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Abstract
This qualitative research study seeks to examine definitions of Singapore music, music by Singapore composers and musics of/in Singapore through the eyes of tertiary music educators in a local institute of teacher education, and to determine pedagogical implications of such definitions in the space of the music classroom. Extensive informal interviews with seven tertiary music educators (key informants) serve as the methodological base for this phenomenological study. Findings suggest that music educators should give focus to the historical, socio-cultural and musical characteristics of the lived and living musical practices that comprise Singapore while being cognizant of contradictions brought forth by recent migratory flows and the emergence of a global city identity.
Introduction
There is often an uneasiness when music educators like myself are being asked to articulate a definition of Singapore music, music by Singapore composers or the distinctive characteristics of musics in Singapore. My uneasiness stems from a lack of certainty and conviction about the association between music and national identity in this young nation, which I was born into only a few years after its independence in 1965.
While Singapore at the point of independence was made up of a majority of Chinese, Malay and Indian immigrants largely because of historical and political factors,1 according to Vadaketh (2014), it
[…] is untethered from our most obvious heartland, the Malay Peninsula. Singapore is not a primary city for the Malay–Indo region, or for China, or for India. It has tried to position itself as the Asian jack of all trades, a developed world hodgepodge that is both all of Asia and yet not Asia at all. While this may work economically, from an identity standpoint, contradictions abound. (p. 65)
One of the key contradictions was articulated by Kuo Pao Kun, the late Singapore playwright, theatre director and arts activist, who spoke about the revival of traditional culture and arts in Singapore,
This is much more difficult for peoples who have long been dislodged from their mother culture. The problem is many times aggravated when the uprooting had been radical and prolonged, especially when the totally uprooted people have been taken away from their ancestral land, brought to a multi-ethnic environment … In Modern Singapore … the entire nation had been built through such a process of displacement. Even to the extent of totally giving up their mother languages, adopting the ex-colonial English for official business as well as daily living … While the supremacy of English seemingly helped much in developing Singapore’s thriving economy, it has posed monumental challenges to the nation’s cultural dislocation. (Kuo, 2002, p. 212)
This dislocation is felt acutely when one is requested by others to sing or articulate repertoire and/or discourse representative of who we are as a multicultural nation. Taking myself as an example, while I am born and bred in Singapore and identify ethnically as Chinese, the musical influences that surrounded me in my formative years were rather eclectic: growing up singing a national anthem in the Malay language; listening to grandma’s Cantonese lullabies as she lulled me to sleep; hearing the call to prayer from the mosque and the combination of the nadaswaram and thavil2 from the Indian temple near the house I grew up in; the occasional Chinese street opera performed during traditional festivals and celebrations; and the ever present selection of English/Chinese popular songs and Western classical music blasting from the radio stations. The varied and changing musical influences for me, which are hardly singular or deeply rooted in any particular genre or tradition, created an interesting (but oftentimes perplexing) dilemma of what I felt might be “representative” as repertoire to put forth that is signature to this young and constantly changing immigrant society.
Also, at the point of independence, vulnerabilities abounded that were linked to racial riots, pressing the government to forge a cohesive national identity towards “a gradual deemphasising of ethnic, clan, and communal identities and sentiments in favour of a higher, common Singaporean identity … The Singaporean, a new glorious pan-Asian breed, was meant to rise from the ashes of ethnic and religious strife, to tower above the clannish impulses that govern lesser beings” (Vadaketh, 2014, p. 66).
Because of an active state and top-down approach to notions of national identity, a certain dependence by the local population is created, seeking “guidance on all issues—from ethnic relations to whether graffiti should be considered art—that might be important for identity creation” (Vadaketh, 2014, p. 66). Local artists, media and civil society who might have been active in organically creating a Singaporean identity, “have been co-opted or subdued by the state. In short, Singaporeans know who we are supposed to be, but have not been given much of a chance to say who we want to be” (Vadaketh, 2014, p. 67).
