SECOND LANGUAGE by Jordan Johari Rais

"SECOND LANGUAGE"; A work heavily influenced by the study of Malay music coming from different times and places, especially through the subdivisions of the Malay culture, in my own interpretation, and a rather alternative one.

The tracks here move along with a spectacle of various Malay music elements. Most of which, looks into the music from the Johor-Riau Malays (Ghazal/Zapin), the Javanese (Keronchong/Gamelan), and the Batak Malays (the music Gondang Sabangunan), among others.

The evolution of Malay music has gone through many stages. While some celebrate these changes, others condemn these changes. In this case, Modernity is at times seem to be moving too fast, and in that process it faces the tendency to rape & impregnate the Malay Music. This would eventually spark the many births of new melodies carrying the Malay genes.

Perhaps the underlying interest here lies in how & why roots music of some indigenous groups of people sounds the way they are now. The Malay music could not have just come out the way they are out of nothingness.

To elaborate on this briefly, Malay music came from a number of external influences brought in from many different individuals coming from many different parts of the Malay Peninsula, whose influences tracks down to many different parts of the world. To Track down the very roots of where these sounds or musical influences came from, one would have to go through an enormous web of mind maps.

The Malays as the indigenous people of Singapore were sub-divided into many groups. They are mainly the Javanese, Baweanese, Johor-Riau Malays, Bugis, Minang, and Batak among others. As migrants traveling from different parts of the region into Singapore, they brought along with them musical influences that are closest to their own individual roots. As they gathered in groups, speaking and playing music in unison despite their differences, a “new” fusion of sounds & music was born. It is likely that the essence of “Malayness” that we hear in Malay music was formed then out of many adaptations, which would still be heard or felt in Malay music & songs in this present times.

My attempt at experimenting with the Malay music is not to tamper it within or beyond its own recognition. Its is not to create another path of evolution for Malay music. Rather, it is to explore the unknown sides to Malay music, to expand its limits of rights and wrongs. To see beyond the possibilities of unopened doors. To free.

The controversial part of this process is perhaps to treat Malay music with small elements of Free Jazz improvisations & unconventional techniques to creating sounds. Alternate Music writing methods to form musical pieces, compositions, and many all else that could very well be regarded as senseless, senile, and even taboo.

I was looking into the use of traditional music instruments of Malay music to compose numbers with an extraordinary variety of expressions in style and content. Prominently, these compositions would be made within the nature of free jazz improvisations along the way. As I go along, I hope to exemplify the original avant-garde and use them in Malay music. Perhaps, this is where it might get a tad controversial. Upon which, i could be deemed a senseless, senile taboo mongering musical director.

One of the main reasons behind the use of Noise, experimental sound scapes, and especially Free Jazz in this study is because I personally feel that while Experimental music and Free Jazz can be quite contemporary in its art form, it is also “ancient” or primitive in its own rights. It kind of relates to pre-dated forms of sound structures, even before music was even created. In this, I am hoping the results of this fusion or “exchanging of forms” would come out with a sound that is primarily, idiosyncratic.

On a personal level as a musician and composer, my approach to producing music carries with it a tradition of innovation much influenced and embodied by the original avant-garde. Some of these include erasing the significant distinction between music and ambient sound, or conventional musical instruments and random objects not made for music. Treating environment sounds as integral parts of a musical piece, or using random objects to make out the backbone of a musical piece. To experiment with dialectics of sounds made from objects, or explore atonality using conventional instruments. These are among the wide range of experimental possibilities that I would re-establish avant-garde qualities and use them in my rendition of (Malay) music.

under the velvet sky / gulayu arkestra / ...