Sebuah Introduksi dan Sebuah Essay Penentuan

Pertengahan tahun 2011 ini saya memulai hidup baru di sebuah negara yang sebenarnya tidak begitu jauh dari Indonesia, negara yang terkenal atas wildlife dan binatang-binatangnya yang tidak bisa ditemukan di negara lain, negara yang masih menjadi tetangga Indonesia dan merupakan salah satu negara yang mempunyai ekspor turis terbesar untuk Indonesia. Australia, apa yang bisa saya katakan tentang Australia yang anda belum tau? Matahari yang menusuk sepanjang tahun, musim panas yang waktunya berbeda dengan negara-negara kulit putih lain, dan tentunya ekspor band-band rock n roll yang luar biasa bagusnya ke berbagai penjuru dunia.

Banyak hal yang terjadi semenjak saya pindah ke negara Kangguru ini, dimulai dengan hal-hal yang tidak begitu menyenangkan seperti mengalami musim dingin dan tidur menggigil dengan jeans dan jaket dua lapis, being dumped oleh mantan pacar karena isu space and time, sampai ke hal-hal exciting dan menyenangkan seperti bertemu orang-orang dari berbagai macam negara, melihat hal-hal baru dengan mata sendiri, dan tentunya menemukan toko-toko cd independent dengan koleksi yang luar biasa lengkapnya. Namun dari semua hal yang sudah terjadi semenjak itu, ada satu hal yang menjadi highlight dari sekian hal yang terjadi. Di awal semester saya memberanikan diri mengambil satu mata kuliah yang sudah terkenal sulit di mata pelajar-pelajar Indonesia yang sudah disini sebelum saya, mata kuliah yang bahkan tidak dianjurkan untuk diambil oleh dosen Universitas tempat saya melanjutkan pendidikan ini (University of Queensland). Mata kuliah itu merupakan bagian dari satu set program minoring yang harus saya selesaikan untuk memenuhi kriteria twining program saya guna mendapatkan gelar Bachelor of Arts. Mata kuliah ini bernama From Elvis to Madonna: Introduction to Popular Music, sepengetahuan saya, sudah ada dua orang mahasiswa Indonesia yang mengambil kelas ini sebelum saya dan kedua orang itu drop out dari course ini dengan alasan tidak tahan. Lalu dengan sejarah yang cukup mengerikan ini, kenapa saya tetap keukeuh dan yakin? Saya bisa saja mengambil program minor yang jauh lebih mudah seperti Bahasa Indonesia, saya yakin saya bisa mendapatkan perfect score apabila saya memilih mata kuliah itu. Namun bukan itu intinya, intinya adalah saya mempunyai kesempatan untuk mempelajari hal yang paling saya sukai di hidup saya, satu hal yang bagi saya worth dying for, karena tanpanya eksistensi saya bisa dibilang hanya buang-buang waktu dan ruangan.

Musik, siapa yang tidak suka musik? Semua orang suka musik, orang sakit jiwa di rumah sakit jiwa pun masih berdendang musik di dalam sell asylum nya. Kenapa saya menulis tulisan ini sekarang? Karena saya ingin berbagi pengalaman tentang pelajaran yang saya dapat dari mata kuliah ini, mata kuliah yang hampir tidak mungkin bisa saya ambil di Indonesia karena tidak akan diizinkan oleh orang tua saya, dan hey siapa yang bisa protes? Masih bagus disekolahkan untuk masa depan, saya yakin ada lebih dari satu juta orang di bumi kita yang tidak menolak apabila ditawarkan kesempatan untuk bertukar tempat dengan saya saat ini juga, jadi kenapa harus protes? Oke kembali ke topik, setelah 13 minggu melalui mata kuliah yang sejujurnya cukup melelahkan karena tugas-tugasnya yang cukup menyenangkan namun hampir seberat tugas Psikologi saya sendiri ini, saya sampai di penghujung acara. Di akhir kuliah, saya diharuskan untuk memilih satu dari enam topik yang telah disediakan dan menulis sebuah essay argumentatif lengkap dengan sumber-sumber yang mendukung. 6 topik itu adalah, seperti bagaiman saya copy paste dari pdf nya:

1. “The music industry hates creativity.”1 Bob Lefsetz. Explain the rationale behind this
statement and comment on its veracity.

2. “If you have great words and they don’t sing right, then you don’t feel them as great
words. And if the sounds are right, even if you can’t understand the words, I think we
infer meaning from them. Like “Louie, Louie”. The sound is crucial.”2 Discuss the
importance of sound in comparison to lyrical content in popular music.

3. Andy Stewart: “How do you think the Beatles would have fared if they’d had the
option of an endless track count and digital automation?” Geoff Emerick: “I suspect it
would have been a mess.” Andy Stewart interviewing Beatles’ sound engineer Geoff
Emerick.3 Discuss this presumption in the light of Igor Stravinsky’s belief that "The
more constraints one imposes, the more one frees oneself from the chains that shackle
the spirit."

4. “After finally achieving commercial success in 1972 with ‘Walk on the Wild Side’,
Reed immediately began to test his audience’s endurance. First he grilled them with
the much-maligned Berlin narrative, then later with Metal Machine Music. In between,
there were the hits, Rock ‘n’ Roll Animal and Sally Can’t Dance, records he now
denounces as trivial, commercial contrivances.”5 Discuss the nexus between triviality
and commercial success in rock music.

5. “All music is popular music.”6 Bruce Johnson. Discuss.

