Keyboardist Chooka’s not-so-classic ascent

By Brett Worthington
Updated November 7 2012 - 4:50am, first published May 2 2011 - 12:50pm
Natural: Chooka and his keyboard. Picture: PETER WEAVING
Natural: Chooka and his keyboard. Picture: PETER WEAVING

Ethan “Chooka” Parker spent two years imagining what classical performer Wolfgang Mozart’s music sounded like.The 17-year-old from Red Lion, near Maryborough, discovered Mozart after helping clear out a house.He could take anything that was left over in the house and it was the Mozart CD that drew his attention.“At that stage we didn’t have a CD player,” Chooka said.“I just became fascinated and read the CD cover for two years until we got a CD player,” he said.“I really wanted to hear it. I grew up without a telly, the internet or CD player.“From there I have built up a collection and have 300 classical CDs.“We have since started listening to modern music as we call it – Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash.” Watch Chooka perform Chooka is the youngest son of Alan and Kerry Parker, who have an older son Adam.Mrs Parker homeschooled the two boys with classical music offering a soundtrack underneath their studying.At 13, Ethan became Chooka.He wanted to be a chicken farmer with a million chooks so he gave himself the nickname that has stuck ever since. Rhythms came naturally to the Parker brothers as they drew inspiration from their drummer father. Chooka would replicate his father’s drumming with his hands, before discovering a natural talent with a keyboard.The brothers saved their money and bought a Casio keyboard, kick-staring Chooka’s musical career which has landed him on reality television talent competition Australia’s Got Talent.Life without television and the internet meant Chooka would spend his evenings teaching himself to play the keyboard, extending to teaching himself to read music despite only ever playing original scores.“I make all my music up on the spot,” he said.“They wanted me to rehearse something I wanted to play.“But it will be completely different each time I play.“I never really practice, I just muck around. “I find practice makes music dead. If you practice it becomes mechanical.“I play the way I feel. I have been mucking around for a couple of years now. I don’t know how to play a scale.”Chooka said he could not describe the music he played.He instead launched into a spontaneous performance that drew inspiration from classical performers.“Classical music has had a fairly big influence on me,” Chooka said. “It is just the way I play,” he said. “I just play what is inside me. “I need to release what I am feeling inside and playing is a way to release it.” Fame-seeking performers dominate today’s music industry.But money and fame fail to factor in Chooka’s musical ambitions.“My goal is to lift people up,” he said. “They might be feeling depressed, I try to go down to the level where they are feeling. “I try to make my music sound like the level they are feeling and I try to lift them up to a better level. “I like to bring up the atmosphere, I like to see people happy.” The boy who wanted to have a chook empire has grown into a man with similar ambitions, with sheep having replaced the chickens.He works as a farmhand, with time spent as a roustabout in shearing sheds. The Parkers have about 30 sheep that Chooka shears with hand clippers. “It can take 10 to 15 minutes but my record is four minutes,” he said. “I sort of want to get myself set up with my sheering equipment and work as a general farm hand. “They asked me what I wanted to do if I won. I said I would like to buy a sheep farm and get a grand piano.”The Parkers have borrowed a television so they can watch Chooka on the national stage.But their son’s journey to the Australia’s Got Talent stage is unlike any others.The teen farmer finished his homeschooling after completing year 10 last year.He packed his bags and went to Penshurst in the Victoria’s south-west to attend “shearing school”.“I rocked up with my cowboy hat on and my Casio under my arm,” he said.“I stayed in the shearers’ quarters and every night I would play my little keyboard.“The other shearers heard it and I walked out and they said ‘you’re going on Australia’s Got Talent’.“I had never heard of it. I said I suppose I will give it a go if you want me to.”What followed were two auditions with the programs producers in November before fronting the show’s judges in February.Clearly impressing the judges, the Channel Seven show’s producers have used vision of Chooka for its promotions ahead of tonight’s series return.“I was not really nervous at all,” Chooka said. “The cameraman and interviewer were saying ‘are you nervous? Come on you have got to be nervous’ but I wasn’t,” he said.“It was a fantastic feeling when I first walked onto the stage.“There was like a thousand people, it was a really awesome feeling, there were big lights everywhere.“That was my first time I had performed. Apart from some busking in town six or seven times in town, the only time I had performed was every night for my family.“It is going to be exciting to see me up there on the stage on the TV.”

Subscribe now for unlimited access.

$0/

(min cost $0)

or signup to continue reading

See subscription options

Get the latest Bendigo news in your inbox

Sign up for our newsletter to stay up to date.

We care about the protection of your data. Read our Privacy Policy.