I can also write a song with the lyrics about the story that I want to tell, which might also be a
good idea because by writing the lyrics, I can surely deliver my thoughts and the story I have in
mind to the listener, and by using different pitches and the word choice in the lyrics can really
create my artistic intention of the story.
Another way of completing this task can be also through visuals and adding some sort of
supporting music or background musics. This might be somehow related to the first idea I have
which was composing a music piece, for adding visuals, it can be images showing like
slideshows, animations or videos with the music piece that I composed to tell the story. If the
audiences are just listening to the composition, I think it will be less effective as listening and
seeing with the visuals, therefore by adding visual can really create a better artistic intention to
the work.
My story I want to tell: Since this is about telling our own personal stories, I look back in the
past, I feel like my parents are the ones who put me in the position I am today, they made me
who I am, they’ve worked hard and they paid for what it takes to help me achieve my goals and
support me with everything in life, therefore I think telling a story of how hard my parent worked
to get me here is the best way of telling my personal story.
Me and my sisters grew up with our mother more than with our father because of his businesses,
he’s always away from home; however I still know that he’s been working hard overseas to raise
the family, but because we spent more time with our mother, we were able to see and hear more
stories of things that they have been through from our mother, especially for the struggles that
she has been through. Ofcourse she misses her families, and even though sometimes she says she
wanted to go home to her mother, but she still stay strong and managed to raise this family. This
might seems not as big of a deal for anyone today, but it is a lot to work for for a women like my
mother who grew up in a small village on the very north of Kachin land (our hometown), decent
education and just enough income for her parents to feed 10 children every day. She worked all
her way through the toughest times on her own when she did not receive full support from her
husband even after their marriage like others normally would. Therefore I want to express the
struggles and the journey of my mother through the beauty of music for this task.
My inspiration: To make this happen, I will be referring to an existing piece of poem that my
older sister wrote for my mom on her 45th birthday. And it brings me to my final idea for the
product, which is almost similar to adding visual; however, I will still compose the music piece,
but for this idea, the visuals are not drawings or other illustrations of the poem, but the poem
itself. Since the poem was written in Kachin language (mother tongue language), I could
translate the poem into English version in my best ability without changing the intention of my
sister when she wrote it, I would present this task by reading the poem and the composition
playing at the back while I read as to support my artistic intention to the story.
1st Mar. 2019: Connecting to the Global Context and Statement of Inquiry
My artistic intention was developed throughout the process to connect to our global context.
Since I am telling a personal story of our mother based on both our cultural setting and foreign
countries. For example, in the poem reads, “From the mountain, travels to the village” this part
of the poem is indicating the place where my mother grew up, my mother who grew up in a
small village on the very north of Kachin land (our hometown), by composing a music piece for
the poem I am also representing our cultural background and our (Kachin) people. I am also
thinking to present the poem in my own language to represent my culture. To better connect to
our statement of inquiry, when I am thinking about the composition for the music piece, I am
thinking to use our traditional instruments as to show our cultural, which is expressing our
cultural identities through music.