Tell me more.
Daylight
Disparate
These thoughts I hold and keep inside
What truth have I been told
To understand and know for sure
What intellect this mind might hold
Intentions wrought with depravity
Motives muted and malignant
I fall onto my ankles
Hear the melodious dissonance
I let it out in bursts
That no one shall ever see
And realise there’s this conflict
That broils within me
I leap inside my memory
To find those days of old
Where all I could remember
Was the goodness unforetold
Then I realise those reminisces
Were not that great afterall
But the pain that cut so deep
Still makes me walk into the wall
Save me Lord I cry
Release me from this capture
Set me free to be Yours alone
Destroy my elusive treasure
Save me Lord I cry
I am descending the spiral stairs
And into the depths of my soul
I have given up my cares
Save me Lord I cry
This pain is far too deep
This struggle to find peace
And a ceasing when I weep
Save me Lord I cry
When I pray these tears would cease
I find a scorching desert
Freedom of no release
So I walk in every direction
And I run to every mirage
But only to find disappointment
Every puzzle piece of my collage
Save me Lord I cry
My words are too disparate
My heart’s yeaning may fail
Make me desperate
-Ella
Fighting
I’m fighting Lord
I don’t know what to feel
Emotions flow
My heart wrought with steel
I’m fighting Lord
The hurt is just too deep
And shallowness
The depths that I could weep
I’m fighting Lord
Every life is wrong
Filling with emptiness
And dissonant throng
I’m fighting Lord
Every moment more
Would only seem to push
Me out of heaven’s door
I’m fighting Lord
Assurance had I sought
And yet a doubt remains
Doubting what I thought
I’m fighting Lord
An air of love above
Without a greed
And selfishness of worth
I’m fighting Lord
My flesh would surely fail
Until I know you more
And on seas of sorrow sail
I’m fighting Lord
Trials to train the heart
With broken pieces
I question where to start
I’m fighting Lord
What else should I declare
That pain and burden hovers
Above this guilty air
I’m fighting Lord
And wondering where to go
Which path to take
Who else to follow
I’m fighting Lord
Knowing it is near
And yet everyday
The battle’s here
I’m fighting Lord
Ominous clouds hang low
And wondering if
This is everything I know
I’m fighting Lord
Wishing for perfection
Only to see me shatter
My very own reflection
I’m fighting Lord
This battle cry heard far
And walls will still be built
Struggling for that par
I’m fighting Lord
This praise of song be heard
That what I know I may never
Selfishly invert
I’m fighting Lord
The world does not stop
And no sun stands still
Upon my mountain top
I’m fighting Lord
So keep me fighting now
When I feel at a lost
Please tell me how
I’m fighting Lord
Keep my head low
But lift my eyes to see
The seeds you would have me sow
I’m fighting Lord
To not want to lift my crown
And make myself a queen
Bringing others down
I’m fighting Lord
To wash the feet of all
Those that make me cower
And those that make me fall
I’m fighting Lord
Fear that buries high
And taking flight instead
Into the depths of the sky
I’m fighting Lord
What else could I say
But help me Lord
Help me to pray
I’m fighting Lord
And now you’ve let me see
It’s only by your grace
That I hang on desperately
ella
You said you would never give up on me
You promised me the world. You promised me love. You promised me your all.
I fought for you, not someone else. My love for you is greater.
After everything, you put me at the side as though nothing happened.
Yet I still fought for you.
You looked away. You lied. You left.
Harsh and heartless, you killed Carmine.
You left me with memories too painful to bear, yet love still speaks of your name.
The first time I spent New Year’s Eve alone
Ever since I was a young, I have always spent the NYE countdown at a friend’s place with a bunch of people I am really familiar with.
NYE was always so filled with chatter and I would always play card or board games with friends. I can’t remember any NYE without a countdown and without people i love around me.
It was only until yesterday that I spent NYE alone. I was away from my family and friends and in a two-storey house in a foreign land. i slept before I could even countdown to the new year ahead.
And then it hit me, counting down really isn’t that important. Having been alone with no human to talk to for the past few days has made me enjoy the solitude I have always yearned for. There’s a beauty about spending time alone to reflect on things, to liberate oneself and just sing out loud and prance around the house.
Many people make resolutions at the strike of 12 of the new year, and most admit to discarding the ambitious resolutions three days later.
However, I remember my young fourteen-year-old self sticking to about 5 resolutions in that year. And it really did me good.
I have a few simple things I want to adhere to not just this new year as I embrace my adulthood (finally), but also for the years to come:
1) To love people more.
