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Javier F Leon, & Helena Simonett. (2016). A Latin American Music Reader : Views From the South. University of Illinois Press.

[Missouri State University]. Introduction to World Music: Lecture 30 - Latin America I [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/2AYvUnoBxVM

[Missouri State University]. Introduction to World Music: Lecture 31 - Latin America II [Video]. YouTube.

[Missouri State University]. Introduction to World Music: Lecture 31 - Latin America III [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/dPQKqtcdY8U

One of the first few things I immediately thought of when receiving the assignment to research what I needed to study, I immediately turned to two things: composition and cultural contexts. After meeting people from different corners of the world, I realize that my understanding of what music is despite having similar academic backgrounds vastly differ because of culture. So, while combing through the materials in the Tun Hussein Onn Library online, I discovered the book A Latin American Music Reader: Views from the South. I intend to use this book as the basis for my research on the Latin American influence. I was first introduced properly to the genre by the World Music class in Sunway. In researching more in Ms. Christine's class on the music of Latin America, I came across these videos which intrigued me a lot on the importance of rhythm culturally in music. The Missouri State University lectures were means to dive deeper into Latin music, and there are a few things that I want to study, hopefully incorporate and compose for the recital. The research materials here are definitely insufficient to properly cover the incredible diversity of music found in this region, but considering the amount of compositions I have to do, these materials suffice as I dwell on the compositions throughout this semester.

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Cecil Forsyth. (1982). Orchestration. Dover Publications.

Pejrolo, A. . D. R. (2017). Acoustic and MIDI orchestration for the contemporary composer a practical guide to writing and sequencing for the studio orchestra /. Routledge.

Sevsay, E. (2013). The Cambridge Guide to Orchestration. Cambridge University Press.

Chris Walton, & Stephanus Muller. (2019). A Composer in Africa: Essays on the Life and Work of Stefans Grové. African Sun Media.

Michael Beckerman, & Paul Boghossian. (2021). Classical Music : Contemporary Perspectives and Challenges. Open Book Publishers.

These references are the ones I use for the majority of the pieces for the orchestra/choir. The Cambridge Guide to Orchestration was something my music teacher had indirectly referenced to while teaching me Western classical music theory, so I intend to understand its contents and use them in my composition. The other books cited are very important secondary documents I will have to take my time to digest. These books are used to fully understand the limitations of the project I am doing on a compositional scale, and also to hopefully provide solutions to those said problems on a perspective level. Though these materials are by no means exhaustive, these materials do sum up the contents of which I will explore more on in the near future while writing the music. Most of my inspiration and guide will come from YouTube examples I will list down down the list, and these materials are of great supplement to me to fully understand the timbre, harmonic, melodic and textural elements I need for the music I envision.

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Orchestration lesson: Ravel (and consequent parts)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38lgGayPkiI

Victor Young: Stella by Starlight
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DInmoJ5JDE

Joep Franssens: Harmony of the Spheres
https://youtu.be/wLkmMEEiNBk

Arvo Pärt: Magnificat
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4NY3iXMBTc

Arvo Pärt: Spiegel im Spiegel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aS7qmtQLSyY

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Piece for choir, string orchestra and piano

This is to all who have passed away while I was in Sunway University and the two important people who passed who indirectly help me understand how profound a cure music can be for me and the society I live in.

Musically, I grew up in a Catholic Church, and a lot of my general knowledge and early life have been molded by the Church. I was always fascinated by composers writing Requiems, but I always found them too rigid a movement of work (excluding Ligeti's Requiem because that is another whole experience). I want this piece to not only reflect the simplistic beauty of what holy texts can offer, but at the same time exploring this beautiful clashes of diatonic notes that we see in more secular, contemporary composers.

Harmony of the Spheres by , Magnificat by Arvo Pärt and Steve Reich's idea of phasing are big influences in this piece.

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RIP Gerald Bingham, Ash, Bryan and Fr. John Chia. I'm sorry I never got to properly pay my final dues to all of you.

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Concertante piece for solo piano, solo violin and ensemble

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Piano, Synth and Voice

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Piece for Classical Guitar and Piano

Not many people know that I play the classical guitar. This piece will hopefully display to the audience about my understanding of the classical guitar. However, I will be the accompanist for this piece, as piano has always been my main instrument. Tentatively, Shanice Chan will be the guitarist for this piece. I have worked with her on other personal recordings and I admire her dedication for those projects.

The piece was written for Valentine's Day, hence the title. Both guitar and piano play separate roles in textures, hopefully highlighting my understanding of the timbres possible with both instruments working together.

The harmonies I used are very much influenced by the Impressionism movement in music, where non-functional harmonies are used, and this drives the piece to a certain development point that is not "musical" but yet feels so when listening to it. I like this style of composing because it gives me so much more space to explore harmonic ideas, creating strong yet abstract brushstrokes on a canvas like in in the grand scale of things, i wish.

There are other touches I added to the piece which I think makes it truly stand out as an original. At points, the pianist seems to give up accompanying the piece, and the almost show-off-y nature of the cadenza seems so out of place given that it is a sonatina, the sudden semiquaver runs in the development section of the piece that turns into chord strummings and diminished runs that sound like it would be better off on a violin are things I was very influenced by in Andrew Filmer's classes and assignments about making very subtle changes to a well-known structure and harmonic ideas.

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Piece for piano and violin

A big part dear to my heart in this musical journey was discovering pieces with my younger brother, who plays the violin. Sadly he did not pursue playing the violin, and instead he is currently completing his final year as an architect student. He is a man important to me growing up, his vast general knowledge something I always aspire to have everyday. Therefore, I have decided to write this piece in a very traditional Western music manner, a tribute to the pieces we've always worked on together.

