Despite the pervasiveness of music in our daily lives, last night's discussion proved that there music is made up of multiple layers. In order to understand music, knowing what or who we enjoy listening to is not enough. Below are some of the points that were brought up during last night's discussion:
- Because music is so difficult to describe, the most important thing is often our reactions. Those reactions are the most crucial part of music.
- The musical experience – that is, our listening habits – are mood-based. It is usually the case that we look for songs that would intensify our emotions at the time. Music, in a way, amplifies and perhaps even justifies our feelings.
- Instrumental music vs. songs: both songs evoke different feelings and reactions. The former often conjures impressions whereas the latter produce a clear image/narration.
- On the social significance of music: we typically listen to music that we can relate to. Music does not only affect a person on an individual level, but also at a more collective and cultural level. , for instance, usually includes lyrics that tell the story of a person’s life in a given socio-economic context.
- Stereotypes affect how we listen to music, and whose music we listen to.
- Our appreciation towards music is often related to time. This is perhaps why the idea of a “generation” is very strong in the context of music. People who have gone through similar social experiences are more likely to relate to the music produced during a particular era.
- DJing is both active and passive since the DJ plays as s/he listens to the music.
- On sampling and originality: sampling is not a second-rate pursuit in music as it involves the active selection of existing material to create something new.
- It is difficult to separate music and the creators (though sometimes it depends on the genre).
- Music is first and foremost a form of entertainment; the message can come later (once the listener has familiarized his/herself with the music).
- Music is intrusive. It is not like text, a medium that allows people to choose their involvement with it.
- In live performances, musicians can get direct feedback from the audience. It is possible to have an interaction.
- In addition to the romance associated with the physicality of vinyl records, they are useful for documentary purposes whereas digital files that are distributed through the Internet increase the accessibility of music (by an audience that will most likely consists of diverse cultural and socio-economic backgrounds). In short, each medium or “vessel” has its own purpose. One can’t simply say that one medium is more superior to the other.
- Technological advancement opens doors to new ways of understanding and appreciating music (e.g. smartphone apps that help users experience a song in an innovative way). And the more our old and current mindsets adjust to the development of technology, the more ways we’ll create to make and share music.
Your feedback would be greatly appreciated, so please feel free to tweet us @wjournal or send us an e-mail to with the subject title “We Discuss #8.”
We would like to thank those who came and contributed to the discussion. We hope to see you again at next month’s session! Look out for announcements and related updates on next discussion. Check our website, Facebook page, as well as our Twitter and Instagram accounts!
Blogging continues to be one of the most popular venues to distribute information. Whether talking about fashion, technology, food, or simply ranting about random things, blogging is an avenue designed for individuals to freely express their thoughts. Acknowledging the freedom and influence of blogosphere, Zocko empower individuals by creating a monetizing system that is based on the blogger’s individual taste.
A very well received medium in Indonesia, many individuals have become quite popular through the blogosphere. A few examples - Diana Rikasari’s “Chocolate and Mint” has become a destination for young Indonesians to look for everything from fashion to home decor, Jenz Corner offers a visually enticing narrative of its author’s culinary travels. Though perhaps uncommon, international blog superstars such as the Facehunter even gets flown worldwide to cover various fashion events due to his undeniably unique and tasteful approach to fashion photography. A good blog is run by persons/groups whose taste you trust, and their posts inadvertently become recommendations you adapt to your own life.
It’s no surprise that in the blogosphere, the trusted/popular sites are able to make a decent income off it. Whether it is advertisement, product placements, or advertorials, the blogs popularity and influence are undebatable.
As mentioned above, Zocko (a website combining social media, e-commerce, and social influence) offers an alternative avenue to monetize the blogs. By using its concept of influencers and product selection, bloggers can pick and choose products they would like to recommend on their websites, and via a Zocko encoded link, can make money whenever a reader purchases a product.
What does this mean? Bloggers have full control over their content and are able to monetize off it. It is an empowering tool by Zocko, one that offers an easy, innovative means to earn from doing what you love. Recommended for bloggers from all walks of life.
Visit and find out more about Zocko through the following links:
www.Zocko.com
Zocko Twitter
Zocko Facebook
Very exciting news for those who live in Jakarta and its surrounding areas: Rocket Rain is making its official debut! Goethe will host Film, Musik, Makan, a two day event with a plethora of events including Anggun Priambodo's debut film. Not simply a film-screening, Film, Musik, Makan will host performances by White Shoes and the Couples Company and Jirapah, snacks by Rocket Rain actress Rain Chudori, DJ Performances courtesy of Irama Nusantara, film screenings including Edwin's Postcards From the Zoo, Ladya Cheryl's Vulgar, and Fitri by Sidi Saleh - and a whole lot more. Take a look at the schedule below and do make your way to the event!
