hello world;

the word to describe it is not speechless, although we are a wordless collective. and perhaps a pale yet accurate manner to describe this guttural thing fluttering in our stomach is excitement, but some of us agree, it's an understatement.

the truth is that, that entire paragraph is irrelevant.

OFFCUFF is a multi-disciplinary collective focusing on live audio-visual performance centered on structured improvisation. our work seeks to address the visceral and traverse the borders of the conscious and the subconscious.

OFFCUFF is:
wu jun han - video projections
shahila bte baharom - overhead (OHP) projections
mohamad riduan - handmade sound instruments + electronics
bani haykal - clarinet + guitar + live looping

this project is part of our first major experiment entitled "books".

we will be performing at The Substation Theatre on the 29th of January 2012 (Sunday) supporting an eclectic mix of musical goodness from around town. very hardcore.

have a good year ahead. 

the way you, you, you enunciate your appreciation for my

ignorance amuses me. the way you, you, you, you offer

reason, logic and arguments the same way you, you, you

offer happiness and contentment baffles me.

we are nowhere in the universe, not existing, nor relieving a

past life, not dreaming nor spinning new stories, no, no, for

you, you, you, you served us light on our tongues and we danced

to the overtures till the end. and none of us

knew we were deaf.

i'm practicing, unlearning my methodologies and embracing my ignorance.

where i know that i know nothing, i also knew that i knew everything.

i am not listening to music.

i am not listening to the world.

i am not listening to myself.

because all that i hear is nothing.

it's not a problem, it's an evolution, i think, i think, i

think, i slipped on your polite words constructed to tease,

at least you had hoped to tease the world around you and you,

you, you, you scream, yell, hum sweetly to unsuspecting folks,

you, you, you are adamant to convince us of your sorrow, your

wisdom, your secrets, your slouched poetry for bills and pints, oh,

you, you, you, aren't you a pretty thing to see?

spits and splatter shush of quaint phrases to chords swoon

the world wide web, sticks on lips or eyelids switching instances

overtime i'm worn out, shit man, your colliding wishful thinking

is drooling, undreaming of every ounce of sanity, but at the moment

you win a comment, there you are,

revising, revisiting and revealing yourself more than ever,

every single time, shit man, your sticky ambition is incredibly sick.

ah yes, clean up over there, there and there and oh,

yes, please, there, there, where my heart swings and springs, you

tuck me in and i am lulled in that plastic embrace. as i recline,

politely, i decline my god given state and postulate to the scalpel

of your tongue and judgment, conscious of my every flaw,

conscious of your every taste, the graceful stitch of fate draws me

closer to my eden.

i am gasping through the mirror, i am breathtaking, i am

god's desire for perfection, (gasp!), i mean, god's desired perfection

and in this vessel i will transport you, i will move you, i will

drive you up the wall when we're through, yes, yes,

yes.

"dress me up for the party and tell your friends immortality is just across the street."

hello and good evening. my name is bani haykal and i write music and other oddities. for today's presentation i'm sharing with you my work on music and narratives.

before i begin i'd like to state that these interpretations of sound and its use in music is purely subjective, that it is in my opinion, sonic structures can quite explicitly determine narrative specifics. my attempt to collect these ideas and thoughts are to give meaning to how i approach the music that i do, from an improvisation point of view to one which is composed. my interest is in the use of sound, even more so, music, to narrate and communicate ideas. Similar to sound design, but the difference in my work is that it is based on movements, not purely effects to further animate situations.

one of the key motivations for me was during a short stint in advertising as a copywriter. everyday it was either the radio or some horrendous internet radio blasting away. i'm quite frank about my opinions on this, you can ask my friends, but i do personally think almost everything supposedly musical that succumbs to the music business or industry is diluted noise which sounds like music, although i guess it passes as one because there are some components which might excite the listener, even me from time to time. but then again, it's not a problem, i tell myself, rather it is an evolution in music development generally. and if it is undergoing this neanderthal period, it's quite ugly and needs to brush its teeth.

before proceeding, i'd also like to share a quote. this is taken from Charles Mingus' most breathtaking and phenomenal body of work titled, "Let my Children Hear Music".

