My Project On The Local Music Scene In Singapore

[DoubleBlade]

Hi....

I have a project coming up as part of one of my modules in my course and my team has decided to do a project based on the local music scene in singapore.

The topic would be "Is the local music scene in Singapore thriving?"

Basically , the ultimate objective of doing this project based on it's above mentioned topic is to make people more aware of the local music scene in Singapore and at the same time to do up some research on how well Singaporeans are fed on the local music scene through surveys.

Hopefully the end product of our project would be a compilation CD showcasing local talent and that includes SOFTies as well.

Of course , I hope that prominent figures who specialise in different areas promoting the local music scene could step forward and voice their comments on what they feel about the local music scene.

People like James and Anthony , I'm counting on you!!!! 8)

It would be great if we could hear from you guys and not to forget other fellow SOFTies as well....

This entire project is still in the early stages of planning but basically this is the rough skeleton of it. Once I submit my set of questions to my lecturer for the right to get the "Go Ahead" signal , I will then commence my project...

Best Regards

Julius AKA DoubleBlade

 

[HeartRockSingapore]

No problem man...I am always willing to help sincere people doing genuine project. Contact me at heartrocksingapore@yahoo.com

 

[DoubleBlade]

Thanks I will keep you in mind....

 

[serialninja]

what exactly does your research require of us :?:

 

[soft]

DoubleBlade, your topic is kinda general. What is the objective of your research? See.. the answer is yes/no thing. Can others benefit from the finding?

I post a more challenging topic for you. "Government + music development in Singapore".

If you get done, we will then learn how we can improve the scene in tandem with the government's direction and they might see what's lacking too.

 

[DoubleBlade]

obviously this entire project will not be a YES/NO questionaire....

Hmmm...Govenment + Music developement in Singapore? It's possible though , but judging by the body language of my team members , some of them are kinda pissed at me for choosing this topic even though majority of them opted for this which was my suggestion initially...

Oh well , I guess I'll just have to coax them into thinking that the topic of "Is the local music scene thriving in Singapore" and "Govt and music development in singapore" belong to the same entity...

If I were to choose Govt & music development in SG , then it might open a wider prospective in terms of our project as I feel that in my topic , we just have to do interviews with fellow personals and we're done for it but if I were to choose Govt & music development in SG , then maybe this requires us to do some research on what the govt is doing to promote the local music scene in singapore. Perhaps the success of Rock On Singapore could be used as a starting platform since it was jointly organised by the National Arts Council. But the problem I fear is , I have no contacts with anyone associated with the National Arts Council. If that could be acheived , then maybe we could learn more about what the National Arts Council is doing to promote music in Singapore and start to progress further...

I guess , I might need some advise here...

But James , I'm not sucking up but it's possible to incorporate your suggested topic since it offers a broader scope of research....

 

[DoubleBlade]

Maybe the objective of the project could be like what James mentioned "What's lacking in the music scene in accordance with the govt's movement to promote the scene" for example maybe through our research we discovered that certain gig organisers lack the passion to drive the scene. They take advantage of the govt's move to promote the local scene to generate profits for themselves by hiring the same old bands over and over again at gigs because that's where the money comes in....

I'll keep you guys updated on this one....

cheers

 

[soft]

DoubleBlade, my "yes/no thing" means at the end of the day, we only know if the local music scene in Singapore is thriving or not. But the thing is, it is not measureable. Unless there is a dollar indication on sales of local cds and ticket collection compared with previous years.

I know it is not easy to do research but I know with your passion and interest in music, you will succeed. :wink:

 

[serialninja]

actually there are two ways of measuring this, depending largely on your definition of "thriving".

the first is if you assume "thriving" means commercially successful. in this case, you can put a dollar value to it by calculating cd sales and concert ticket sales, and so on.

the second is if you assume "thriving" means we have a large local music community. this is measurable by taking the approximate number of bands in singapore and calculating it as a percentage of our population.

the former produces some pretty pitiful results, but judging by the number of bands taking part in the School of Rock competition, and taking into account that's just the number of student bands that bothered to register for it (and we certainly have a large number of post-student-year musicians in singapore, and we're likely to have other student bands that didn't take part in that competition for various reasons), i'd say that based on the latter definition and comparing the approximate number of musicians to our tiny population, we actually have a thriving local music scene, even if locals don't generally pay that much attention to it.

some people say singapore is a lousy place to make music.

i disagree.

singapore is small enough that a) there is limited competition, and b) once you make a name for yourself locally, you can easily get the attention of the entire country, given we're so tiny.

and once you're considered one of the most successful bands in a country, it's much easier to expand overseas because you already have some credibility. imagine if you lived in the states, for example. one band amongst thousands with big shot dreams? living in a population which is so huge that there are at least ten thousand other people twice as talented as you are.

it's true that you're not likely to make a living for the rest of your life playing music in singapore, but to be frank, singapore's not a bad starting point. it's certainly better than many other places.

