Editorial

The Malaysian Journal of Music, Volume 9, presents ten articles on issues in ethnomusicology, musicology, composition, music education, popular music and music technology. These issues derive from countries including Japan, Korea, The Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, the United States and Malaysia.

Intertextual Observations of Jimmy Boyle’s Handwritten Manuscripts

Our study on Jimmy Boyle (1922-1971) has been one that attempts to unfold the many facets of his creativity against the single-dimensional image of a patriotic songwriter. His sentiments as songwriters of many kind, a jazzman, and a cultural enthusiast have been proven through his different branches of work that are at times seem contrasting with each other in compositional styles. As a result of a long term archiving project, this paper reveals the entire set of handwritten artefact left after his death in 1971 and was recovered in Universiti Putra Malaysia in 2014, namely some 177 items of Boyle’s handwritten manuscript, that contains unpublished, published compositions as well as hand copy of others’ compositions. Main methods employed were that of the construct of taxonomy, and some cross-examination of the items covered within the catalogue mooted by the concept of intertextuality. Through narrating the interlinks between multiple manuscripts surrounding ‘Mutiara Ku’, ‘Pulau Pinang’ and ‘Medhini’, the process of composition was brought to life in displaying the all rounded capacity of Boyle.

Revisiting the Dusunic Boat Lutes of Sabah: Disappearing Musical Traditions

The Kadazan Dusun sundatang from Tambunan, the Rungus sundatang, and the Lotud gagayan are three kinds of boat lutes from Sabah. Each is carved from a single log of jackfruit wood, but vary structurally. Resembling somewhat Philippine boat lutes, they differ from the sape-types of Sarawak and Kalimantan. They are played solo in non-ritual contexts. The gagayan, however, was played in pairs (batangkung) and the Tambunan sundatang was sometimes accompanied by a hand-held gong when accompanying the slow, sedate magarang sundatang dance. Today, there are very few musicians playing the unique Tambunan sundatang, while the Lotud gagayan has recently declined with the demise of older performers. The Rungus sundatang is still extant and continues to be performed in many longhouses. This paper discusses these three types of Dusunic boat lutes, their structures, performance practices and music, and suggests a possible origin for these kinds of instruments found in northern Borneo.

Japan's Nightingale Geisha Singers: Listening to Women Through Audio Media

This paper examines the emergence and disappearance of Japan’s geisha kashu recording stars over the course of the 20th century, delving into their extensive body of audio recordings, which includes songs by some of Japan's most important early popular composers. Clarifying the distinction between geisha and the geisha recording stars, this paper traces the relationship between “traditional” Japanese musical forms (specifically, the complex of short shamisen songs long associated with geisha) and the popular genres that also comprised the geisha stars' repertoire. While historical audio media provide a valuable resource for scholars and fans alike, unconscious habits and unexamined discourses of listening may lead to the replication of orientalist and sexist stereotypes—and ultimately a superficial experience of the music. As a corrective to such tendencies in audience reception, this paper gives an overview of the key cultural and historical contexts of the geisha recording stars, including their contributions to the careers of several of well-respected composers. Attending to the sometimes difficult circumstances faced by geisha recording stars (and their geisha sisters) may rectify the image of these critically neglected women artists, ultimately providing a necessary counterpoint to the predominance of male musicians and male-centred musical genres in the Japanese canon.

Human and Computation-based Music Representation for Gamelan Music

A public database containing representative data of karawitan traditional music is needed as a resource for researchers who study computer music and karawitan. To establish this database, a text-based pitch model for music representation that is both human and computer-based was first investigated. A new model of musical representation that can be read by humans and computers is proposed to support music and computer research on karawitan also known as gamelan music. The model is expected to serve as the initial effort to establish a public database of karawitan music representation data. The proposed model was inspired by Helmholtz Notation and Scientific Pitch Notation and well-established, text-based pitch representation systems. The model was developed not only for pitch number, high or low or middle pitch information (octave information), but for musical elements found in gamelan sheet music pieces that include pitch value and legato signs. The model was named Gendhing Scientific Pitch Notation (GSPN). Ghending is a Javanese word that means “song”. The GSPN model was designed to represent music by formulating musical elements from a sheet music piece. Furthermore, the model can automatically be converted to other music representation formats. In the experiment, data in the GSPN format was implemented to automatically convert sheet music to a binary code with localist representation technique.