"I say, let my children have music. For God's sake, rid this society of some of the noise so that those who have ears will be able to use them someplace listening to good music. When I say good I don't mean that today's music is bad because it is loud. I mean the structures have paid no attention to the past history of the music"

Still in the first stages of research, today i will share the use of music and narratives for performance. In a way, i would say that it has to follow a relatively linear timeframe. this is because in a performance, or at least a performance in its traditional sense, it is expected to begin at some point and end at another. the progression of sitting through the narrative, or the experience itself, is linear. of course the way the story is told could be non-linear or non-chronological. i'd like to touch on 2 components tonight, one is tempo, the other tension.

TEMPO

what is tempo? why is it necessary in the first place? why the need for tempo? what happens without it? generally we can understand tempo as a means to provide a specific pace or the speed by which a piece of music is played. but this is quite a reductionist perspective, to think of it as purely beats per minute, which in my personal opinion is what's mostly giving me problems when it comes to listening to most pop music made today, maybe even more specifically dance music. in the 17th century, tempo indications were extensively used by composers, most of these words being italian. and these indicators denoted specifics. from basic indicators such as "allegro", "vivace", "adagio" etc they also have moods specified alongside the tempo as well, for example, "espressivo" which means to play expressively, "agitato", agitated, implied quickness, "sostenuto", sustained with slackening of tempo and the list goes on. in many ways, composers dealt with writing music and expressing specific tempo with moods in order to translate the appropriate tone or mood of the piece. so we could say, with regards to tempo, not only do we have a specific pace, we also would be listening to a specified mood.

Where it is tempo that we are experiencing in music, similarly we can identify it with the effect of pacing in narratives. how much details are in it, including more detail, less detail. How much the plot is segmented, unfolding of events. i'll illustrate the use of musical tempo and have you imagine the narrative. For example, listening to the following:

• - Slow / 4 notes in a bar, whole note per measure

Whilst it would carry various interpretations, the motion here is to illustrate a generally slow establishment of either a scene or character. It lacks detail, colour and dynamics. this line or motif may be repeated, perhaps even modulated, but bearing the same tempo, a specific pace is established.

If I were to re-establish that scene or character, giving it more detail. Musically, or sonically, there would be more things to listen to. So in contrast, I would swap the use of single or whole notes with chords, but is based on the same tempo, for example:

• - Slow / 4 chords in a bar / whole chords per measure

Chords used in this example sets a different tone altogether. Depending on the chords used, the experience would be altered almost quite completely, giving the character or setting more detail for one, as compared to the previous example which would be reliant on either a scale or left atonal and is relatively ambiguous.

in my opinion the use of tempo is something which contains a lot of significance in setting a scene, sonically. even if the movement were to use just 4 notes, by modulating the tempo we can quite easily notice a shift in the direction of the story. during an improvised performance, narrating a story is just like telling a story really well. and if the story teller were to continuously use the same phrases or retains the way he tells a story, it pretty much retains the same form of tension throughout. so just like a live improv performance or narrating a story, have a listen at music you have in your iphones or players and listen out for moods specified, the shifts in tempo. it's not something which requires you to be musically trained or anything, it's really just about pacing and expression. if you do have the chance, please listen to Charles Mingus' Let My Children Hear Music.

i'd like to bring your attention into crazy scientist realm. here's where i really have fun.

- Staccato / random notes / looped

- another layer of dots and angular attacks

so much chaos. what's happening? how do you make sense of it? is anything calculated?

so we understand that tempo sets the pace, establishes mood. but what happens without tempo? i imagine it'll be quite chaotic. maybe too much sounds just flying around.

but the question follows; what if that's the intention? what if the intention was to create chaos? chaos is disorder, a state where you might experience complete confusion. and it is in my opinion that even amidst chaos, you'd want to make sense of the situation. i think that as a story teller, giving the audience disorder once in awhile is a breath of fresh air. if i were to spell chaos, uncertainty, i would say that there are several ways around to building it. within tempo itself, we can illustrate just that. in fact, calculated chaos is also possible within music, with the aid of meters, rhythm, harmony. a composer could create calculated chaos, consisting of polytonality, polyrthyms, manipulating the timbre of an instrument etc etc. tempo's just the beginning.

i'll cover one more component which is relatively common in music and narratives and that is tension.