I don't think I have always been a present brother figure in the family, hence the title of the piece. The common recurring motif of "root note - step down - fourth above - root note" is the "siblings" motif in this piece, and the way it ends by breaking that motif and unaccompanied violin is my contemplation of what might happen to me in the future on a very personal level.

The extensive use of the interval of the 5th in the middle section is something I like to use in my own personal compositions. It gives me a sense of wonder in captivity, like how the D minor chord in the beginning merely grazes at the 13th but still lends the section a very "home key" feel to it. The 5ths to me are very resonant sounding intervals, so in effect it sounds very "big" and awesome.

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Piece for choir, ensemble and piano

This piece will display a lot of rhythmic syncopation, inspired by African and/or Latin American jazz. I intend to blend all these influences together and display how connected these styles of rhythm are by modulating between a few genres.

On a personal note, understanding syncopation in music is a big step into understanding the contemporary musical world and appreciating different aspects of art with its rich histories. The choir is also an integral part in my life, growing up in a church choir as both singer, accompanist and cantor. The instrumentation is a tribute to my history, too, introspective within the big scale of the musical works out there.

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Two singers, choir, piano, strings

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Urgent/Important
- meeting with SIS representative for location at 4pm, Tuesday (6 June 2023)

Urgent/Not Important
- Complete drafts

Not Urgent/Important
- To update Christine/Mayco on work progress
- To meet Elton about logistics/inviting performers

Not Urgent/Not Important
- To check up on Elton's padlet/progress
- to change background of padlet because it is disgustingly bleak rn

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- Get WIP drafts in the padlet (in the grand scale of things, i wish AND Heartbreak Confusion AND lead sheet for What I've Learned from Love)
- work on Hodie Mecum in Eris Paradiso
- complete transferring Sonatina on Valentine's day from paper into Musescore

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Mainly not a lot of things were going on this week musically, (writing this at week 9), but these are the updates of completed work, works-in-progress and works that are not started yet

Completed Work from week 6:
1. Got in contact with the songwriter for Iban citypop, the title will come later
2. Confirmed workshop collaboration with Jeannot Khor
3. Rehearsed with pianist for saccharine confessions of a sinner

Work-In-Progress
1. Still working on the compositions
2. Working on the bass line and settling the thematic material of the song by next week
3. To approach Sunway Music Society's president for manpower for concert

Not Started
1. Covers (refer notes below)
2. To approach Jesse for first editing for the draft of in the grand scales of things, i wish
3. Lyrics for Heartbreak Confession

Notes:
To think about covers to firstly remove some burden of composition, and to also attract an audience with songs they are familiar with. Will work on this next week too

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https://padlet.com/etcy0207/research-project-8yc85ahc7cjxsg49

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I wanted to be a bit more socially conscious with this track, and I decided to highlight a prevalent issue among the youths in Sarawak; teenage pregnancy. I also wanted to tackle it in a way that does not offend a lot of people and also in a way that's innovative to the music scene in Sarawak. Citypop and the Iban language is really never heard of, and with discussions among the people I grew up with, it was a very novel idea.

The lyrics aren't finished yet, but I have the first verse and the draft ideas for the chorus and introductions done. Below are the lyrics and a rough translation:

Apai indu ngasu sekula,
Ngarapka iya bagas ngasu penemu
Sapa nyangka indu dara tau salah singkang
Utai dah nyadi, nadai ulih dipulai baru

Translation, though very rough:
(Her) parents told her to study
Hoping that she'll learn a lot
Who would've thought a girl like her would deviate from her path
The deed's been done, and there's no turning back now

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- Guitars: Caleb, Brandon
- Drums: Alex
- Bass: Shanice (Teddy Bear)
- Classical Guitarist: Shanice
- Vocals: Tim (MIA). Bryan, Bevlie (TBC), Wade (TBC)
- Songwriters: Violet (iban city pop), Franky Erly

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While there is no one literature that I deem satisfying after combing tens of documents in the Tun Hussein Onn Library, these are influences in some of the compositions in the second half of the recital:

1. Sylvia Wong's Rediscovery album
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1FG5W9dTHA&list=OLAK5uy_n-bZDZ8Zgap8dV3y_UMVwuZpFyvRAJQq8

2. Jimmy Boyle's Chendering and Mini-Documentary
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FLxvGaqzVE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbCqfFvbIso

3. Lectures on the music of Hermeto Pascoal
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhzykqvgWZQ&list=PLwvWYVb7kD7p15DYqbuIkrnezCGsxyQZ9&index=1

The Rediscovery album is something I might transcribe as source of inspiration for my creative outputs in the second half of the recital. Sylvia has a way in this album to "humanize" the alienness of odd meters yet still maintains that flavour of exoticism. Her command on harmonic language in her solos and melodies is an inspiration for not just me, but many aspiring Malaysian musicians. The wave of jazz in Southeast Asia is truly an interesting field to study deserving of many more walls of texts here, but for the project I want to especially accentuate what we Malaysians can do as a music community. This is why Jimmy Boyle's Chendering is my direct reference in trying to create an Iban jazz song, but rather than simply copying his works I want to fully understand why Jimmy Boyle's music worked the way it did at the time of intense political turmoil. The mini-documentary and some academic papers written by his son James Boyle was so far the only way I could really try to put Jimmy's gigantic shoeprints onto my own feet. It is probably a project goal bigger than I can chew, but the results I think will prove the effort, whether I find it lacklustre or not. I partially blame the lack of proper practical, individual musicianship training while in university. The lectures on the music of Hermeto Pascoal were something I found interesting when desperately begging for a private instructor in Sunway failed. I want to distil some things I know from this lecture but at the same time create music that is both relatable to the audience and musicians alike.

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Piece for solo baritone and choir