THE INFLUENTIAL MUSICAL COMPOSITIONAL TOOLS OF MALAY POPULAR MUSIC IN MALAYSIA OF THE MID 20th AND THE EARLY 21st CENTURY

Abstract

In the mid-20th century, it is noteworthy that Malay popular music composed in this era was heavily influenced by various stylistic and cultural musical forms of both the traditional Malay styles such as asli, inang, joget, zapin and even keroncong, and also by Western idioms and styles. Branded as jazz ballads in the Mid-20th Century, Malay popular music is a key subject in unveiling the musical changes in the Malay popular music history of Peninsula Malaysia. In the 1960s, there was a trend to compose Malay popular music with heavily influenced idiomatic jazz harmonics in the many various Western styles. In the early 21st century, as it has musically and stylistically evolved, Malay popular music became closely associated with the continuous dissemination of patriotic songs in Malaysia as well as an amalgamation of the various trending styles of the Western hemisphere such as funk, pop, rhythm and blues, gospel and even rock music. Throughout it all, the continued and consistent harmonics of Jazz Music have been an ever-present tool for many Malay Popular Music composers since the early years of independence. This paper will focus on four chosen compositions, two from each of the time frames in focus and each tune will have an analysis from a singular compositional viewpoint, be it melodic (Gema Rembulan-Jimmy Boyle, 1956), chordal (Air Mata Berderai-Alfonso Soliano,1964) or the dissertation of the song-form (Selingkuh Kasih-Mokhzani Ismail,2006 & Gemilang-Aubrey Suwito,2005). Through the analysis of the chosen musical scores, this paper intends to reintroduce and refresh the essential elements of composing a Malay Popular Music composition as well as the musical influences and changing mindsets of approach on the different compositional styles of Malay popular music, its culture, and identity, of the mid-20th and the early 21st centuries of Malaysia to the current and future composers of this genre.