TENSION

setting the scene: the man is the protagonist in this scene.

the man lost the love of his life. struggles through drugs and depression and finally hears her voice across the street. it's raining. he forgot his umbrella, dashes out to the streets. he battles through the rain, bad traffic and the urge to pee, then sees her silhouette just inches away. steps up to the sidewalk, wipes his brow. he sees her. she sees him. the first in a very long time. with a gun.

tense huh?

now this would be a really wonderful scene to score or just design. aside from the fact that i wrote that, it's really just the use of tension and a bit of dry humor. there's a phrase for such a moment happening here. it's called a build up. and tense situations usually happens when there's a huge build up and you don't know what's about to happen next. he trudges along bad weather, crazy drivers, crazier bladder and finally the girl. and everything was so sweet until she held that gun to his head. you could say the boy released his tension when he saw the gun.

musically or just sonically we could anticipate a whole bunch of things happening. adding layers to create that much needed build up. deconstructing that scene, we start with the lonely boy. just as what we talked about in TEMPO, we want something to illustrate that.

- slow / whole notes per measure

it's dark, isn't it? design a background for this scene; rain. sound effects.

- guitar dots / teasingly

he hears her voice across the street. of course not literally we start disguising our voices, but generally setting up a significant moment in this scene. in this instance;

- violin bow / once

now he's rushing out the door, lots of movement going on. the general build up scene.

- everything goes crazy tense

he steps up to the sidewalk and sees her for the very first time.

- reverse loop / volume stays on half

and then… the gun.

- stop loop / dissonant chord

-PAUSE-

my interpretation of that moment was to bring all these harsh noise and terrible sounds to empathize with the protagonist until they make contact and that tense situation happens.

this is called dissonance, which means a set of notes or series of notes put together that doesn't sound very pleasant. seeing that it's not a happy ending just yet. something's unresolved.

the use of dissonance, which is the contrast of consonance, elevates the build up to a point which seems uncomfortable. if not given the context of the narrative, you would hear sound after sound after sound followed by that uncomfortable chord. and i believe that there's where the music experience or component comes in. without giving any context and just listening to sounds or organized sounds, how do we as listeners make sense of the things we are listening to?

if we were to read a book, or listen to a spoken word recital, chaos, tension, green grass and butterflies at war might easily be addressed or translated to the audience. we listen for phrases or sentences which shadows the things we are certain of. sonically, we are given an abstract environment almost completely and we process that and experience something which is unique to our interpretation of that sound / movement. it's like if i listen to a Maroon 5 song; all i feel like doing is slitting my wrist after he explicitly force feeds us the fact that he moves like Jagger. because an interpretation of the music language can quite consistently be ambiguous, my interest as one who's narrating stories with sound / music, is to have as close an interpretation as possible so it doesn't remain completely ambiguous, however abstract it might be.

and as always, in the wise words of Frank Zappa, "Information is not knowledge. Knowledge is not wisdom. Wisdom is not truth. Truth is not beauty. Beauty is not love. Love is not music. Music is the best."

thank you and happy holidays.

http://sg.news.yahoo.com/blogs/singaporescene/relook-ways-handle-religion-race-issues-012456725.html

maybe it might be too soon to say this, but perhaps there really is no sane voice in mainstream media any more.

be serious, man. consider how the writer eloquently phrased the title; Relook ways to handle religion and race issues.

and if you look to the 3rd subchapter, and with much depth he calls it "Questions to Ponder," of his pseudo-intellectual, attempt-to-make-your-dog-stop-licking-itself guide / gibberish / or what would people call it, "article?", i cannot help but think of a gargantuan speech bubble emerging from the depths of that chasm in his head which houses... something... going, "holy carpal tunnel, i need to finish this article by this evening or i'm not going to be able to sleep because i've not shed wisdom upon the world. but more importantly, i think i can kinda use the money to buy that new Dan Brown book. and a moleskin because i'm a serious writer. netbooks are so 2009, iPads are so last month."

