons—which included sight singing—she remembers writing her first song on piano as a school assignment when she was 11 years old. "I was like, 'Yeah, that's kinda cool,'" she recalls. "But it had nothing to do with singing. At the time, I didn't feel confident enough to sing and write lyrics."

Lu remembers her mother singing Cantonese pop music around her, but was captured by the Western pop she also heard on the radio on rides to school.

"Ariana Grande, Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga," Lu recites. "I would just listen to their songs for hours at a time every day, when I was doing homework. It was a lot of exposure and a lot of listening before I actually started writing my own things. That was also around the time when I was introduced to rock music and started playing bass guitar, which was when music really clicked with me. I thought, 'Oh, this is something I really want to do for the rest of my life.'"

Despite her piano training, Lu gravitated specifically to the bass guitar. "There was a time when I really wanted to be a professional bassist," she said. "I practiced a lot. I played a lot of rock and funk songs, and that definitely influenced how I write music, especially making an interesting low end. In a lot of pop songs, you realize the low end is just kind of simple, but I want to step out of that and make pop songs that bass players also find intriguing."

Lu was picking up experience in a group setting as early as middle school, singing and playing bass in her own band. Attending a "very academic" high school," she says, didn't leave them with a lot of time to write their own material, but the group did make it into a studio to record a cover of "Bad Romance" by Lady Gaga. By 16, she felt confident enough in her voice and writing to create "Cosmic Ray," her entrant into the Oakland Tech Week competition.

"The final version's definitely changed a lot since then, but it's my first time writing a full-on electronic pop song," she says. "It's kind of about escapism and trying to get away from all the turmoil and issues that we have to face in everyday life, and just trying to pursue this one thing: Going on this journey that will lead to what you ultimately see for yourself. That was what I was thinking when I was writing it. I remember it was the summer: I was at my parents' house in Beijing, and it was very hot and I was just doing homework. There just wasn't much going on at the time, and I was like, 'What if there could be more? What if I can do more?' The song is my way of trying to connect to that potential."

Learn more about studying TAC at SFCM.