Gallery 1. Makyung theater-dance performance, mimicking animal's motions, figures and 'nature' gestures. © Copyright 2010 School of the Arts USM
Video 1. Makyung Kelantan theater-dance performance with 'Sembah Guru' rituals documented by PUSAKA
CONTENTS
CLICK THE LINKS BELOW
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​The Seed of Life (SoL ~ so-ul)
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Ancestral Dance: Mangrove Forest Wetland Soundscape
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The Travellers: Freshwater Lake Wetland Soundscape
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The Black Forest: World-Wide-Forest Soundscape
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Shelter and Rest: Cave Limestone Soundscape
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Harvesting the Spirit of the Rice Paddy: Rice Paddy Field Soundscape
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The Shadow
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Tingkap Nada: Live Audio Streamer Installation
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Gerak Nada: Interactive 3-D Motion Sound Event
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MiMaR
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Turun Tengah
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Menghadap
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Gajah Menangis
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Nu
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San
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MiMaR (Miroirs of Malay Rebab)
Keywords: Mak Yong, Makyung, Malay, Experimental Music, Sound, Nature, Electroacoustic
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Miroirs of Malay Rebab will set out to underpin the aim of the artistic research theme study - Nada Bumi in which is to re-imagine Malay cultural identity with the accentuation of biophony and geophony materials through sound art practice. The objective of this artistic research project are; 1) to study selected Makyong musical repertoire performed by the Malay Rebab and ensemble to accompany the dance movements for conservation through media archive and 2) to produce a cycle of five sound arts comprising electroacoustic soundscape, instrumental and sound installation entitled Miroirs of Malay Rebab; Buka, Menghadap, Enchanted Rain, Nu, and San, inspired by the 'narrative' and 'settings' of the Malay Makyong or Makyung or Mak Yong traditional dance-theater (Video 1).
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Makyong, Makyung, Mak Yong, Mak Yung
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Makyung or Makyong is a traditional musical dance-theatre and identified as the most authentic art form that represents the Malays by scholars which have been recognised by UNESCO as Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity in Kelantan and Terengganu, Malaysia. According to Mohd Nordin (1999), Makyung involves shamanistic ritual performance, rooted in the belief of animism, subtle creatures and spirits of the forest, animals, sea, and more among the ancient Malays. This can be observed from the choreography of the Makyong itself that mimics the motions and figures of natures and symbolise spiritualistic relationship with natures (Gallery 1). Furthermore, Gulam-Sawar Yusof (2004) mentioned that "the shamanistic rituals are still performed in the villages, but today they are mostly frowned upon, and the ritual performances in Makyung are more elaborate, reflecting the profound, mystical meaning and its original purpose of serving as a guide to the spirit world Shamanistic practices in Makyung are enacted for spiritual healing, honoring the instructor and graduating the artist". David Hendy (2013) expressed that sounds have been used in religious and ritual activities since ancient primitive humans.
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Video 2. Basic dance movements of Makyong Kelantan theater-dance performance, demonstrated by Amiira Natasya Othman, Universiti Malaya, Malaysia performing arts undergraduate student.
Through literature research, archival research, and contact survey from Makyong institutions (scholars and professional practitioners), the theater performance history, structure, and costumes of Makyong were discussed in great detail. However, it is found out that not many in-depth details and discussions currently available on Makyong dance movements and musical accompaniment performance recordings, transcriptions, and writings for the acoustemology studies. However, there are several pieces of information in regards to the list of common Makyong musical repertoire and basic dance movement types to be known from an academic research grant on Makyong by the Universiti Sains Malaysia published on their Makyong research project website in 2010 which consists of dance movement photographs with the name of the dance movement and music score excerpt (USM, 2010). Following this, due to a great sense of 'indifferent' and 'unenthusiastic' attitude displayed by the Makyong professional (senior) practitioners, basic Makyong dance movements are performed by a well experienced and academically trained performing arts dancer and video recorded to examine the animated gestures and motions of the dance movements in full-perspective (Video 2) for its relationship with the sound culture, sound symbols and soundmarks within the Makyong 'narrative' and soundworld (soundscapes, music performance, speech, and other sounding objects).
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Makyong Gestures and Motions: From Nature to Ritual Narrative Soundworld
To be updated// makyong soundscapes and landscapes, habitual and performance environment - sound gestures and visual (animated or symbol) gestures - mimicing nature (dance) - ritual - beliefs narrative. Dance analysis https://worlddanceheritage.org/analysis/
References:​
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Cross, I. (2003). Music and biocultural evolution. The cultural study of music, 19. Retrieved from
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Mohamad, Z. (2012). Report: The Mak Yong Spiritual Dance Heritage Conference, Performances, and
Workshops: Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization (SEAMEO), Southeast Asian Project for Archaeology and Fine Arts (SPAFA). Centre for Archeology and Fine Arts (in collaboration with Thai Studies Research Institute), Thammasat University. 20-21 September 2011. Asian Theatre Journal, 445-460.
