Current efforts in sustaining Peranakan Chinese music in Melaka / Goh Zin Guan

• Main Author: Goh , Zin Guan
• Format: Thesis
• Published: 2020
• Subjects: M Music
• Online Access: http://studentsrepo.um.edu.my/14354/2/Goh_Zin_Guan.pdf; http://studentsrepo.um.edu.my/14354/1/Goh_Zin_Guan.pdf; http://studentsrepo.um.edu.my/14354/

Peranakan Chinese (Straits-born Chinese) music such as dondang sayang may not be a familiar folk music to the modernized Malaysian community, however, there are associations and organisations that thrived on to sustain the musical culture in Melaka. In the advanced influence of popular culture and modernity, efforts of sustaining local culture and Peranakan Chinese music becomes more challenging. Thus, this study aims to investigate the various efforts put on in sustaining the musical culture and its consequences in terms of authenticity in present Melaka. The past literatures reveal scholarship on Peranakan Chinese music in Malaysia came to a halt in the past two decades. Methodology in this study were observation, video recording and semistructured interview that focused on three active associations in Melaka and documentation of some less-active ones that takes the form of a qualitative enquiry. The outcomes of this study reveal how the associations and community revive interest and sustain the cultural form in new and innovative approaches that adapt to modernity and where sight of glocalization was witnessed. Furthermore, issues of authenticity were discussed.