Malaysian Choral Music

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Stranger Than Fiction

Malaysian composer from Melaka takes choral music where no Malaysian choral group has ever gone before.

Blasting Off Into The Unknown

Ng Shyh Poh created a series of graphic scores for his choral composition for the recent 6th Young Singers Choral Festival this June. Intriguingly titled Science Fiction, the work received enthusiastic response from the performers, who have since started to view choral music in a new light. Fundamentally, the experimental nature of Ng's work has set the performers on a new journey to unknown regions of performance. Once they have embarked on this musical odyssey, they can probably never turn back. And that is a good beginning!

Ng writes a diary on the process of creating his work and embarking on the rehearsals to shape the sounds that would eventually emerge:

A Musical Odysey

Science Fiction was inspired by the e-book "Intelligent Design - The Message From The Designer" (written by Rael), which I read at the earlier part of this year. I already had a plan in mind to compose a choral piece to express my imagination on the subject of the Extra-terrestrial.

For me, the word "Extra-terrestrial" itself is a word that is related to the mysterious, the illusory and the unexplainable. To learn more about the subject, I searched for information from the book store, internet, and even from Youtube. So this is where I got all my impressions of Extra-terrestrials.

At first, I planed to use the whole tone scale as my main material to express the unique atmosphere that I was trying to create. I even planned to use only the high range of the piano as accompaniment to create the same effect. But after I'd tried a few bars of it, I found that the result was not really satisfying me, and it sound more like a dream passage instead of the unique atmosphere that I was trying to create.

After I listened to my inner voice again, I found that what I really wanted was something more microtonal, a mystical atmosphere, with lost of spaces, and even visualization. On that last point, I thought that I should give the performer more spaces to create the music through improvisation.

So during the creation of this piece what I did was to figure out the sounds that I wished to put in my music, the gesture of each of the sounds and the structure of the music. Whereas the rest of the elements, like pitch and rhythm, would be given to the performer to figure out.

That's why my score is notated through a graphic score, and the performers should perform without opening their eyes, and perform without a conductor. What I want is for every single performer to play their parts from their heart instead of from their memory.

In performing this piece, everyone knows what he needs to do. Everyone contributes his sound based on his own decisions, yet his decisions still follow the structure of the music. So my method has been to only give the idea or plan, and then let the performers themselves share in joining the process of creation together during performance.

Battlescore Galactica - the first four pages of "Science Fiction"

Rehearsing Science Fiction

From the time I finished the work until the date of performance, I actually only had four rehearsals to work with the choir. And each of the rehearsals only allowed me around one and a half hours to work with them. It was really a challenge for me, and I really learned a lot from experimenting the practicality of my new choir piece.

The first step was to demonstrate all the sounds that had been written down in the score, and I was so excited that some of the difficult effects - such s singing and whistling at the same time, throat singing, and imitating the Extra-terrestrial's spoken sounds (although I've not heard one before) had been successful created by some of the members.

Before we started I really felt concerned about whether the singers would be able to create the sounds or not, and at one point I actually thought to cancel those difficult effects. But the singers really did a wonderful job.

The second step in rehearsing was to teach them the all the particular gestures that should be acted out while creating the particular sound. Then the last step was to put the entire thing together and follow the music structure through improvisation.

Initially, I found that asking performers who haven't tried experimental music before to improvise on the spot was difficult, their response was hesitation to contribute the sound.
Everyone ends up waiting for someone else to contribute the sound, and they feel uncomfortable because they are so used to being lead by a conductor.

And this is the first time they need to make their own decisions as to where they should make the sounds and where should they should not. It was really a good experience working with those who have not tried experimental techniques before. So what I do is just keep on encouraging and encouraging. To tell them nothing is right or wrong in this music. That the music just needs the performers to join the process of the creation to keep it going. It sounds simple; but it is hard to do.

Getting The Work Off The Ground

This piece was commissioned by The 6th Young Singers Choral Festival, and received its World Premiere on 5 June 2008 at KLPac, performed by La Voce Choir.

During the sound check we had decided to use mixed positions for the singers and have them facing different directions from what we had rehearsed before. Everyone was allowed to choose his favorite place to stand and faced the direction of his choice. Even not facing the audience was permitted. And all the performers were spread out evenly so that they would have enough space for their gestures and movements.

The audience that day consisted almost entirely of the high school choir students who came to participate in the Young Singers Choral Festival. There were some choir teachers as well, and 4 guest tutors, Branko Stark, André de Quadros, Juliette Lai, and Lee Shiak Yao.

This piece was the third last piece on the programme. And I can feel the concentration of the audience on this music, as some of them have never seen a performance of experimental music before. The hall became very silent while the music started to be performed. Everyone was so curious as to what would happen next.

After the performance, I received a lot of feedback, some said that they were really impressed by the music. Some said that the music was very scary, some of them found it very unique, some of them like it, others could not accept it, and some said it needed more melody, etc.

The guest tutors started to argue whether the piece is still considered a choral work or not, some felt that the piece is had too much of an idea within a piece of music but lacked composition technique.

I think I really learned a lot from all the feedback that I've received. I can see the different responses, and different expectations from people of different ages and backgrounds. What I tried to do is to give the audience a different experience in music. In the end, the most important thing is for me is that the audience and the performers get some inspiration from the piece.

- Ng Shyh Poh, June 2008

Hearing Voices

This month's Malaysian Art Radio programme presents some strange sounds for choral ensemble from both Malaysian and regional composers.

Ng Shyh Poh's Science Fiction was premiered recently at the 6th Young Singers Choral Festival at KLPac in June. His A Land Far Away won the first prize at the 1st Asian Choir Games Jakarta 2007. Another Malaysian contribution is the delightful tribute to the island of Penang, composed by Tan Zi Hua for the Penang State Symphony Orchestra and Chorus.

Indonesia composer Tony Prabowo has written extensively for chorus and solo voice. His compilation album Music For Solo Performer was recorded by distinguished Indonesian vocalist Ubiet. Two of the tracks from the album are excerpted here.

New Zealand's leading choral composer David Hamilton composed Holy Night for the annual school's choral festival The Big Sing, and juxtaposes texts by Lucille Clifton and the Latin Magnificat with pre-recorded sounds.

Japanese composer Hiroyuki Yamamoto's fascinating choral piece is based on texts by Matsuo Basho. The composer has a unique personal style to his compositions, and is always questioning the established musical forms.

Writes Yamamoto about his piece, "What will the role of the text (it may be said that it is words, poetry or speech) for the music be? It is generally thought that "the music expresses the meaning contents of words".

It is clear if we watch the examples such as the sacred song from old times or the song. However, text has one more important role. It is a role to rule structure of the music. Music is worse by the word order of the text, and the music is over before long.

I used a haiku of Basho Matsuo as a text in this music. But, as for the text, the meaning contents of the text are not recognized to a person listening to this music because it is dismantled to the level of the phoneme.

However, a function as the nest of boxes of the music is held even if the text loses meaning content. Rather, as for the significance of existence of the text in the music, will not 'a function as the container of the music" be bigger than "the expression of meaning contents?'"