Mr Loh carefully constructs his paragraph. with such finesse, he goes tapping on his keyboard;

"these incidents have also opened up an opportunity for the government — and indeed all of society — to take a long hard look at itself and consider some questions:"

and then, he breathes in. bites his fingernails and attempted the inevitable. the questions to ponder came to existence.

am i to believe that the Chinese race cannot be discriminated against? what did he actually mean by asking, "What are the areas which discriminate against the non-Chinese races?" 

"Have we allowed the non-Chinese races to have avenues to speak their minds.." bla bla bla, holy mother goose, am i to believe that Chinese people have avenues to speak their minds freely and openly so that non-Chinese people can understand what they face and address those collectively? and by the way, just who was he referring to as "we" in these questions?

"Have we treated them right... / Have we heard them..." really? this heap of idiocy got published?

this is an article with no real aim or context, if anything else, it excelled at pissing me off. and maybe for having properly used the grammar and spell check on word doc plus word count.

and also, religion? you had it covered where? when you say non-Chinese are you referring to Christians? someone who looks like a Muslim? sorry, maybe i'll design that so you may understand it better; someone who may look like a Hindu but may not be a Hindu?*

or did they not cover that in whatever college you went to? that race and religion are very different things? someone, check his diploma.

this was quite a disgusting waste of space on the web. but if it's any consolation, you're a necessity in creating some form of discourse due to your success at sucking and making money at the same time. a miracle of the 21st century.

go sell insurance. at least if you're intending to tell people what to think, they too can make some money eventually.

*this was a cheap shot as Mr Loh wrote a sentence which read; "policies may look right, but they may not be right". applause for the attempt if you please. or publish me.

i am motivated by a new constant, threading between consonance and dissonance every single time because that's where the sanest (if not most insane) counterpoint is. and in that sink, is where i personally think we should all surface and breathe. climbing higher is always a necessary thing, because once in awhile it's good to get out and greet the sun.

but generally, this new constant, is a reminder of having to be critical and not cynical. it's something i personally wish i could be paid doing, because the severity of having to bypass new experiences without compulsive judgment is as difficult as having to masquerade yourself across your partner after accidentally burning a copy of their favourite book. at least personally, it's quite difficult. also, i don't suppose i'm suggesting one should be attuned to the fact that money could buy guilt off your shoulder.

and so there were about a dozen bad incidences which surrounded the mythical atrocity, perhaps backstage more so than what the audience is witnessing, (i say mythical because i really do wish it actually didn't happen) at the MeRadio Rocks The Marina event at The Promontory on Saturday, 5th November 2011. this was an initiative organized by the all-mighty Mediacorp, in conjunction with Radio's 75th anniversary.

i'll begin by expressing my support and appreciation for such an event which caters and intends to uphold + represent music made in Singapore. it is, in many ways, a noble thing. a full line-up of Singapore acts, free admission (which encourages people to be open to new experiences if they haven't already been exposed) yet the ironic bit about this whole thing is that, radio in Singapore, which probably has the lowest percentage of local materials made available on air, is presenting an entire schedule dedicated to local stuff. i'm quite sure it wasn't about realigning karma.

so what was it about then?

before we look at ground zero, let's touch on some of the more obvious details.

according to how they have marketed it, "30 rocking acts. 8 hours of non-stop music."
very quick math would suggest that each rocking act would be presenting, approximately, 16 minutes of non-stop music. and i don't think i'm being cynical here. if you arrange each act, one after another, and after 16 consecutive minutes presented by 30 acts, you will get 8 hours of non-stop music. so literally, the moment BAND #1 finishes their set, BAND #2 will begin theirs, immediately. that's how we'll get 16 minutes of play time per band and on top of that, 8 hours of non-stop music.