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Mpss, P. (2010). The revitalization of Mak Yong in the Malay world. Wacana, 12(1), 1-19.
UNESCO. (2008). Culture Intangible Heritage List. Mak Yong theater. Retrieved from
https://ich.unesco.org/en/RL/mak-yong-theatre-00167
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USM. (2010). Makyong Research Grant. Universiti Sains Malaysia. Retrieved
from http://web.usm.my/makyong/makyong.asp?CategoryId=1&MenuId=28
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MiMaR: Gajah Menangis | 3rd Movement
(The Weeping Elephant)
MiMaR (Miroir of Malay Rebab): Gajah Menangis (the weeping elephant) is an electroacoustic composition for amplified flute, cello, and found-soundscapes commissioned for the three-nations concert project; Korea, Singapore, and Malaysia in July 2021 organised by the Malaysian Composers Collective Society (MCC). Elephants are the largest existing land animals and these majestic creatures were present in Makyong's story as mythical animals, which also associated with other cultures and religious narratives across Southeast Asia countries (Yusof, G.S. 2015, De Danaan, L. 1986). The piece portrays the survival behavior of the creature from the cruel acts of mankind in this 'fallen world'; deforestation, poaching, and other forms of animal abuse. With heart-wrenching to learn about their painful life, this piece is dedicated to the mother elephant and her unborn calf, both tragically murdered in Plakkad, Kerala, India in May 2020 (BBC News, June 2020). The flute, symbolise the delicate breathing and liveness of the elephant binate by her innocent soul, as voiced by the cello during her times on earth, wandering around in the tropical rainforest for survival until its last breath and tears. The sonic events of the piece were composed based on the bioacoustic data (sonic fingerprints) collection of elephant acoustic communication (biophonic) contexts according to the elephant Ethogram table with permission from the ElephantVoices organisation. "The Elephant Ethogram is a uniquely detailed catalog, or library, of the behavior and communication of African savanna elephants (Loxodonta africana). It is based on decades of ElephantVoices behavioral studies, photographs, and audio and video recordings, the referenced research of other elephant biologists, as well as professional and amateur footage made available to ElephantVoices." (Elephantvoices, 2021). Extended playing techniques of the instrument were explored to realised the soundworld, gravitated by the habitual soundscape of the narrative.
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Keywords: Bioacoustics, Elephant, Extended Techniques, Flute, Cello, Electroacoustic, Soundscape
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Work Structure and Plan
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Figure 1.1 Quick draft sketch of Gajah Menangis work structure and plan for Flute, Cello and Found-soundscape
The piece is structured for 6 minutes duration as required for the three-nations concert event due to safe distancing measures for Covid-19 Pandemic and there will be no intermission during the performance. As a result, a minimum of two instruments are planned for the work; flute and cello for contrast timbral quality and flexible resultant tone register. Flute and cello sounds put forward for consideration to symbolise the 'heartbeat' and 'soul' of the creature, which metaphorically expressed their survival journey narrative (Figure 1.1 & 1.2)
Figure 1.2 Organised sound gestures structure within 6 minutes time-frame duration based on expression and reflection of the creature's survival journey for Gajah Menangis piece.
Sound Collections and Design
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Bioacoustic data is selected according to the mapping of elephant's acoustic communication (biophonic) behavior context with related keywords used in the narrative structure as programmed in this piece's work structure and plan. Pitch-frequency, loudness difference, and octave translation (transposition) from spectrogram analaysis were used to synthesised the selected sonic fingerprints for sound collection within the flute and cello instrumentation capacity. The temporal shift of rhythmic gestures, register gestures, harmonicity, and loudness on the organised sound collections shapes the sonic tension-density, and perception-mood of the programmed narrative (Figure 1.2). The instrumentation playing techniques including extended techniques are explored to phonetically imitates, resembles, or suggests the elephant sound behavior gestures inline with the composition's narrative expression.
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The Elephant Ethogram table mapping into composition expression narrative for biophonic sound behavior (biophonic) collections in Figure 2.1 as following below:
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A. Wandering, and Naive.
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Context 1
Foraging & Comfort Technique; Methods or techniques employed by elephants to achieve comfort or to feed effectively on particular types of vegetation or species of plant.