6. “There are thousands and thousands of bands out there with these really smooth, great,
generic-sounding records that nobody gives a toss about. Then somebody like Beck
comes along and he hits a can and sings about being a ‘loser’ and he gets a Number
One, and who knows what that was recorded on?”7 Roy Thomas Baker. Discuss the
importance of individuality in popular music and the effect that has on “best practice”
and accepted schools of thought within the popular music industry and its training institution.

Seperti yang bisa anda liat, 6 topik ini bukan topik sembarangan, semuanya memerlukan analisa yang cukup mendalam tentang musik popular secara general. Dengan agak ragu saya memilih topik nomor dua, berbekal self esteem yang tidak terlalu tinggi saya nekat memilih topik ini. Topik mengenai kepentingan bunyi dibanding lirik dalam sebuah lagu.

Sebetulnya tujuan saya menulis hari ini adalah ingin berbagi essay yang saya kerjakan 3 hari belakangan ini, sebuah essay yang akan menentukan lulus atau tidak lulusnya saya di mata kuliah ini. Bila lulus, tentu saja saya akan pulang ke Indonesia dengan kepala tegak dan hati yang congkak, hey siapa yang tidak? Anda tau anda akan melakukan hal yang sama bila ada di posisi saya. Jadi tanpa panjang lebar lagi, berikut di bawah merupakan hasil kerja keras saya mondar-mandir perpustakan musik selama liburan dua minggu ini, essay ini ditulis dengan bahasa Inggris namun saya yakin anda semua pasti bisa menangkap inti dari essay ini dengan baik, disebabkan kemampuan bahasa Inggris saya yang pas-pasan, komentar dari anda are more than welcome, enjoy Lads!

Sounds over lyrics: The importance of sounds compared to lyrics in popular music

Throughout the years, songs in popular music have often been associated with strong lyrics. Ranging from personal to political issues, lyrics have been said to strengthen the power of a song. Several names in popular music have been known to produce strong lyrics in their songs which attract a large group of audience; names such as Bob Dylan or Van Morrison are only a glimpse of the many musicians which fit into this category of musician. Lyrics are regarded important in a song not merely because they tell stories of a certain issue, but more because they help the listeners to feel the pain and joy of a certain song, and because they help the listeners to better understand the meaning of the song (Moulton, 1992). To further strengthen the importance of lyrics in a song, The National Year of Reading campaign conducted a survey which questioned the importance of lyrics to around 4000 people, of which 90% stated that they felt the lyrics of a song is as important as the song itself because it helped them to fully appreciate the music. However, the importance of lyrics has often been overrated by many people, which sometimes forgot that the real strength of a song relies on the sound that it made.

In 1976, The American Punk Rock band Ramones released their self-title debut album which has since set the standards for many Punk bands to come. One of the songs included on the album is a song entitled “Beat on the Brat”, what’s interesting from this song is that the lyric for the song is no more than 3 lines long and the song is actually about beating a kid to death with a baseball bat. The song took a very obscure and uncommon theme, a theme which not anyone could really relate to. However, the song is one of Ramones most well known song and has been held in high regards among many fans of the band, it is even included in Ramones greatest hits compilation. The song is only one many examples where a good song does not necessarily needs to have a strong lyrics in order for it to become a good song. The question that arises is that if not the lyrics, what then would be the main criteria for a song to be considered a good song. The answer is pretty simple actually, the sound, a song could be considered good if it generates a strong sound. According to Gracyk (1996), lyrics are not the main reason on why a song attracted a large group of audience; it is rather the sound that the song produces that attracts the audience to listen to the song. Gracyk (1996) takes an example of Led Zeppelin’s 1971 hit “Stairway to Heaven”; he explains that when the song first came out in the late 1971, nobody really knows what the actual meaning of the lyrics is. Yet the song became known as Led Zeppelin’s magnum opus, the masterpiece, the song that everyone relates to when they hear of the word Led Zeppelin, mainly because of the sound that the song creates, which makes it enjoyable regardless of the lyrics.

The examples provided above strengthen the idea that good sound makes the song stronger regardless of the lyrics, sounds produced by a song are more crucial than the lyrics that were sung in the song. This is also supported by a research done by Boyle (1981), he conducted a study to explore the aspects that makes a song stronger and more attractive to hear. He finds that melody and rhythm of a song is the most important factor when it comes to how good the song is while lyrics ranked 6th on the list, meaning that a song is more appreciated when the sounds that it makes are enjoyable.

Why does sounds regarded as an important factor when it comes to the quality of a song? There are several reasons behind this. Hall (1996) argued that the tone and sounds that a song produces represents the listeners and their personality and it helps them to express their emotion. He further explained that the sounds that a song made are so strong that it almost became a social identity. Zentner (2008) also emphasize on the importance of sounds in a song, arguing that a certain sounds from a song could reflect the emotional state of the listeners and it could even force the listener to engage in a certain emotional state depending on the kind of sounds that it made. What make sounds superior to lyrics is that lyrics are often misleading; they could be misheard at a certain point and thus won’t represent the real meaning of the song. Lister (2008) supports this idea with his example of the actor Peter Fonda; Fonda took recreational drugs after referring to the Beatles line “I get high” where in fact the lyrics were “I can’t hide”. Although lyrics are often used as way of communicating the meaning of songs, it often failed due to the lack of human sensory capabilities, whereas sounds on the other hand, although it could not explain the meaning of songs as specific as lyrics, it could never lie about the real meaning of a song.

In conclusion, although sounds and lyrics are both important in order for a song to be attractive and strong, sounds held a much more important place compared to lyrics. Strong sounds can make a song stronger and are more attractive for the audience to hear regardless of the lyrics that it had. Lyrics are often misheard and thus could be misleading for the listener, changing the real meaning of the song whereas listeners of the song could always infer meaning from the sounds that a song make.

Cheers, Tri Wicaksono