I realise I love myself so much more than I love others. I give myself the best and always want to claim personal space and time, but I know I should spend more time helping others, listening to their problems and just being there for them. I admit I am sometimes half-hearted about listening to others’ problems so this year, I want to be more genuine. And this comes from purely loving others more.
2) Not to put so much stress on just doing well and therefore casting aside other things.
I know it’s so important to do well in university. It determines my pay, my job prospects etc. But, as long as I try my best, I am going to leave the rest to God. If he will that I do badly and change my career track, then so be it. it’s so hard to truly believe in that, but I have seen some improvement in my attitude towards this so I hope to continue to improve.
3) To be more dedicated
To making music ❤ To play music from my heart. To be true to myself when choosing my repertoire and to want to genuinely speak to the audience when I’m on the piano.
I read Romans 2 on New Year’s Day this year and I hope the message will be etched clearly in my head for the rest of the year. Romans 2 shall be the passage of the year.
<3, Isabel
Prayer
You know what I hide in my heart
A song that I hope to sing
But it so despises the Lord I claim to love
That my heart doesn’t ring
You know what I long to say
But my mind tells me fall away
And my soul deep inside fading off
Weariness, deadened as I scoff
I lift these sorrows lift these longings
My friends are crying their hearts out
Though I see not what is within
Inside I scream and I shout
I lift these prayers lift these voices
Wishing all to yield to thee
But my heart pulls and tugs away
Refusing ever to be free
I lift this moment lift this day
Where I’m seated in the sand
Wish it’d wash the memories
That I hardly understand
I lift these people love them so
And wish I’d love them more
But in my heart I’m crying out
The aching wound the sore
I lift myself a helpless creature
Dying day by day
Kill me Lord to all my sins
And take my breath away
The beauty of redeeming love
The greatness of a king
The wonder of grace so deep
And love so amazing
The mountains high the song again
On repeat the praise
And let me hear its joyous tune
All of my fleeting days
The prophets tell of your great love
The psalmists sings again
And when I fall please lift my eyes
To see beyond the pain
I cannot help but throw this red
Back at your shining face
And how could I this cruel thing
Ever deserve your grace
But grace and grace is undeserved
Unmerited in every name
But you oh Lord took away
My hideous sin and shame
Dry their tears and mend them whole
Their hearts and mine so broken
In this world where I grow cold
And feel my soul is fallen
The hurt and sorrow
The stream the flood
Heal this day
With your blood
What can I pray Lord
My heart aches
But soon enough
I know it wakes
And to another mournful day
Carried by routine
I long to pray when my heart rebels
Remind of your love’s ravine
Ella
Lift My Eyes
Help me lift my eyes to see
This beautiful reality
That I was created to adore
The glory of my Lord
Help me lift my eyes to see
This beautiful reality
That I may not be trapped in this cycle
Pursuing this meaningless idol
Help me lift my heart to praise
And let me be amazed
That I may not be broken
For words I leave unspoken
Help me lift my heart to praise
And let me be amazed
That intellect I envision
Is nothing since Christ is risen
Help me lift my soul to thee
Grasp true reality
Mere mortal accolade
Will from my praise fade
Help me lift my soul to thee
Grasp true reality
To use my time for you
Forsake the sins I knew
Help me lift my mind to feel
Let this be my only appeal
Be to know you ever more
And leave what I loved before
Help me lift my mind to feel
Let this be my only appeal
To fill my heart with Christ
Knowing deeply He shall suffice
Ella
Ethnomusicology’s depth and world music’s breadth
I wrote this for my Ethnomusicology class assignment. Well I admit it can be quite dry so read it only if you always wanted to know the difference between studying Ethnomusicology and world music.
The study of ethnomusicology has been commonly misconstrued as the study of World Music when in actual fact, ethnomusicologists inspect cultures, performance practices and the anthropological aspect of the music, much more than those who merely study World Music.
Ethnomusicology has come a long way with about a hundred and twenty years since its conception. First it was known as Musikologie in 1880, then “comparative musicology” through about 1950, evolving to “ethno-musicology” until 1956 where its current name, “ethnomusicology” was decided upon by those in the field. The hyphen in “ethno-musicology” was removed to signify a greater independence from musicology.
This essay will aim to highlight the more significant aspects in which the study of World Music is lacking in, in comparison to ethnomusicology, which are mainly ethnomusicology’s strong emphasis of study of music in culture, the study of the world’s musics from a comparative and relativistic perspective, and lastly, a study with the use of fieldwork.
