Unicorns

Glass Reflection by Yee Cheng on 500px

Tell me more.

Faithless by Yee Cheng on 500px

Daylight

Daylight by Yee Cheng on 500px

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.