Musical performances by:
White Shoes and the Couples Company
Jirapah
Coffee, Tea and Snack Break with Rain Chudori
Rocket Rain debut screening
Q&A with Rocket Rain director Anggun Priambodo
Postcards From the Zoo film screening
Q&A with Postcards From the Zoo director Edwin
Coffee, Tea and Snack Break with Ladya Cheryl
Vulgar debut screening by director Ladya Cheryl
Fitri debut screening by director Sidi Saleh
Someone's Wife In the Boat of Someone's Husband (SWITBOSH) film screening by director Edwin
Q&A Session with Ladya Cheryl, Sidi Saleh, & Edwin.
Lab Laba Laba DIY 16 mm Processing Workshop with Edwin
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Film, Musik, Makan donation IDR 200,000 (for 2 day Goethe Institut events)
go to www.rocketrainmovie.com for more information.
Here's our list of recommended reading material for next week's "Speaking of Tunes" We Discuss session.
Listening and Collecting with Fadli Aat
“For me, vinyl records are very primitive – it’s very analog. It’s like those pianos in cowboy saloons or music boxes, the player read this physical groove on the record. Also, the sound vinyl records produce… compared to CDs they sounds much better and much more honest, in my opinion.
They are both mixed and mastered, but I don’t know, it just is much more honest. The physicality of the groove has a lot to do with it. CDs are digital, so CD players read them without that physicality. The artwork on records has a lot to do with it as well.
There are so many things you get when you buy that one record. The music and the musical quality, then you have the large and beautiful artwork as well.”
Rhythm of the Archipelago with David Tarigan
“It’s difficult to put into words. I grew up in an era before music can be ripped digitally. I started buying CD, cassettes and vinyl back when I was in primary school. The physical format of music has always played a big part for me. I love old music, and I wanted to experience it the way it was first released. It is an artifact, a piece of history. That’s why until this day I have never purchased a single re-issue. No matter how bad the quality of the record is, it is a part of the experience.
You don’t just listen to a song. When you get you hands on the album, you open the sleeve, read it, touch and even smell it. It is sort of a ritual, a way of worshipping your favorite band. Sometimes people buy an album based on its cover, and if the music is as good as the cover, the experience will be even more rewarding.
In the end it really depends on the individual. I always tend to leave some room for the imagination when it comes to my interaction with music. I like to interpret songs and create personal images of the music. The physicality of the record and the ritual of listening is the foundation that allows me to create my personal opinion of the music.”
The Lint of Material by Sven Birkerts
“The shift from vinyl recordings to CDs was significant, psychologically as well as technologically. While the shiny silver disc physically echoed its predecessor in a few obvious ways – was still a flat circular disc with a hole in the center – the differences were many. They were also symbolic. Where the album had two sides, needing to be ‘flipped’ for full hearing, thereby underscoring its temporality and the fact that its contents were arranged, the silver disc compressed its material on a single side. Tracks were no longer demarcated for the eye, so that all one saw was an elegant shimmering surface. And to make it operational – to play it – the listener had to slide it into the player. It disappeared, and the process whereby the information coded onto the disc became sound was (to me) conjectural: something to do with a laser scanning digits. To change cuts – assuming one was listening to standard fare – no longer required moving the tonearm to the wanted place. A quick touch of the button sufficed. If my explanation of how a needle extracted sound from vinyl was rudimentary and approximate, at least it took into account the basic elements and the everyday physics involved. I can’t tell you how a laser translates digital information; indeed, I cannot tell you how information is rendered into digital form, beyond invoking something about binary code – sequences of ones and zeros that are ‘read.’”
Beethoven and the Quality of Courage by Daniel Barenboim
“Music means different things to different people and sometimes even different things to the same person at different moments of his life. It might be poetic, philosophical, sensual, or mathematical, but in any case it must, in my view, have something to do with the soul of the human being. Hence it is metaphysical; but the means of expression is purely and exclusively physical: sound. I believe it is precisely this permanent coexistence of metaphysical message through physical means that is the strength of music. It is also the reason why when we try to describe music with words, all we can do is articulate our reactions to it, and not grasp music itself.”
“The Grain of the Voice” in by Roland Barthes
“The (if the transposition be allowed) covers all the phenomena, all the features which belong to the structure of the language being sung, the rules of the genre, the coded form of the melisma, the composer’s idiolect, the style of the interpretation: in short, everything in the performance which is in the service of communication, representation, expression, everything which it is customary to talk about, which forms the tissue of cultural values (the matter of acknowledged tastes, of fashions, of critical commentaries), which takes its bearing directly on the ideological alibis of a period (‘subjectivity,’ ‘expressivity,’ ‘dramaticism,’ ‘personality’ of the artist). The is the volume of the singing and speaking voice, the space where significations germinate ‘from within language and in its very materiality’; it forms a signifying play having nothing to do with communication, representation (of feelings), expression; it is that apex (or that depth) of production where the melody really works at the language – not at what it says, but the voluptuousness of its sound-signifiers, of its letters – where melody explores how the language works and identifies with that work. It is, in a very simple word but which must be taken seriously, the of the language.”