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Behavior 1
Adorn-Body (0), Bend-Down-Bite-Vegetation (4), Bite-off-Dirt (0), Blow (1), Break-Sapling (1), Carry (0), Coprophagia (1), Dig-Minerals (1), Dig-Water (1), Digging (0), Dust-Wound (2), Dusting (10), Ear-Swat (2), Fell-Tree (3), Filter-Water (0), Food-Sampling (2), Food-Sharing (6), Food-Stealing (7), Foot-Splashing (0), Grasp-Branch-Bite (1), Grasp-Branch-Break-with-Foot (1), Grasp-Branch-Break-with-Tusk (5), Grasp-Break-Branch (7), Grasp-Grass-Slice-with-Foot (1), Grasp-Kick-Grass (3), Grasp-Seedling-Pull (3), Grasp-Seedling-Slice-with-Foot (9), Grasp-Water-Plant-Pull (1), Grasp-Water-Plant-Slice-with-Foot (1), Guide-Branch (1), Head-Toss (1), Kick-Grass (1), Nose-Picking (4), Orient-Away (1), Pack-Grass (0), Pharyngeal-Pouch-Suck (1), Pluck-Branchlets (0), Pluck-Leaves (1), Pluck-Mushrooms (1), Pluck-Object (1), Pluck-Seed-Pods (7), Plunge (1), Rip-Grass (4), Roll-Tree (4), Rub-off-Dirt (2), Rubbing (23), Scrape-Ground (1), Scratch-Foot-Sole (1), Scratch-with-Foot (5), Scratch-with-Object (5), Scratch-with-Tail (1), Scratch-with-Trunk (15), Scratch-with-Tusk (2), Scrub-off-Thorns (2), Shake-off-Dirt (1), Shake-Tree (3), Step-On-Break-Sapling (1), Step-On-Sapling-Slice-With-Foot (1), Stow-Branch (2), Strip-Bark (7), Strip-Branch (0), Sweep-off-Dirt (5), Tail-Fly-Swatting (1), Tail-Swatting (1), Thermoregulatory-Ear-Flapping (3), Touch-Wound (1), Trunk-Curl-Squeeze-Rip-Grass (1), Trunk-Fly-Swatting (1), Trunk-Squirt (2), Trunk-Sucking (1), Trunk-Suction (0), Tusk-Ground (3), Uproot-Forb (1), Wash-Water-Plants (4),
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Behavior 1
Constellation. Browsing-Technique (0), Comfort-Technique (0), Foraging-Technique (0), Solicit-Food (0), Tool-Use (0),
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Selected elephant sound behavior gestures 1: Nose-Picking and Trunk-Squirt.
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Spectrogram Analysis 1:
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B. Threatening.
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Context 2
Vigilance; Behaviors employed to attend to the possible danger posed by potential predators.
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Behavior 2
Chin-Up (6), Comment-Rumble (1), Displacement-Feeding (0), Displacement-Grooming (0), Ear-Spreading (0), Ears-Stiff (5), Eye-Blinking (0), Eyes-Wide (2), Foot-Lifting (3), Foot-Swinging (4), Head-Swinging (4), J-Trunk (5), Look-At (1), Look-Back (0), Periscope-Trunk (18), Rumble (0), Tail-Raising (1), Touch-Self (6), Trunk-Curled-Under (0), Trunk-Flick-Down (2), Trunk-Sucking (0), Trunk-Toward (7), Walk-Away (0),
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Behavior 2 Constellation
Apprehensive (1), Bunching (0), Contemplating (6), Freezing (8), Listening (8), Snort-Rumble (0), Stand-Guard (1), Trunk-Touch (0),
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Selected elephant sound behavior gestures 2: Rumble
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Spectrogram Analysis 2:
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Context 3
Avoidance; Behaviors employed to evade actual or perceived dangers posed by non-elephant threats.
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Behavior 3
Back-Away (2), Ear-Flap-Slide (1), Ear-Slap (1), Jolt (2), Look-Back (6), Orient-Away (0), Retreat-From (3), Rumble (0), Snort (3), Tail-Raising (7),
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Behaviour 3 Constellation
Back-Bowing (0), Full-Retreat (1), Movement-Initiation (2), Panic-Running (6), Rear-Guard (4),
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Selected elephant sound behavior gestures 3: Snort
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Spectrogram Analysis 3:
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C. Intense Pain
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Context 4
Protest & Distress; Behaviors, primarily vocalizations, given when in pain, or when complaining or protesting at some perceived wrong.