To add to this already convoluted sense of national identity, with globalization and Singapore’s rapid economic growth, large numbers of migrants have flocked into the country for purely transactional purposes ranging from lower tax rates, safer streets to the ability to invest in property. For these new immigrants, “migration is not about ideals or dreams or what the country stands for” (Vadeketh, 2014, p. 68). Thus, Singapore has in many ways moved towards a global city identity which is more fluid and less rooted compared with a national identity:
Singapore has unwittingly created a model for a future where nationhood, ethnicity, and religion should not matter. Each must be celebrated, but remain secondary to the higher human identity … while there may never be a larger, imagined community within Singapore, people here will constantly be thinking about the larger, global imagined community. (Vadaketh, 2014, p. 69)
Folkestad (2002), in articulating the association between music and national identity, has mentioned that
Music has two main functions in expressing and communicating national identity, which might be called ‘inside-looking-in’, an in-group perspective, and ‘outside-looking-in’, an out-of-group perspective. In the first of these, music is used in order to strengthen the bonds within the group, and to make the members of the group feel that they belong to one another. In the second, the aim of the music is to be recognized by others as being typical member of one national or particular group, and to make people outside the group identify the members of the group as such. (p. 156)
Given the complexity in articulating a national identity in Singapore as evidenced in the above discussion, an exploration into the association between music and national identity would equally be bound with contradictions. Nevertheless, it is a necessary exploration to gather notions of “inside-looking-in” and “outside-looking-in” to come to terms with the positioning of national identity and music in Singapore so as to draw implications for local music education in taking steps forward.
Questioning the definition of Singapore music, music by Singapore composers or musics of/in Singapore needs to consider these inside/outside perspectives taking into account historical and political factors, the influx of globalization through migration, technology and media while being cognizant of the development of a common national identity in balance with maintaining a state/sque multi-racial agenda through arts and culture.
This research study thus has in mind a search for these varied definitions of what comprises Singapore music in a specific space of significance within music education. A teachers’ college or an institute for teacher education is a possible site where such definitions can be contemplated and reflected upon. Because of the many pre-service and in-service music educators that pass through such a space to gather pedagogical know-how towards professional development, gathering data about such definitions from tertiary educators within the music education department of an institute of teacher education and seeing how their definitions affect how they will approach the subject on a pedagogical level, might shed light on what gets disseminated to pre-service and in-service music educators and by consequence to students at large in music classes. Thus, the purpose of this research study is to examine definitions of Singapore music, music by Singapore composers and musics of/in Singapore through the eyes of tertiary music educators in a local institute of teacher education and to determine pedagogical implications of such definitions in the space of the music classroom.
The theoretical framing of this study surrounds notions that have earlier been articulated about national identity in Singapore in terms of multiculturalism, nationalism and globalization in association with music and music education. Some key considerations include: (a) the claiming, displacement and transformation of Chinese, Malay and Indian cultural traditions that have been in existence due to historical and political factors; (b) a de-emphasis of ethnic, clan, and communal identities and sentiments in favour of a common Singaporean identity due to political factors; and (c) the embracing of a global city identity due to economic and political factors.
Methodology
Seven full-time music lecturers involved in the teaching of music education at an institute of teacher education in Singapore at the pre-service, in-service, undergraduate and postgraduate diploma levels were interviewed in this study. Being the only institute of teacher education in Singapore for the preparation of pre-service teachers to teach in primary and secondary governmental schools, the interview sample, which consisted of the entire music education faculty (a total of seven) from the institute, is a significant representation of tertiary music education lecturers in Singapore.
This is a qualitative phenomenological study aimed at gathering cumulative perceptions of a significant group of local tertiary music educators about their subjective views on music and national identity: “the focus is on understanding from the perspective of the person or persons being studied” (Willis, 2007, p. 107). In phenomenology, “the researcher … analyzes the data by reducing the information on significant statements or quotes and combines the statements into themes” (Creswell, 2007, p. 60). From the themes, the researcher develops a textural description on what the participants experienced and how they experienced it in terms of conditions, situations or contexts, to give an overall essence of the experience (Creswell, 2007). The qualitative interview is used as the main source of data collection.
