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

In the mid-20th century, it is noteworthy that Malay popular music composedin this era was heavily influenced by various stylistic and cultural musical formsof both the traditional Malay styles such as asli, inang, joget, zapin and evenkeroncong, and also by Western idioms and styles. Branded as jazz ballads inthe Mid-20th Century, Malay popular music is a key subject in unveiling themusical changes in the Malay popular music history of Peninsula Malaysia. Inthe 1960s, there was a trend to compose Malay popular music with heavilyinfluenced idiomatic jazz harmonics in the many various Western styles. In theearly 21st century, as it has musically and stylistically evolved, Malay popularmusic became closely associated with the continuous dissemination of patrioticsongs in Malaysia as well as an amalgamation of the various trending styles ofthe Western hemisphere such as funk, pop, rhythm and blues, gospel and evenrock music. Throughout it all, the continued and consistent harmonics of JazzMusic have been an ever-present tool for many Malay Popular Musiccomposers since the early years of independence. This paper will focus on fourchosen compositions, two from each of the time frames in focus and each tunewill have an analysis from a singular compositional viewpoint, be it melodic(Gema Rembulan-Jimmy Boyle, 1956), chordal (Air Mata Berderai-AlfonsoSoliano,1964) or the dissertation of the song-form (Selingkuh Kasih-MokhzaniIsmail,2006 & Gemilang-Aubrey Suwito,2005). Through the analysis of thechosen musical scores, this paper intends to reintroduce and refresh theessential elements of composing a Malay Popular Music composition as wellas the musical influences and changing mindsets of approach on the differentcompositional styles of Malay popular music, its culture, and identity, of the mid-20th and the early 21st centuries of Malaysia to the current and futurecomposers of this genre.