Music and Me

A short while ago, I had my PuTra showcase where I was the musician for our Randai performance. To be honest, the night of that show, I didn't feel nervous because it never really hit me that it would be our final performance, so I played as I usually would nd didn't stress too much over my mistakes.

The journey to get to that point is quite something. I've talked about it a little on my Instagram story, and I want to keep talking about it but didn't want to be annoying there so instead I'll just talk about it here.

I'm not trained in music, I never was. The closest I got to it was a time when I joined my primary school's orchestra performance and I played the melodian - and wasn't that a disgusting instrument to experience, hahaha.

I like to think that I do have a little bit of musicality, as in I understand how to follow a tempo and not completely tone-deaf. I used to learn K-Pop dance moves of my favorite songs, and that also helped me to learn to follow beats since the movements tended to fit the song's music patterns to an illustrated degree. Saying that, I would like to stress that I have never had any professional music training or self-taught training.

The musicians for Randai were all volunteers. Out of all 10 of us, half were not music students and were never trained in music. I was personally just hoping to get out of doing the galembong movements and also playing music was fun, so I threw myself into the position as soon as it was offered. 

I initially found the music lecturer intimidating. He had quite the RBF, which I probably shouldn't comment on since I've got a potent one as well, and his hair was in thick dreads. He seemed quite rough around the edges and I thought that I would regret volunteering as a musician.

Turns out that books are never meant to be judged by the cover. He's a very patient teacher, and always tries to make learning new songs simple and fun. I remember at some point where I had to learn a new pattern of playing my -at the time- gereteh (instead of sawo), since I had to not clash with the other players' pattern. He had likened it to the beat of Wonder Girls' 'Nobody' and I caught the pattern immediately. He had always been lenient on the non-musically trained students and instead put more pressure on the actual music students, which I was relieved about. At least they would understand all the gibberish notes and whatever chords and keys they talked about, I was just there to learn what I needed to.

Even if he was lenient on us non-music students, from early on he had seen some potential in me. He had asked if I was in the music faculty and why he had never seen me around before. That moment honestly made me feel so flattered that I impressed someone who did music for a living. I told him that I was from the animation faculty, and he jokingly suggested I should switch my major. He had linked the way animation and music both needed their tempo and rhythm, and that probably also helped me grasped what I needed to learn better.

Ever since that moment I knew that Randai would be my favorite class of the semester. It's not everyday that I could play intruments and practice songs with other people when my current course focuses heavily on staying in front of a computer screen instead. When I made music that sounded good, it made me feel so satisfied with myself. It was also a needed break from simply looking at screens.

As we neared the show the music students grew more and more restless. There were many song changes, lyric changes, last minute additions, and major adjustments made with the little time we had remaining and everyone's different commitments. The song that daunted me the most was Urang Minang Baralek Gadang, a fast-paced song celebrating the union of a Minang couple, which was supposed to play before the first scene of our show. 

It especially daunted the musician who would be in charge of playing the complicated melody for the song, even if he was a music student who plays caklempong regularly. 

Still, I remember getting the scoresheet and going ????? because I have never seen that many symbols or letters in my life that I couldn't make heads or tails of. The first time we tried playing it, was extremely slowed down and still a disaster.

I hadn't been able to keep up with the music students who unsurprisingly could read it with ease, even when they tried to explain it to me. There were so many letters and symbols that didn't make sense to me, and I couldn't figure out how to read the score. There were parts called unisons that we all had to play in a certain beat in sync, and I got it wrong so many times. Even when one of them took the time to personally point out the notes that I should play on which beat, I still panicked and couldn't keep up. Even worse, there were different unisons for differeng parts of the song, so that was even more mind boggling.

I had explained that maybe if someone sang along to the music I would better catch up, but the guys just went 'I see', like he didn't really believe me or care. I don't blame him. He's also a student, so the burden to teach someone isn't really his. Our music lecturer seemed content to let us figure this one out on our own, and at that point I decided that if I couldn't understand the score, then I would just memorize the song. Fortunately, the song would be played exactly like the recorded version of it, so I only had to familiarize myself with it to the point where I don't even need to look at the score sheet.

That... was a very long process. The song itself is very catchy and I like to listen to it without intentions of memorizing the unisons or chords, so I often realize too late that I wasn't properly memorizing. I practiced miming the movements of my hand to play the chords according to the song and the pattern I was told to follow, which was supposed to be on beat instead of the upbeat I was used to. On the way to school,on the way back from school, while I was eating, I practiced hitting the air like I would hit my sawo. I sang the song in the shower and memorized its entire progression so thoroughly that it's become my default shower concert song. I strained my voice tryibg to reach the female singer's pitch, but it's okay. I don't need my voice for my part as a musician.

Even so, once I memorized the song, I still scribbled at and highlighted my score sheet for posterity, even adding lyrics to the notes. 

Oh, I just remembered. There was an incident where all the sticks to play the caklempong with went missing. (It's not the Degree students' fault, I know because I personally take pictures of the returned instruments everytime we return them to make sure nothing is missing.) Since I was one of the musicians in charge of the caklempong, I was instructed to find the sticks. I had run up so many stairs and down so many corridors, checking and re-checking the caklempong storage room and Mek Mulung practice room just to make sure they really weren't there, and it took so much time that one of the musicians called me, lightly scolding me about how long I was taking. At that point I was so stressed that I just gave up and returned to the practice room with no sticks, informing the lecturers as such.

That incident made me get my own sticks - a pair of taiko drumsticks that I flipped around to use and wrapped with pink yarn. My first wrap attempt was extremely thick and quite a mess, and understandably did not last long. My second attempt was much cleaner and made a clearer sound when I struck my sawo. To be fair, it's not my fault that no one taught me how to wrap my sticks, so at the very least they served their purpose all while looking very cute.

Anyway. The night of the show. I made a few mistakes,since it was so loud onstage that I could barely hear the ending cue of the jidur player. I could only clearly hear myself, the guitar next to me, and the melody caklempong player. It didn't help that the person playing the gendang near me was horrendously offbeat most times and messed up my own tempo. After that mishap, I made sure to look over at the jidur when I feel like the song is about to end so that I didn't mess up again. And thankfully, that was only one of a few mistakes.

My performance during the show wasnt entirely perfect, but i had played the song i originally dreaded  -- urang minang baralek gadang -- flawlessly. i was so proud of myself for the fact. what made me even happier was that at the wrap-up, when i had been expecting a scolding from the music lecturer about my amateur mistakes, he actually once again gave me an amazing compliment -- that i should switch programs. i felt so so proud and happy, feeling like all the hard work i put in was worth it. honestly, he had made my entire night with his comment. i was embarrassed to be praised in front of everyone but my cheeks had hurt from hiding my smile. truly, he sparked a real passion in music for me. thank you, sir pa'ang! 


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