Yin (1994) views interviews as very significant sources of data which allow the researcher to gather information from different perspectives. The views of the interviewees and their subsequent interpretation of these views into their pedagogical approach to the subject were being sought. The researcher, who is a colleague of the team of tertiary music educators being interviewed, has good insights into each interviewee’s musical, pedagogical and research background. The interviews were conducted informally in a single sitting with two fundamental questions being asked (How would you define Singapore music, music by Singapore composers and music of/in Singapore? How have you shaped your pedagogical discourse based on your definitions?). The questions were sent to the interviewees beforehand over email and they were given at least a week to think about possible answers to the questions. The researcher had adequate access to the interviewees after the interviews to further ideas that needed clarification or elaboration. Each interview lasted between 30 to 45 minutes and was audio recorded. All seven interviews were fully transcribed. To ensure trustworthiness in the collated data, the interview transcripts were given to all seven interviewees to check for accuracy and the researcher also sought to clarify unclear responses from interviewees to clarify any misrepresentation.
The data were analysed through descriptive and values coding based on key ideas articulated about music and music education’s association with multiculturalism, nationalism and globalization, and any other emergent codes, before analytical memos were written to further clarify the codes and to draw links and connections between codes (Saldana, 2011). Themes were then formulated which resulted in the narrative presented in the findings.
To add a little more context to the findings, all seven interviewees teach music education related courses at the pre-service and in-service levels. By training, interviewee 1 (Louis) is an ethnomusicologist, interviewee 2 (Edmund) is a music theorist, interviewee 3 (William) is a vocal pedagogue, interviewee 4 (Edwin) is a music analyst, interviewee 5 (Henry) is a seconded music teacher from a mainstream government school, interviewee 6 (Lance) is a conductor and music education major, and interviewee 7 (Paul) is a performer and music education major.
Findings
Inside-looking-in: Claiming, displacement and transformation of Chinese, Malay and Indian music cultural traditions
Understanding the past seems to be a pre-requisite to talking about the present. Louis emphasized the need to examine closely the musical practices of the Chinese, Malay, Indian and the English-educated communities that make up the Singaporean society as starting points to explore whether there is “a Singaporean music or Singapore culture … to analyze this and from here … come up with a concept”. Clarity on what comprises the lived and living musical practices that breathe within the young nation of Singapore (barely 50 years old) would thus provide a useful guide in an attempt to define the nation’s music.
Like any other relatively new nation whose social, historical and cultural influences come from varied spaces due to the ebb and flow of migration, Singapore is no exception. Being part of Malaya not too long ago before it became independent in 1965, the people of Singapore inherited songs and musics from the region. Because the songs and musics have been sung and performed over the years by the people bounded by this geographical locale, transformations eventually occur as the musics evolved through time. People create and define their own musics as they interact with each others’ musical practices.
In Paul’s view,
If we are going to look for Singaporean-ness, what would we be looking for? The only thing I can think of that defines the country is the mix of Indian, Malay, Chinese … and the huge Western influence which came through from colonialism in the 19th century … those influences are very strong … if anything can create a national identity through music, it would be a fusion of those musics.
A slightly nuanced but similar view is provided by Lance who articulated the necessity to include “Asian voices [in music compositions about Singapore] because … that is part of who we are”. Lance thinks that
Leong Yoon Pin’s [a prominent local composer] voice is a very good example of what Singapore music can become … those different voices and spirit coming in … a feeling of assimilation … You don’t feel that the Malay as separate from Chinese [musical elements]. They seem to come together but yet maintain their distinctiveness … it is very much a type of Western technique but flavored with Asian voice.
Henry however, is not in agreement with Paul and Lance’s opinions, feeling personally displaced when one attempts to define Singapore music in terms of its historical links to Chinese, Malay and Indian musical traditions,
When you talk about Singapore music, I will assume that there’s a certain identity and relationship that we develop with ourselves and those kinds of music. I don’t see this close relationship with these musics … Indian, Malay, Chinese and we have so many, so do we call all of them Singapore music? Do we call them music that has migrated over? I guess it is this personal identity that does not relate to me which is why I don’t find they are Singapore music.
These varied views represent a slice of the struggle this tender fast-changing nation is still grappling with in terms of an emerging musical voice that hinges on the historical, a reliance on the lived and living practices of Chinese, Malay and Indian musical cultures evolving and fusing with Euro-American classical and popular influences within the Singapore context that have begun their experimentations but have yet to take root.