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
7—9 pm
Kinokuniya Plaza Senayan
(near the language section)
Jl. Asia Afrika 8
Sogo Plaza Senayan Lt. 5
Jakarta 10270
Look out for updates on our Facebook page and Twitter account! If you’d like to share your opinions, or if you have friends who’d like to share theirs, please sign up via e-mail with the subject title “We Discuss” at ! If you have comments or questions, tweet us .
It's always a pleasure for our online team to meet you, you, and you in the offline world, so we are very happy to announce our monthly W_Music Session event! Taking place in the Goods Diner, W_Music Session features our selectors (Bergas, Ffonz, Mar Galo and Ken Jenie) spinning an exotic variety of tunes. Enjoy a relaxing and friendly atmosphere while listening to sounds that will tickle your ear drums. Don't forget to say hello and hang out with our team (we don't bite!).
The Goods Diner
jl. Jend. Sudirman Kav. 52-53,
Kawasan SCBD, Jakarta
How do we talk about music? Some might say that there’s no need to talk about it, as music has the power to speak for itself. While it is highly possible for the essence of music to be reduced by language, it is also possible for it to be enhanced through the use of language. By exploring music via other mediums (text, visuals, etc.), we are creating alternative forms in which it can exist. In this discussion, let’s consider the many options through which we can gain a better understanding of music.
- In the essay entitled “Beethoven and the Quality of Courage,” Daniel Barenboim says that though music can mean a lot of different things to different people, its core lies in its connection with “the soul of the human being.” He then goes on to say that it is “metaphysical” despite its means of expression being “purely and exclusively physical” (i.e. that it is expressed in the form of sound). In his opinion, these qualities are what make music difficult to describe with words, which is why “all we can do is articulate our reactions to it, and not grasp the music itself.”
- Roland Barthes highlights another problem with musical description in his essay, “The Grain of the Voice.” He says that in music criticism, “a work (or its performance) is only ever translated into the poorest of linguistic categories: the adjective.”
- Barthes brings up another point that could further complicate the act of describing music in “Music Practica.” According to him, there are two types of music: 1.) the music one listens to, and 2.) the music one plays. Do you think that there are more categories? And do you think that each category needs its own “language” in order to be effectively described?
- (communication via linguistic means) vs. (communication via the volume of one’s voice/instruments – i.e. diction – and gestures)
- “Concurrently, passive, receptive music, sound music, is become music (that of the concert, festival, record, radio): playing has ceased to exist; musical activity is no longer manual, muscular, kneadingly physical, but merely liquid, effusive, ‘lubrificating,’ to take up a word of Balzac,” wrote Barthes in Musica Practica. His ideas regarding the consumptive approach towards music still rings true today, even though the same approach has also empowered many to make their own music. Here, Barthes compares and contrasts the two musics mentioned in the previous section. What are your thoughts on his opinion on “passive music”?
- The digital age has made music very accessible for an incredibly wide audience. We forget that long before the invasion of the mp3, there were physical “vessels” – vinyls, cassettes, CDs – that allowed us to listen to our very musicians in private.
Please look out for more #WeDiscuss updates on our Facebook page and Twitter account! If you’d like to share your opinions, or if you have friends who’d like to share theirs, sign up via e-mail with the subject title “We Discuss” at ! If you have comments or questions, tweet us @wjournal.
Backstage Life Bareng Grrrl Gang di Episode Kelima Vindy Ngapain?
Tahun ini Grrrl Gang mendapatkan kesempatan untuk menjadi salah satu line up di We The Fest 2019, dan Vindy diperbolehkan untuk mengikuti aktivitas mereka.
Tahun ini Grrrl Gang mendapatkan kesempatan untuk menjadi salah satu line up di We The Fest 2019, dan Vindy diperbolehkan untuk mengikuti aktivitas mereka.
Son of another Indonesian great, multi-instrumentalist-Jack Lesmana, Indra Lesmana is a child prodigy who learned how to master the keys at a young age, with his first performances done at the age of ten to an audience of hundreds and thousands, and his first album released when he was 12 years old. From child to adulthood, Indra Lesmana has dedicated his life to music.
With currently over 50 albums released, his musical endeavors are not restricted to jazz, Indra Lesmana has also released a multitude of critically acclaimed pop records, winning a BASF Award for his meaningful pop numbers. Currently busy promoting the first LLW record, LLW being his modern jazz trio with bassist-Barry Likumahuwa and drummer-Sandy Winarta, Indra Lesmana spared some time our of his busy schedule to talk to W_Music about some highlights from his three decade-long career, LLW, and leaves the viewers and aspiring musicians some words of wisdom. Enjoy!
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Invent Your Future
Temukan siapa dirimu dan bagaimana karaktermu menentukan arah masa depan.