According to Henry Stobart, the term “world music” was conceived in the 1980s and besides it being used as an ‘inclusive and appealing marketing term,’ was also introduced in university courses as a ‘means to present the various musics of the world on an equal footing.’ The term ‘musics’ was used instead of the singular, ‘music’, as people began to discuss ‘musics’ in the plural, as it was thought that there was no one universal musical language that everyone could identify with. As people became acquaint with the new knowledge of the presence of diverse musical languages and sounds, universities started to introduce briefly to students the multiplicity of the world’s music and ‘help students appreciate its relationships to their own lives and experience.’ Such an investigation into the world’s musics is definitely within the scope of the study of ethnomusicology. However, ethnomusicologists distinguish themselves by maintaining ‘an interculturally comparative perspective’ while exploring the musics of different societies. They place the music of each culture in relation to the ‘world of music’, which has certain similarities and differences, and ‘believe that insight can be gained from comparison’. This is usually done after studying the music ‘in its own terms,’ and ‘learning to see it as its society understands it.’ It is important to note the difference in how the student studying world music seeks to relate such knowledge of different musics to his or her own life, but the ethnomusicologist instead investigates the function, conception and possibly the evolution of the music of each culture in relation to the local society, giving a lesser role to what is gained personally.
Bruno Nettl put it explicitly in ‘The Study of Ethnomusicology’ that ethnomusicologists are extremely keen in music’s intrinsic value in a culture. Despite the disparity of views between the 1950s and 1970s in which ethnomusicologists were divided over the focus of study between concentrating on “the music itself” and the “cultural context”, the two groups ‘tended to merge’ eventually, after 1980. With the merger since the 1980s still in effect today, ethnomusicologists aim to balance the study of the anthropology behind the music and to make intelligent analyses of the music. Although people who study world music also ‘place the music into broader social, political, economic and environmental contexts,’ they neglect the ethnomusicologist’s emphasis on the way a society defines its music, how that society classifies and what it defines to be music, the function of music in the society and also how music will be changed because of the influence from other musics. Ethnomusicologists go further than those studying world music in highlighting the understanding of the process of musical change, which is inevitable in every type of music, exemplifying even further how they marry anthropology with music analysis. Factors that could cause a change in the music could be the advancement or introduction of technology, globalisation or change in musical tastes of the people. Ethnomusicologists therefore inspect what the musical changes reflect of the society under study and perhaps extrapolate it to the evolution the society is undergoing whether political, social or economic. They also measure the rate of change and tackle with the perceived notions of change, questioning whether change is necessary, beneficial or detrimental to the particular society under study. On the contrary, students of world music aim to understand the circumstances that led to the present state of music in a particular society, but tend to neglect how the music has evolved and hence do not compare musics of the past and present of a society.
As mentioned earlier, world music has been and is still being taught in university classrooms to curious students who intend to know more about the world’s musics. The aim of studying world music in universities is merely to ‘challenge dominant modes of hearing’ and ‘consider how musics of other cultures have been viewed, presented, and studied’ and the implications of how the students as outsiders (those not part of the culture) listen and view such musics. Ethnomusicologists however are not content with just doing “armchair research” practised in the 1900s, which involved reading and learning about other cultures without first-hand experience of the music in the culture of study. Thus a common view amongst ethnomusicologists today is to choose a specialisation in a society, for example the Bolivian people of the Highland Andes, and carry out fieldwork in the chosen culture. Fieldwork is perceived as the ethnomusicologist’s ‘bridge to the cultural “other”’ and certain ethnomusicologists like Kathleen J. van Buren who have carried out their fieldwork realise that the ethnomusicologist’s role in another culture is more than just learning about the music, having ‘direct confrontation with musical creation and performance’, and learning of how the music was conceived. Instead, it includes solving problems for the community, understanding how certain problems can be intertwined with music as an expression of pain and suffering, or a unique language which people can identify with and feel a sense of belonging to the community. As in van Buren’s article on the use of music in HIV campaigns, it is nearly impossible to find out more about a culture’s music and its role in society without first understanding how the people, which is most beneficial when understood first-hand, view music.
Ethnomusicology has come a long way with the numerous developments in its partnership with anthropology and musicology, and its relatively new emphasis on the importance of fieldwork. World music may dabble with the world’s musics in breadth, but it is the ethnomusicologists who strive to immerse themselves into a culture, usually not of their own, to present to others the depths and complexity in a culture’s music.