Schippers (2009) in his construction of a continuum outlining approaches to culturally diverse music education, placed “monocultural” on one end of the continuum, moving towards “multicultural”, “intercultural” and, at the further end of the continuum, the “transcultural”. Schippers (2009) saw the multicultural approach as an exploration of a variety of musical cultures as separate entities with “different musics [leading] completely separate lives” (p. 42). The intercultural approach is concerned with “loose contact and exchange between cultures” (Schippers & Cain, 2010, p. 42) emphasizing the communication and dynamism of these constantly evolving musics (Määttänen & Westerlund, 2001). The transcultural approach focuses on “an in-depth exchange of approaches and ideas” (Schippers & Cain, 2010, p. 42); a hybridism where particular musics “have taken on characteristics of more than one culture to become specific genres in their own right” (Schippers & Cain, 2010, p. 130). Returning to what was described by Paul and Lance as experiments in fusing Chinese, Malay and Indian musical traditions with Euro-American classical and popular musical genres, it would seem that there is a hint of the “intercultural” in the making and only time will reveal if these experiments will transform into a transcultural possibility recognizable from outside-looking-in.
Kuo (2002) sees Singaporean’s cultural displacement as a strength. So instead of lamenting loss,
Singaporeans adopted an openness and eagerness to take on several cultural heritages to be their own … while [the] individual [has] lost one set of parents, the way is open for them to create a multi-parentage, sinking roots into a diversity of traditions which linearly descended children of particular traditions find it difficult to do. (p. 213)
If one takes on Henry’s view however, which can also represent the views of new migrants into Singapore with no historical links to the particular Chinese, Malay and Indian musical traditions mentioned, would the strong conviction as portrayed by Paul and Lance towards an imagined nostalgia to attempt the construction of a musical national identity that embraces this historicity still be meaningful? An attempt, as Spivak suggests, for literature and the arts to
join in the task of a massive rememoration project, saying ‘we all suffered this way, you remember, this is what happened, you remember,’ so that history is turned into cultural memory. (Spivak, 2010, p. 20)
Outside-looking-in: Giving time for a young nation to develop its musical voice
A key question posed by some of the interviewees is linked to the idea of a trend, a general direction in which music, in this case, is developing or changing over time. Is there already a trend that one can identify and define as Singapore music?
Paul, in articulating his views about the music compositions of local composers, took to task composer, Leong Yoon Pin, questioning the works in this way: while they “can be seen as Singaporean music because he [positioned] local melodies [within a Western] classical style”, one cannot say, “it is Singaporean because it is still [in the musical style of Euro-American] classical music”. For Paul, the concept of Singapore music needs to be identified through a unique musical idiom and not just in terms of lyrical content that highlights the local context. As he remarked,
The first thing people usually say when you ask if there is such a thing as Singapore music, is Xinyao3… But for me, even though Xinyao dealt with topics that are Singaporean, it didn’t seem to me anything markedly Singaporean about the music itself. They all seem to be in a very 1970s, 1980s cliché pop idiom which comes straight out of the Western pop idiom. So I couldn’t see really that is anything uniquely Singaporean.
I did some musicals with Dick Lee.4 This now seems as close to what I’ve come to what you might say is Singaporean, not least because Dick himself is Peranakan which is a fusion in itself. Also he uses Asian things … still Asian theme and the music was much more of a fusion. So the music did fuse Asian instrumentation, some Asian melody lines together with Western like jazz style harmonic idiom so there is a fusion there. Thinking back with all the music I’ve been involved in, that is as Singaporean as it got. The guy [Dick] is Singaporean, Peranakan, also he exported some of that music to the rest of Asia. That seems to me to be the closest to what you might think of as Singaporean music.
