Music in the Arena
Music, no doubt plays a significant role in our everyday life. During the last two decades or so, the Independence Day celebrations have displayed music and musicians in our society in varying degrees. This important day for every Maldivian has created lots of platforms for musicians. Composers working day and night with choreographers, studios packing up with recording artists, pop bands practicing for the “Fannanunge Show” while marching bands for the parade, create hype across the city weeks earlier uniting all well known artists from different genres.
The Festive style that we see today came into the arena in the early 90s. From a military tattoo to a more colorful festival with increasing number of participants was a significant change. Many composers, arrangers and artists along with choreographers contribute the festival bringing in distinctiveness to the repertoire. This has made the creative immerging artists anxiously wait for a chance to get through. Today, certainly music has become more meaningful and important to our society. Compositions and orchestrations, more conceptual.
In the 80s, music was performed live or partly live for most of the items. The music teacher or the school band does this job well. Apart from the students in the drill or dance, this meant a lot of practice for the musicians too. But the orchestrations and arrangements were limited with regard to the capacity of ensembles then. Micing and setting up the main sound was challenging due to the inadequate equipments available and poorly trained technicians.
In the early 90s, modern technology changed everything. Music was no longer performed live but rather was programmed and pre-recorded on MDs or CDs. Hence, micing was no longer required. With the programmable sequencers in hand, some composers presented much richer and well orchestrated songs. But it is important that we understand that this change was never a solution for the problems dealt in the 80s but an alternative way of catering music for the items.
In the present years’ celebrations, the very same problems were foreseen when the final event was to perform live in the arena. With the ongoing trend to perform live, yet another problem is arising. Today, various parts in an orchestration are written for the sequencer to perform which sometimes makes it rather impossible to perform live. These parts are either way beyond the capacity of local musicians or do not meet the technicalities of instrument. In simple…. It’s not practical at all. And ultimately sounds horrible. It’s a pity that after more than a decade we still have not learnt any from our mistakes.
I simply don’t understand the reason why a concept should be developed beyond our capacity. Some regard this as creativity but than I believe one should go to sleep. Because you can only dream of it, never expect to see it happening in real life. On the other hand neither do I understand why we still don’t have trained professionals in music, in sound or in choreography when we need them for every such event.
October 2nd, 2007 at 14:28
Hello,
We are a young band from Maldives,
We would like to release our own album internationally…
we have all arrangements…
Can you tell me a nice price for these albums which contains music and lyrics related for tourism of maldives…
thank you
October 9th, 2007 at 05:17
perhaps u should discuss this matter with the circle or the retailers in general first, on the commission they want. Add this to the cost, than u decide how much profit margin u want to keep. Get the figure and i shouldn say if u can bare, I suggest that you dont go beyond 15 to 20 US dollars. Aslo if u can, try to market the album via internet as well. But I really mean some good means of marketing here. Since CD sales are now dropping and the new digital business model certainly lets a larger population to access easily.