then something happened, and from 30 rocking acts, their latest poster would tell you, "over 20 artistes set to ROCK THE MARINA!" suddenly, there seems to be a drop. by 2 acts in fact. and another fresh piece of information delivered via their poster is that the event starts from 2pm - 11pm. ok, so technically, 28 bands in 9 hours. that sounds a lot more sane than 30 bands in 8 hours. so what's the new math then? approximately 19 minutes of play time. technically, acts have an additional 3 minutes from the first tentative schedule.

lets expand it a little. by taking it that each act takes 19 minutes on stage, the organizers should have considered that the time taken to set up and tear down might take approximately, another 7 - 10 minutes, depending on the set up the act has. so what does that leave each act with? about 6 - 9 minutes or so of play time? that's about, what, a song or two at most?

were the programmers radio personalities or some ridiculously underpaid intern to have planned this oddity? unlike the tunes you play on radio, dear programmers and organizers, acts are not able to play at the switch of a button. i get the impression, a bunch of producers got together with a notepad and thought, "which gig got 30 bands in 1 day? we can make history by doing this." sure. there's also a fine line between nobility and stupidity.

it should have been a troubling concept dealing with 20 minutes of play + set up time. because in the end, they're inviting acts to come all the way down and play for however many minutes left and call it a night. i think what the producers have failed to realize is that, unlike TV and Radio, this isn't a 5 minute presentation by another singer / band you've got on air. this is, get ready for it, an actual performance, a gig.

now i'll bring your attention to some of the hidden stuff which probably won't be out in the press.

bands who have requested or are given soundcheck were to report on Friday, a day before the event, to have their set taken care of. whilst soundcheck did happen for a few acts, to my understanding ShiGGa Shay did manage to soundcheck, others such as The Observatory and Heritage, did not get to do their soundcheck. and what could be worse than not being able to do soundcheck upon arrival? how about, not being informed that soundcheck has been cancelled?

lets take it up a notch.

around 4:30pm that Friday, during a soundcheck, the police arrived and closed the soundcheck after receiving calls about the noise level. could have been the residents, the hard working office personnel in the vicinity, generally, someone wasn't too happy with all the ruckus. and why's that?

if the performance were to happen on that Saturday, and the noise level would be just as loud, why wouldn't the gig be shut down all the same? shouldn't we be concerned about that? would there have been a permit or license thingamajig that was required to sort this out, inform the public around that such an occasion demands a little bit more tolerance and can be sorted out on paper? if so, shouldn't the organizers have figured that out before hand?

and i think these are questions we need to address because, after all, should the future present itself with another occasion as such, it's good to know that these things are and can be sorted out.

yes, i have been quite incessant earlier about time and scheduling. and this is a matter which i reflect on a personal level. as a performer, we were informed of needing to cut our set even shorter because, as they explained, their Public Entertainment License has been cut by an hour. with that, technically, things were supposed to end by 10:30pm. so not only are we already playing a short set, now we're expected to play a much shorter set because set up time is inclusive of the 15 minutes given to us. acts come over to Marina, have 15 minutes to set up and play and tear down. now we have more reason to worry that the other acts playing later in the evening might be affected if schedule doesn't go on time. we've seen the police come down to close the soundcheck, why not the gig if it doesn't run on schedule? shouldn't we, those who are performing, make a conscious effort of looking out for one another and ensuring everyone gets the opportunity to perform?

there's a lot to say about the way the entire thing was managed. from rushing paper work before going up on stage, lack of equipment on stage despite having bands send in their equipment list upon request, not sure whether bands can be up on stage when they are supposed to be up on stage and ridiculous anecdotes by DJs who have absolutely no knowledge of music (or humour) or the acts involved other than a cue card with a brief bio and song list, ask any of the performers who were involved and you might just hear a story which could help shed more light on the music culture here.

aside from every obstacle which presented itself on that very day, i think the interest which should be highlighted is the inherent ignorance of community leaders who supposedly are responsible for reinvigorating or rather escalating music made in Singapore.

and so the question goes, were you actually trying to help?

breathe.

solidarity.

the one concept which i can only hope surfaces amongst us after such an incident. in my opinion, if those who are responsible in running the administrative and technical duties to promote and exhibit music in Singapore to its best, fails to do so by having a sense of appreciation to the purpose and culture of music, the only ones left are those involved in creating new work and those who truly appreciates them.

what do we know about music other than its name?

better days ahead.

hello world.

i look forward to October, but i guess, that's sort of an every month thing, looking forward to. but October's scary, at least for me, not because of anything else but because the end of the year is approaching. and everything becomes unpredictable.

it's been a bit of a habit, promising to write more, which i shall, but here are quick updates on things happening this October.