The articulations seem clear:
I don’t want to purposely force things to happen. If people want to compose music in such a way, I think I’m fine but I would rather think that perhaps something would evolve say in 30 years … maybe 50 years and we look back and we see, now, this has a certain Singapore flavor … when there is enough to generalize, we can then group them. That applies to Singapore music. Maybe one day, we sort of gradually … share certain common features in our music, then maybe we can say that Singapore music exists. (William)
No, it is not out yet. Because first of all, what Singapore is as a country, is still a mystery to many people. We are too small and that is a fact. …You hear a piece of Singaporean composition and oh, that is Singaporean? No! There isn’t, not yet. (Lance)
There is nothing that establishes a trend, there is nothing that we can say is a school of Singapore music … I don’t think it has happened yet. Whether it will or not remains to be seen but after only 50 years, we don’t have that much time to deliver … probably to be definable as a style and identity, it would have to do two things. It would have to have a tradition, so more than one person is doing it (trend) and it would have to go beyond the borders of Singapore … We are as others see us … So I think it would have to travel so that’s why I started with Dick Lee. That has a Singaporean sound and it has travelled. Whether that style will be taken up by other composers remains to be seen. It’s going to take a couple of generations to find out. (Paul)
Louis highlighted that beyond giving time and space for local music to evolve as expressed by Paul, Lance and William, there is a need for Singaporean society to “remove all the social and cultural baggages of ethnicities”. Louis is adamant that there should be “no interference” from anyone like in “America where there is no national costume, only a national flag and people make music as they wish. A mixture or the cliché cultural melting pot, I called it cultural spicing up, came into fruition … Singapore should be looking at that.”
The obsession with a national identity: De-emphasising of ethnic, clan, and communal identities and sentiments in favour of a common Singaporean identity
But time and space are something that a young nation like Singapore feels she does not have as she tries to establish a political stronghold as a fast-growing economic metropolis while ensuring her people’s sense of identity and belonging. It is not hard to understand the political and economic expediency and urgency for a young nation to define its own unique cultural and national identity, the point of a
pluralist conception of multiculturalism … the state places great emphasis on developing a common national identity and actively promotes a sense of shared affiliation through the public education system … shared national affiliation supersedes other forms of group identities, including racial or religious identities. Consequently, public schools in Singapore vigorously champion a common national identity but remain studiedly neutral with regard to the promotion of group identities. (Ho, 2009, p. 288)
National songs were created for these specific purposes beginning in the 1980s, in the hope that these songs might tug at the heartstrings of Singaporeans towards a love and loyalty for the nation. This government initiative where composers have been asked to compose songs with lyrical content that comprises nationalistic elements, is comparable according to Edwin, to
artists who have been asked by very wealthy families to make family portraits … to display their wealth and their level of cultural maturity by having in house composers and making them write music for their families … it is one aspect of creative endeavor, in this case state sponsored … specific terms of reference attached to that level of patronage. Clearly, their terms of reference would vary with individual forms of expression but I think it is one part of a larger jigsaw puzzle of musical practices in Singapore.
Edwin further added that,
at some point in time after independence, it had always been a kind of priority to establish folk traditions or tradition that a state would sponsor to enable the placing of an identity with the music, the location and the sense of nationalistic patriotic identity. How far a nation wishes to take that on board would depend on how far a nation would like to see how that affixes a certain kind of branding of a particular form of music making and a particular type of music pieces and attached to it a particular identity … I think part of a nation’s desire to have an airline, a football team, to have an orchestra is to affix a certain kind of proprietary reference. If that works, all well and good but then one also has to remember that is not necessarily the view held by individuals who perceive or receive it.
Amidst the fast changing demographics of this tiny nation, it is not hard to imagine the urgent need for the Singaporean government to find ways to establish a sense of national identity for her people particularly through education. As Paul pointed out,
In the work I’ve done with MOE (Ministry of Education), they are very keen. In fact it is their highest priority that within music lessons, there should be the opportunity to reinforce this sense of national identity and I suppose that comes essentially through the national day songs and the community songs which they insist on having as part of their national curriculum.
Musically though, for Paul, the government initiated national songs are not distinctive,
Even though these songs (national and community songs) deal with Singapore themes, I don’t see any Singaporean-ness in them. They are very much in a Western harmonic idiom, occasionally you get some instrumentation that reflects Asian-ness except that they deal with ideas of racial harmony and national identity and seeing Singapore as home.
