I don’t mean to talk about folk song tradition here. But somehow the idea of the mountain folk singing and the technological influence on its disappearance are linked to my thoughts of myself singing Karaoke in the bars or listening to Ipod on the street. Compared with the mountain ordinary people, I tend to speak less through m singing. Is it just my “outsider” romantic thoughts about the mountain people or something else?
Two years ago, I had a chance to film a documentary on the folk song tradition of a Chinese ethnic group called Mosuo in Yunnan Province, China. I spent lots of time listening to and filming people singing folk songs out loud in the beautiful mountain. I learned that Mosuo people once had a tradition, in which people would communicate and even fight against one another when they walk in different mountains. Folk singing used to an essential part for these people to express their voices and pass down their culture from another generation to another. However, this tradition is dying out with television, cell phone and pop music coming into the village. Folk singing is no more cool enough for people to use “talking” in the mountains, though the kids are still singing in the form of pop singing and sharing the “modern” culture that they dream of. They still communicate, though through cell phones.
However, I really appreciate the strong sense of dialectic flow and emotional collision Mosuo people were once able to achieve through their folk singing. I hope that the kids are able to keep their tradition of sonic communication through pop singing. I feel that it is important to encourage the spirit of voicing yourself through singing in the music culture that boosted by media technology and industrial marketing especially in the city space. At least I feel this need in my life. Singing Karaoke is just one example. I often feel that, when I sing Karaoke, I was looking for a song to express my feelings and often could not find one. Then I performed the songs listed on the songbooks offered by the bars. It is often nice to team up and sing with somebody else in Karaoke, but sometimes the written song becomes a performative communication rather than a real communication between my singing partner and me. Some may say there must be communication between you and your singing partner beyond these lyrics. But I should admit that I often have to look at the lyrics on the screen…And my audiences tend to give me more applaud, when my singing sound closer to the way the singer does in the song.
I gradually stop singing Karaoke and then stop singing totally. The later part of the last sentence is more tragic than the former part of it. I should not stop singing just because I hate Karaoke. But then what are my songs? For the past two years, I have lived in the lyrics of Mosuo people’s singing in my documentary. Somehow they are closer to my heart, though they come from the mountain thousands of miles away and start vanishing. But what are songs in my life? Shall I blaim the Karaoke singing culture I grow up in or shall I blame myself? I should also look out the window and listen to some independent bands singing the music they are creating by themselves. Well, this starts another topic or a circular topic about music culture, individuality and commercialization. What kind of conflicts independent singers face in the prevailing commercializing and urbanizing music culture? More questions than points here. I guess, at this moment, even if I don’t sing, it is important to be awake and listen with a conscious mind.