 

[shred5]

Maybe one of the best time would be interviewing those ppl going to Slipknot.

There's no need for U to go to the concert. Just stand outside fort canning with ur project partners and conduct surveys. If its within ur project time frame.

Just my 2 cents suggestions..

 

[blackductape]

another earlier big concert is good charlotte. so maybe yeah i agree with shred5 abt surveys and stuff. but the problem is, people might not bother.. no offence but can't blame reality.

 

[DoubleBlade]

What I would be looking into is apart from interviewing prominent figures in the industry , I would also like to conduct a survey on "How well Singaporeans are fed on the local scene".

Inviting gig organisers , fellow lay musicians/SOFTies , recording engineers etc for interviews would promote different point of views on what's lacking in the government's bid to promote local music.

Yup , The Good Charlotte and Slipknot concerts seem to be a good place to conduct the survey since both bands play different genre of rock and so we might get different opinions from the people.

 

[Dirt]

hey ho let`s go!!!!!!!

hey dude...if u conduct interviews at these concerts...all u gonna get r negative reponds from them...`local talent aren`t good enuff lah`/`they just dun have the X-factor`/`the local talent dun work hard enuff lah`....blah...blah...blah...blah...in the end,u`re making the local scene more depressed....
u want answers...u go to people in the scene...underground bands....mainstream talents......people who r actually involved..that`s where u`ll get the correct answers..
y ask people who dun even know anything abt music/instruments..where else u have loads of talents in this webbie participating????
:lol:

 

[DoubleBlade]

Unless there is a dollar indication on sales of local cds and ticket collection compared with previous years.

I guess there are limitations to this because if I were to collect data on ticket collection compared with previous years , it means I have to liasion with Sistic but I'm not sure whether Sistic would be willing to reveal such information to the public , let alone to an ordinary student like me.

For dollar indication on sales of local CDs , I was wondering do bands like Electrico , The Observertory , Ronin or solo musicians like Chester Tan would have info regarding sales on their albums? Like out of a certain amount of CDs produced for the mass market , what is the percentage of the CDs produced have actually been sold.

If this is possible , then I can say that it is possible to extract some info in dollar indications regarding local music albums.

 

[DoubleBlade]

Re: hey ho let`s go!!!!!!!

hey dude...if u conduct interviews at these concerts...all u gonna get r negative reponds from them

Yup , that's quite true....

Perhaps maybe I could arrange with fellow SOFTies who are going for the GC concert to do the survey?

Another problem I would forsee is when i conduct a survey and ask these people what's their favourite local band , and I bet you a bunch of them would probably put Electrico , Pug Jelly , The observatory as their favourite bands and if I were to put a restriction stating "No Electrico , Pug Jelly , The Observatory allowed" , these people would be dumb founded.

Because these local band's songs have been broadcasted on radio and so , most of the mainstream people would tend to have this mentality that whatever music is broadcasted on radio is obviously the best of the best which it is often not true. Just because we hear 3-4 local bands on radio , we cannot justify the fact that these local bands are the best of the best in Singapore. I guess that is the power of the media in today's modern society....

Hm...perhaps if I were to create the survey online , would it work? How efficient are online surveys compared to manual surveys? Save paper and trees?

 

[shred5]

Aiyah.. why so chim!!??

This Sat gathering also can wat???!!!

I'll be more than happy to give u my views and suggestions...

Tio bo?

 

[DoubleBlade]

I doubt I can make it but I'll try my best to make it and I've not paid my 8 bucks yet

 

[mel80]

Maybe you can upload a Word document of the survey online and put up the link here for everyone to do it? You can probably get some quick response that way

 

[a_b_normal123]

Hello...just dropping by to say that i have some quotes from local bands on the matter...if you're willing to credit us I could let you use them...

send me a pm to let me know ya?

tammi

 

[rottenramone]

..

did a sch project on it before. couple of books that we read up:

"music culture in singapore: record companies, retailers and performers" by allan wells and lee chun wah in "asian popular culture" edited by jonh lent westview press 1994

"no finer time to be alive" by simpleman books 1995 (?)

"golden venus" can't remember name (perreira?) and publisher

that was like a billion years back when i was in poly... there may be new papers/publications.

sigh. to be young again.