Not surprisingly, many of the national songs are written in the pop genre to appeal to the general populace. Perhaps popular music can come into play as yet another contender that represents Singapore music on a more neutral platform. After all, people often choose to use music of popular culture to identify themselves. But Folkestad (2002) pointed out the downside of using popular music as a national identity marker:
Global youth culture and its music, because it is the same regardless of the national, ethnic, or cultural heritage of the context in which it operates, might have a non-segregating and uniting function. In a globalized world, particularly in the market for pop music, music is less of a force for national identification than perhaps it used to be. Music might help develop identities and allegiances that are not national, but instead are more cultural: some pop music appeals to identifiable groups of people across national and ethnic boundaries, for example. (p. 160)
Edwin, in a different way, echoed Folkestad’s point, remarking that,
In this day and age, many more younger Singaporeans, some of whom who has made Singapore home, some of whom come from backgrounds where either parent are Singaporean or youths who have made Singapore their place of residence or citizenship through their parents. They come to identify Singapore in different ways and here we find popular music for instance, becoming a very neutral marker in helping to identify with the Singaporean or the person living in Singapore in the 21st century.
Perhaps one can take heed of Paul’s insightful comments,
I think what is etched in their [students] mind is not so much a realization of their national identity but a realization of the constant need to establish a national identity. We are told we have to have a national identity so we have to question this. And what would it be to have a national identity? Am I first a Singaporean or am I firstly Chinese or am I firstly speaking English, basically Western? … I think things like Sing Singapore5 and the constant reinforcement by various government agencies on the need to establish Singapore as an identity is definitely reflected in the students and certainly that has come through as well. But I think it must stem from the need as a small country sandwiched between two very enormous and two very different nations to establish a sense of identity and make sure that Singaporeans pull together … it establishes in the minds of students the need to establish a national identity. And music is such a powerful force to do that but out of it has not come anything, I think which is a uniquely Singaporean musical identity.
On a personal level, conflicting views are articulated about the need for a discernable identity as well. Louis who feels that being a native of Singapore, he is
proud to be what I am and I think it is about time we address this issue of identity. Only by having a sense of belonging-ship, then we have a sense of responsibility towards the nation, towards the community to build this as a beautiful place. And in the arts, I think it brings people together and like football, once upon a time in my younger days, football encompasses a lot of different social groups and different ethnicities. So beautiful to watch and the bands, they are all made up of all ethnicities and that is a blending. And when they write songs … just songs for the sake of writing songs for anyone, a universal appeal … It is our responsibility as educators to look at how we can bring our nation through music and arts education. That’s what I feel strongly about.
And the musics to be included in this nation’s frame should perhaps also be expanded beyond traditional folk tunes, national songs and Singapore composers’ works. Edwin was sharp to point out that
if we stepped into a classroom and discover one of the most popular forms of music making is the Samba Band, clearly that’s not Singaporean if we wanted to compare it with lived culture 60 years ago. We would be denying ourselves to connect with the rest of the world in this present day and age and we would also divorce ourselves from being inclusive of our diverse community. And that can have negative consequences particularly in the way with which if you are Singaporean, you must be able to sing these folk tunes. It is a potential driver in looking at very insular ways of looking at culture and by consequence nationalism and patriotism.
Henry holds an alternative view that is very much ingrained within a global city identity mindset. Henry has defined Singapore music as “music for Singaporeans for themselves”, a constant search for an illusive identity that would inevitably be decimated by the fury of globalization. Mobility is key to Henry,
I have never really been a very nationalistic person, to have a strong sense of belonging and defining I am a Singaporean. I don’t relate so strongly to Singapore as being my homeland. I think that Singapore is made up of a lot of people and I stay in Singapore because of the immediate people around me … that defines my homeland. I don’t look at the broad view of what Singapore is, the government and what is Singapore … To me, it is about the immediate. So this loyalty to the bigger picture, I’m seriously lacking in that. I think more and more people should be thinking that way if I’m not wrong and people are more and more mobile. I don’t think people are going to just stay in Singapore just because it is Singapore and they are born in Singapore. I don’t think it is going to work that way.
A changing demographic: Embracing a global city identity
The city’s [Singapore] constant perpetuation of change and the escalating number of permanent residents and foreign workers make the prospect to attaining a settled sense of identity over time unrealistic. The whole notion of our pluralistic identity must be presently perceived as evolving and unstable. It needs to be discovered, analysed and processed from invisible layers of palimpsest in order to become meaningful. (Lim, 2011, p. 3)
The fast changing demographic of Singapore like in many metropolitan cities begs close attention and examination in terms of its shifting social and cultural landscapes. As Edmund pointed out,
Many are PRs [Permanent Residents], you have to rethink how you want to define Singapore and whose voice is going to constitute that Singaporean voice. It’s going to be very difficult to pinpoint and at the same time, your generational differences are more stark. So to a big sector of your population, whether it is Leong Yoon Pin or … representing a Singapore voice, to them it is totally irrelevant ’cause that is not the type of music they identify with. So much as you can develop and use different elements to justify it being Singaporean, to them they don’t relate.