1. Hara Kiri
date: 8 October 2011
venue: The National Museum / Gallery Theatre (Basement)
time: 8pm
Hara Kiri is a silent film and together with Leslie Low and Vivian Wang, we're doing live music accompaniment for the film.

2. White Space / Dark Matter
date: 15 + 16 October 2011
venue: Fort Canning Park / White Studio
time: 3pm
collaborating with Singapore Contact Improv Community

3. Grapheme Zine Mosh
date: 15 October 2011
venue: Goodman Arts Centre
time: 8pm
performance with ila / jun / riduan

4. SPACES
date: 20 October 2011
venue: The Substation Theatre
time: 8pm
improv performance with Associate Artists of The Substation

5. a narrative project
date: 21 October 2011
venue: Big Steps @ SMU
time: TBC

in conjunction with the Writer's Festival, he is inviting writers of every breed to collaborate by contributing and performing their written work on stage and having them translated sonically.

folks who are interested to participate in this project, please drop Savinder an email (savinder@wordforward.org), Subject: Narratives Project, with your name and title of your work. your writing should contain no more than 200 words.

6. 10 Years of QLRS
date: 25 October 2011
venue: Glass Hall / Singapore Art Museum
time: 8pm

The Quarterly Literary Review Singapore (QLRS) celebrates its first decade with words, wine and food in this special event. Founded by Toh Hsien Min in 2001, the non-profit volunteer collective has quietly featured 353 writers who have shared 344 poems, 130 short stories, 49 essays, 94 critiques, 20 interviews and 125 other articles. What literary spirit fuels the editorial team, and inspires its contributors? Writers Chan Ziqian, Grace Chua, Gwee Li Sui, Bani Haykal, Gilbert Koh, Nicholas Liu, Leonard Ng, O Thiam Chin, Daren Shiau, Kelvin Tan and Stephanie Ye will read their works while Haykal and Kelvin will share their music.

that's pretty much it for now. i'll be at The Substation's Random Room throughout the month, starting from the 10th if not earlier. will write more updates on that soon.

better days ahead.

hello. do drop by if you're around the neighborhood.

hello world.

my apologies for being rather quiet here. i sometimes wonder if online is a means for me to breathe, or a space where i'm still catching my breath. ok, but absurd and wasteoftime introspects aside, here are some upcoming things happening should you have an inclination to be.. err... momentarily amused.

1. Lunchtime Concert @ Lasalle
venue: SIA Theatre
date: 13th September
time: 1pm
{ this is a solo performance where i am presenting new materials as part of my research on music + narratives. } 

2. Dance, Tree, Dance
(as part of SeptFest 2011)
venue: The Substation Theatre
dates: 15th (preview) / 16th / 17th of September
time: 8pm
{ i am collaborating with Verena Tay and Andy Yang on a performance piece entitled Instant. }

3. Spread The Love - b-quartet
venue: Esplanade Outdoor Theatre
date: 18th September 
time: 8pm

4. Tribal Gathering of Tongue Tasters - Under The Velvet Sky
venue: The Substation Theatre
date: 1st October
time: 8pm
{ i am collaborating with Under the Velvet Sky and Gulayu Arkestra as part of their music performance for TGTT. }

5. The Faculty of Listening / a residency program at The Substation
venue: The Random Room @ The Substation
date: 5th - 31st October
time: 12pm - 9pm daily
{ with this residency program, i am conducting several workshops and small performances weekly as part of my research. will update soon. }

that's pretty much it for now. thanks for reading.

better days ahead.