The Malays engage in a variety of singing and music-related activities. This study deals with the cultural meanings of singing and musical practices by Malays that in this case, in Pahang, Malaysia... Show moreThe Malays engage in a variety of singing and music-related activities. This study deals with the cultural meanings of singing and musical practices by Malays that in this case, in Pahang, Malaysia. This study looks at the ways in which legacies from the past can still be heard in the present and considers the extent to which musical practices in the present are shaped by ideas, beliefs and feelings about the past. The purpose of this study was to uncover and reflect on the fundamental dimensions of singing and musical practices among Malays in Pahang villages. Understanding what people do and how they partake in musical activities help to provide evidence for the nature of music and the function it fulfills in their lives. There are six chapters in this thesis. Chapter 1 elaborates the background of this study. The past musical identity and social environment of the Malay world, of which Pahang is a part, is examined in Chapter 2. Chapter 3 considers two music genres: traditional and regional pop that are considered part of Pahang's musical heritage. Another two music genres: kugiran and punk rock that in many ways are not associated with the songs from the past, are discussed in Chapter 4. In Chapter 5, I focused on social contexts of two Islamic-oriented songs: nazam berendoi and dikir rebana. In the second part of Chapter 5, the participation of young women in music is reviewed. I explore the meanings they impart to the music they practice and/or listen to and to how they relate to different music forms as leisure. In the final chapter, I consider four topics that are crucial to answering the main research question: social status of musicians, continuity and discontinuity in genres; gender-specific songs; and community formation in genres. I conclude my present work by reflecting on Benjamin's works in light of my research findings. Benjamin (2019a and 2019b) was concerned with the different types of Malay music performed by Malay groups and how they encode the cline of Malayness. Creating a sense of Malayness in music as discussed in Benjamin's works, I argue, is an achievement. Benjamin's attempt to evaluate Malayness in songs relies on several generalizations. Some Malay performers acknowledge that a higher degree of melodic ornamentation corresponds to increased Malayness. This association between ornamentation and Malayness, however, is insufficient without adjusting for the performer's competence (singing technique). Show less
This research elucidates various responses of the Yao to the social consequences of civilizing projects historically implemented by a powerful ‘Other’ to them, that is, the successive... Show more This research elucidates various responses of the Yao to the social consequences of civilizing projects historically implemented by a powerful ‘Other’ to them, that is, the successive Chinese imperial and post-imperial states. The Yao are one of the 56 nationalities in today’s China. The research reveals that the Yao’s reactions to the state’s civilizing force are gendered, as manifested in a religious domain. The research shows that Yao men embrace the power of ‘otherness’ that an imperial Daoist cosmology and manuscripts in Chinese entail, while Yao women sustain indigenous culture and belief by ‘singing’. A textual analysis of the probable products of female singing—narratives about goddesses of fertility—points to two types of Yao reaction in the position of women. On the one hand, the narratives embody a symbolic ‘space of negotiation’ in which Yao struggle to claim their agency, but the natural power of female fertility that symbolizes the layer of indigenous culture and belief is eventually domesticated. On the other hand, the narratives convey Yao’s criticisms of the social consequences of imperial Chinese state governance, imposed in the form of patrilineal ideology in marriage and kinship, showing also how different women sought their escape from that. Show less