Rendering the Popular as "Tradition": The Music of Virgilio "Pirot" Petcheller and the Panay Bukidnon Banda Music Practice in Panay Island, Philippines

In recent years, the popular music of Virgilio “Pirot” Petcheller had been included in the banda (ensemble) musical repertoire, practice and identity of several indigenous cultural communities in Panay Island located in Western Visayas, Philippines. Pirot’s music, particularly renderings of folk music genres, such as harana (serenade) and komposo (ballad), had been in mainstream broadcast media and were widely produced by the recording industry in the 1970s. Because of the parallels between his music and West Visayan folk practice, folk musicians categorically ascribe and recognise his music as dinuma-an (tradition and traditional) to refer to a standard folk canon with an associated pastoral imagery. Later, Pirot’s music had become emblematic of a regional folk, cultural and/or ethnic identity. This paper investigates the problematic fluidity of boundaries between traditional and popular music categories and its implications in the construction of identity in the Western Visayan context. I examine, on the one hand, how the popular music of Pirot are rendered as “tradition” notably through a discussion on musical aesthetics, lyricism and imagery and the complex socio-cultural and historical context musicians occupy. On the other hand, this paper also proffers a discussion on how this rendering or “traditionalisation” plays a role in the construction of identity among the Panay Bukidnon banda musicians. On this, I recognise the central role of cultural praxis and individual agency in the process and argue that musical categories, particularly the notion of ‘tradition’ and ‘traditional’, are self-conscious devices defined by, and are constitutive of practice.

Zaum Box: New Music for Speaking Percussionist

Zaum Box is a collection of compositions for solo speaking percussionist setting transrational Russian futurist sound poetry called zaum. Zaum arose among a small interdisciplinary group of artists, writers, musicians and thinkers who invented a beyond-rational language as part of the radical disruption of traditional artistic and expressive forms, necessary to bring about the accelerated experience of a technologically-driven future. The subgenre of contemporary concert music for solo speaking instrumentalist dates from the 1970’s and has grown into a significant branch of the solo percussion repertoire. The composition of Zaum Box was founded on an extended period of research into zaum, futurism and Russian language. The complete set of compositions was produced as a limited-edition box set of uniquely formatted scores, which were realised by percussionist Katelyn Rose King in a set of ten videos. This article by the composer reviews all the phases of this project, including research and production, and examines the relationships between text, sound, music and theatricality in selected scores.

Innovation and Change in Approaches to Balinese Gamelan Composition

This article addresses newly developed approaches to gamelan composition among Balinese composers by focusing on changes and innovations within tradition. Balinese composers today represent a cross-section of arts communities who collectively have produced some of the most innovative gamelan compositions in nearly half a century. Subjected to increasingly cosmopolitan reviews from both conservative and progressive audiences, these composers encapsulate the shifting ideals of a generation who value new aesthetic paradigms that increasingly diverge from the history, tradition and legacy of their traditional Balinese predecessors. In the fiercely competitive world of gamelan group rivalry, struggles and triumphs between contemporary composers have always seen creative boundaries pushed to their limits. I examine some of these triumphs and limitations by examining the creative output of six representative Balinese composers who contend with innovation and its reception in local contexts. I argue that innovations in gamelan serve as benchmarks that demarcate creative spaces and approaches while simultaneously testing the real-world confines of changing traditions.

Self-directed Learning in Music Teacher Education: Perspectives from Pre-service Music Teachers in South Korea

This aim of this study is to investigate the perspectives of Korean pre-service music teachers on self-directed thesis seminar conducted in the graduate teacher education program. This research focused on 1) the attitude of pre-service music teachers towards self-directed thesis seminar and 2) the impact of self-directed thesis seminar on the progress of the pre-service music teachers’ performance. Ten pre-service music teachers participated in the researcher’s thesis seminar. The results demonstrated that most of the participants were anxious and insecure in managing the various educational resources as well as monitoring the progress of their study. However, the self-directed thesis seminar has indirectly provided the participants with a new learning environment to manage their own goals, initiate their own learning, and responsible for their own progress and outcomes. The findings also showed that collaborative learning is essential as an instructional approach in self-directed learning to enable the participants to share their views from different perspectives and develop critical thinking.

Assessing Practice Habits: A Study of Collegiate Instrumental Teachers’ Estimation of Students’ Practice Habits Versus Students’ Self-Report

This survey research aims to assess the collegiate instrumental teachers’ ability to estimate students’ practice habits in the practice room based on the students’ performance during the instrumental lesson and to collect collegiate instrumental teachers’ suggestions on estimating students’ practice habits in the practice room. A questionnaire in two forms was designed for 15 collegiate instrumental teachers and 30 music performance undergraduate students who were selected through a convenience sampling approach. The percent agreement (PA) and Cohen’s kappa (𝜿) were utilised to examine the inter-rater reliability between the results of both participants on the practice habits that focus on the practice time, practice sessions, goal setting, focused attention, mental practice, technique practice, metronome practice, practise with an electronic tuner, and practise with other practice strategies. The low average results, 31.50% on the percent agreement and .0437 on the Cohen’s kappa revealed that collegiate instrumental teachers cannot effectively estimate their students’ practice habits in the practice room based on the students’ performance during the instrumental lesson. However, an interesting observation was made from the suggestions given by the teachers, that is, the importance of communication of practice habits as well as observation of them in the private lesson studio. To improve, a system that teaches the key indicators of estimating students’ practice habits or a training package or method to observe students’ use of practice habits in the practice room is recommended to develop for future teachers.