Behavior 4
Bark (0), Baroo-Rumble (3), Grumble-Rumble (6), Head-Shaking (1), Husky-Cry (8), Open-Mouth (2), Protest-Trumpet (1), Roar (20), Rumble (0), Separated-Rumble (1), Social-Trumpet (1), Trumpet (0), V8-Rumble (5), Walk-Toward (0),
Behavior 4 Constellation
Cry-Rumble (0), Group-Charge (0), Grumble-Rumble-Cry-Grumble-Rumble (0), Husky-Cry-Roar-Rumble (0), Roar-Rumble (0), Rumble-Roar (2), Rumble-Roar-Rumble (0), Trunk-Touch (0),
Selected elephant sound behavior gestures 4: Baroo-rumble, trumpet, roar.
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Spectrogram Analysis 4:
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D. Crying, and Weeping.
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Context 5
Calf Reassurance & Protection; Behaviors employed to defend, protect, help, guide, comfort or console calves, or in calf solicitation of such actions.
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Behavior 5
Alarmed-Trumpet (3), Allo-Trunk-Sucking (1), Back-Toward (2), Baroo-Rumble (1), Call-Calf-Rumble (3), Carry (0), Comfort-Suckling (6), Coo-Rumble (6), Digging (0), Ear-Lifting (0), Ear-Spreading (3), Follow (1), Foot-Nudge (1), Grasp-Tail (2), Grasp-Trunk (0), Grumble-Rumble (0), Head-Shaking (4), Husky-Cry (12), Kick-Back (1), Lifting (6), Look-Back (0), Mounting (1), Open-Mouth (0), Orient-Toward (1), Pulling (4), Pushing (1), Retrieve (0), Rev (1), Roar (0), Rumble (0), Run-After (1), Scrape-Ground (2), Separated-Rumble (0), Sheltering (6), Tail-Raising (1), Tail-Swatting (2), Trumpet (0), Trumpet-Blast (1), Trunk-Nudge (3), Trunk-Sweep (0), Trunk-to-Body (0), Trunk-to-Face (2), Trunk-to-Genitals (9), Trunk-to-Mouth (9), Trunk-Toward (1), Walk-Away (0), Walk-Toward (0), Walk-Wait (1),
Behavior 5 Constellation
Adult-Intervention (0), Allomother-Intervention (9), Allomothering (0), Babysitting (0), Caressing (9), Guiding (6), Helping (7), Kidnap (1), Maintain-Proximity (0), Remove-Foreign-Object (0), Shepherding (19), Snort-Trumpet (1), Solicit-Help (0), Trunk-Touch (0), Waiting (6),
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Selected elephant sound behavior gestures 5: Call-calf rumble and husky-cry
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Spectrogram Analysis 5:
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E. Sleeping, and Lifeless.
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Context 6
Death; Behavioral responses to a dying elephant or the investigation of, or intervention with, the body, carcass, or bones of a dead elephant.
Behavior 6
Back-Toward-Carcass (0), Carry-Bone (2), Carry-Carcass (0), Cover-Carcass (0), Feed-Carcass (0), Flehmen-Carcass (1), Lift-Carcass (1), Mount-Carcass (1), Mouth-Carcass (0), Pull-Carcass (0), Scrape-Ground (0), Silence (0), Step-On (0), Touch-Carcass-with-Foot (0), Touch-Carcass-with-Head (0), Touch-Carcass-with-Trunk (0), Trunk-Toward-Carcass (0),
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Behavior 6 Constellation
Guard-Carcass (0), Mourn (3), Object-Play (0),
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Selected elephant sound behavior gestures 6: Silence, touch, scrape.
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Spectrogram Analysis 6:
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Translating Sound Narrative: Gesture, Event, and Notation
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Video 1. Possible flute extended techniques to mimic the elephant 'rumble' and 'trumpet' vocalization sounds.
Compositional devices: (to be updated)
Multiphonics
Harmonics
Percussive sounds
Melisma and other articulations
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References:
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BBC News, (June 2020). India outrage after pregnant elephant dies eating 'firecracker fruit'. Retrieved from
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-52918603
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De Danaan, L. (1986). The blossom falling: Movement and allusion in a Malay dance. Asian Theatre Journal, 3(1), 110-117.
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Elephantvoices (2021). The Elephant Ethogram: Introduction. Retrieved from
https://www.elephantvoices.org/elephant-ethogram/intro.html
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Keller, L. (March 2019). A Crumb Score DemystifiedRetrieved from
https://www.chambermusicsociety.org/about/news/a-crumb-score-demystified/
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Sharma, N., Kohshima, S., & Sukumar, R. (2020). Asian elephants modulate their vocalizations when disturbed. Animal Behaviour, 160, 99-111. Retrieved from
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0003347219303938
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Rogier de Pijper (October 2012). How to play with a trumpet embouchure on the flute Retrieved
from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEpzdK6APf4
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Yousof, G. S. (2015). Panggung Semar: Aspects of Traditional Malay Theatre. Partridge Publishing Singapore.