Edmund further articulates that
the government has recognized a long time ago that nowadays people are more global … global perspective is actually there amongst our population and therefore we can no longer stick to the 1970s/80s model where national education, we identify Chinese, is pertinent, Malay and Indian because times have changed.
Edwin further chimed in this argument stating that
It is vital that we draw onboard the diversity that is already there in the present day lived classroom. To decide that we would all be singing Chan Mali Chan and Di Tanjong Katong6 might put into context an understanding of a Singapore that was probably there 50 to 60 years ago and certainly not reflect the current frame of reference both in demographics and in shared culture and shared identity and shared resources that currently exist in Singapore. If such archival forms of folkness are to exist, a link with lived experiences in the past would be helpful in the same way that we look at how in contemporary culture, many references actually have had much longer references in lived cultures elsewhere in the world.
It is obvious by now that any discourse towards a national identity and in this instance, a musical national identity in Singapore in the 21st century, is complex, fluid and non-conclusive. And perhaps that should be the way forward: a constant critical thinking through and reflection about definitions, of what was, what is and what will be without necessarily placing any value or definitive judgement; a recurrent but needful dialogue.
Further perspectives to consider for music education
Thus far, from an inside-looking-in perspective, it has been articulated that in the definition of Singapore music, music by Singapore composers and musics of/in Singapore, a historical and multicultural perspective can be a possible consideration, of lived and living musical practices that exist within the current Singaporean context, particularly focusing in on the Chinese, Malay and Indian musical traditions. Not so much a static but an evolving process towards transforming and fusing between these Asian traditions or with Euro-American classical and popular music genres approaching the intercultural. There are, however, no identifiable musical trends that an outside-looking-in perspective can discern thus far from the viewpoint of the intercultural. These tertiary music educators are hopeful of an organic evolvement of identifiable musical trends through time and space.
A national music identity forged through composed national songs which de-emphasises ethnic, clan, and communal identities in favour of a common Singaporean identity provides an alternative view to the definition of Singapore music. Clearly, the pop genre peppered with lyrical references to the Singapore context that panders to local youth culture is key to the construction of these national songs. Arguments for and against the propagandistic nature of such songs engineered by the government for purposes of encouraging social cohesion and allegiance to the nation have been articulated by the tertiary music educators. A third complexity brought about through the need for economic growth in this swiftly globalizing young nation, is the emergence of a global city music identity which almost denounces the national and embraces cultural diversity. A global city music identity can run counter to the articulation of the national, which, in Singapore, is further complicated by the fact that neither an inside-looking-in nor an outside-looking-in national perspective has been firmly established.
