The Source of Sound 70 Dream songs from Malaysia
Dream songs arise or appear in one’s dreams. It is believed that when one is asleep, one’s soul or spirit wanders and encounters similar beings. The origin of a song, its creative expression and talent, is therefore attributed to the spirits of other living beings or to the essence of phenomena and objects. Shamans are therefore pre-eminently good song dreamers and have the power to heal.
It is a genre of song practised by the original inhabitants of Malaysia, the Jahai, Kensiu, Lanoh, Kintaq, Mendriq, Batek, Temiar, Semai, Jah Hut, Semoq Beri, Cheq Wong, Mah Meri, Semelai and Temoq. Apart from a few rolls of wax, this music was first recorded in 1941 by a mobile team of the then English colonial Malay Radio Broadcasting Company led by E.D. Robertson and the anthropologist H.D. Noone. That was no sinecure because H.D. Noone needed two months to gather the people and to build a house at the end of the road where the recording unit could still come and where the people could perform and stay. Moreover, at that time it was not yet possible to record people who sang and danced at the same time. H.D. Noone managed to convince the Temiar not to do so either. It does not make the recording representative, but compared to the rare wax roll recording that existed, it was quite an improvement. Due to the Second World War, the recordings were not released as an LP by Ethnic Folkways until 1955. The LP immediately had a lasting and profound influence on many a modern composer and popular musician. But there were few like Jon Hassell to whom last month’s Sound Source was dedicated who openly admitted as much.
Dream music is accompanied by the rhythm of bamboo pipes. These are played by women who also perform as a choir. Each rhythm player holds a bamboo tube in each hand, a long male one with a lower tone and a shorter female one with a higher tone. Both are banged independently of each other vertically against the ground or a lying piece of wood. Music of this kind is also made on instruments such as the mouth harp, the bamboo zither, the flute and the nose flute. Each type of instrument is classified in terms of timbre into a sound family and related to certain types of spirits, for example the mouth harp is used to communicate with the forest spirits where the rhythm, the overtones produced and the way the tones are connected indicate which spirit is being addressed.
In the sound source you can listen to the tracks of the LP Temiar Dream Music of Malaya, to the recordings of Hans Oesch, a Swiss ethnomusicologist who travelled alone with an Uher tape recorder through the interior of Malaya in 1963 and succeeded in making recordings of a number of peoples who lived there, which were released on two LPs by the famous Bärenreiter-Musicaphon label, the LP The Negrito of Malacca and the LP The Senoi of Malacca, and finally tracks from the CD Dream Songs and Healing Songs recorded at the Temiar by Marina Roseman between 1981 and 1991.
01 Chinchem part 1 1’37
lp Temiar Dream Music of Malaya
Ethnic Folkways Library FE 4460, A3
Recorded by H. D. Noone, 1941
02 Bah Sain 3’37
lp Temiar Dream Music of Malaya
Ethnic Folkways Library FE 4460, A1
Recorded by H. D. Noone, 1941
03 Ajin 3’33
lp Temiar Dream Music of Malaya
Ethnic Folkways Library FE 4460, B4
Recorded by H. D. Noone, 1941
04 Bawaji 4’41
LP The Negrito of Malacca
Jahai
Bärenreiter-Musicaphon BM 30 L 2526, A1
Recorded Hans Oesch, 1963
05 Bunga 5’14
Jahai
LP The Negrito of Malacca
Bärenreiter-Musicaphon BM 30 L 2526, A4
Recorded Hans Oesch, 1963
06 Jew’s harp of the Lanoh 1’12
Lanoh
Langset: Jew’s harp
Bärenreiter-Musicaphon BM 30 L 2526, B1
Recorded Hans Oesch, 1963
07 Kerantung 1’22
Terhin: zither
Temiar
LP The Senoi of Malacca
Bärenreiter-Musicaphon BM 30 L 2561, A4
Recorded Hans Oesch, 1963
08 Shaman song for the bamboo zither keranting 2’51
Angi: cither and vocals
Semoq Beri
LP The Senoi of Malacca
Bärenreiter-Musicaphon BM 30 L 2561, A8
Recorded Hans Oesch, 1963
09 Chinchem 6’54
Temiar
LP The Senoi of Malacca
Bärenreiter-Musicaphon BM 30 L 2561, B1b
Recorded Hans Oesch, 1963
10 Noseflute the Tuwala Tree 3’11
CD Dream songs and healing sounds. In the rainforests of Malaysia
Malam, Angah Pandak : Nose Flutes
Smithsonian Folkways SF CD 40417
recorded Marina Roseman 1982
11 Healing Ceremony 6’55
Ading Kerah : main singer
CD Dream songs and healing sounds. In the rainforests of Malaysia
Smithsonian Folkways SF CD 40417
recorded Marina Roseman 1982
12 Sempahkə:h Flower 6’38
Penghulu Along Uda :main singer
CD Dream songs and healing sounds. In the rainforests of Malaysia
Smithsonian Folkways SF CD 40417
recorded Marina Roseman 1991
13 The Princess of Mt Sevilu 10’56
Along Indan: main singer
CD Dream songs and healing sounds. In the rainforests of Malaysia
Smithsonian Folkways SF CD 40417
recorded Marina Roseman 1981