The significance of music education in today’s diverse world is to allow children to connect their sound worlds with their socio-cultural context, emphasizing sound-making as place-making. Because if children are cognizant of their changing soundscapes, they will be more adept in negotiating their shifting landscape. If it is about embracing a global mindset, then there is a need for music educators
to see the sense of nutrition as a metaphor and a parallel in the world of music making. Much of our musical foundations are built out of our own musical nourishment and nutrition. If we believe that being Singapore, we only have to study these various forms, then we are denying ourselves of a much richer nourishment … how much more embarrassing would we be if the only thing we knew out of our musical experiences in the Singapore music classroom would be these 3 or 4 or 5 folk tunes. (Edwin)
Instead one should extrapolate from local practices beyond navel gazing,
to understand the local is to take on board global points of connectivity … it would be very fallacious from an artistic point of view to mistake local as insularity when the truth is when you deconstruct these practices, how many layers outside Singapore helped with the formation of that identity … if we can come to that level of nuanced inflexion in our understanding of the local, then the discussion of local as insular, local as xenophobia starts to melt away because basically we have demystified and demythified the whole process of what we must play in terms of patriotism. (Edwin)
If music education arrives at points of consciousness for students through active music-making at the level of the local towards the global and glocal,
then we have succeeded with music and we’ve stopped playing with the notion of patriotism, nationalism, local identity or any of these hard identity markers that force us into labelling right as we began, Singapore music. (Edwin)
Research scholars (Folkestad, 2002; Hebert & Kertz-Welzel, 2012) have cautioned against an over-emphasis on national identity in music education as it tends to move towards the inclusion of musics deemed historically and politically significant and omits others, particularly minorities, going against the grain of cultural diversity and inclusion in an increasingly global world. Hebert and Kertz-Welzel (2012) pointed out that an emphasis on the national distracts “music educators from much of the music originating from outside their own nation, but also by promoting a misleading and even artificial view of heritage and tradition that, while comfortably suggestive of a cohesive national identity, largely neglects the actual musical diversity of cultural minorities residing in most nations” (p. 175). Folkestad (2002) proposes an alternative emphasis on music more as cultural rather than national as “it has more direct bearing on the music itself and on musical experiences, rather than on the values it represents” (p. 159). Decades of work within world musics in education (Campbell, 2004; Schippers, 2009; Volk, 1998) have also advocated for opening up minds, theorizing, and encouraging pedagogies and practices towards cultural diversity which runs almost counter to the active and artificial framing of musics within a national agenda. The cultural should, as suggested by McCarthy (2009), be dynamic as, “creative energy moves a tradition forward, and improvisation is at the heart of musical development. By their direct participation in a tradition, students can add to it, even direct its course of development … they can see themselves as creative musicians and their actions as interconnected with the larger world of music making” (p. 35).
Considering Singapore’s identity in multiculturality, need one feel the burden of tradition? Instead of apologizing for “root/less/ness”, is one able to respond with enthusiasm to gain new knowledge, insight and inspiration in this globalized space of diversity of cultures?
Dear nations, please, you were invented as imaginary narratives. After that, unfortunately you were institutionalized and you forgot your origin, you forgot that you are imaginary. Be kind enough, go back to the imaginary. You are fictive narratives and further more, please, be kind enough to compare yourselves. Then you will understand that you are not equal, you are equivalent. (Kiossev as cited in Spivak, 2010, p. 84)
Grosz (2004) reminds us that becoming is of “necessity – a movement of differentiation, divergence, and self-surpassing or actualization of virtualities in the light of the contingencies that befall them” (p. 207). Music education that embraces becoming will necessarily have to think consciously about students’ involvement and engagement in musical activities that involve sound experiences of the past, present and future; a juxtaposition of the traditional against/with the global to explore, question, and celebrate the emergence of the glocal with aesthetic sensibilities. In Grosz’s terms, “the point is not simply semantic” but “understanding the processes of production and creation in terms of openness to the new instead of performism of the expected … our very concept of objects, matter, being … needs to be open to the differentiations that constitute and continually transform it” (2004, p. 207). Seeing that the constant in the 21st century is change, “becoming” seems to be an apt metaphor and philosophical stance to take in music education to constantly question and critically engage students in the musical process so that they become accustomed to the idea of an always emerging musical being.
Notes
1.
By the end of the 19th century, Singapore was recognized as one of the most cosmopolitan cities in Asia, attracting migrants and merchants from China, the Indian sub-continent, Indonesia, the Malay Peninsula and the Middle East due to its vibrant commercial success as a trading post because of its geographical positioning (YourSingapore, 2013).
2.
These classical musical instruments (nadaswaram – brass wind instrument; thavil – drum) originated from Tamil Nadu, India.
3.
“The word itself Xinyao新谣 is shorthand for ‘新加坡年轻人创造的歌谣’. It is a genre of songs that is unique to Singapore, where the songs are composed and sung by young Singaporeans and are usually about life in this small island country” (Xinyao Singapore!, 2011).
4.
Dick Lee is a Singapore pop singer, composer, songwriter and playwright.
5.
“Sing Singapore” was a government initiative to encourage the singing and composing of local songs. It “aims to discover and promote home-grown music and artistes. Through these original songs, it also hopes to nurture the love for music and singing and cultivate a greater sense of togetherness amongst Singaporeans” (Sing Singapore, 2005).
6.
“Chan Mali Chan” and “Di Tanjong Katong” are traditional Malay folk tunes.
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