The final preparation of the final presentation was an extremely slow and long process. It spanned from week 8 of the course all the way till week 13!! Can u belieeevveee it!??! But... still not enough time!!! Turned on the panic mode on the presentation day was a step of no turning back. All the rough moments during the setting up of my mahjong table and also the technical problems that arise minutes before the presentation was disastrous.
Background
As mentioned before, my presentation will be based on the local funeral practice in Singapore. Funerals are meant to be a ceremony to value and pay tribute to the dead, but for the chinese in Singapore, especially when the deceased is an elder in the family, who dies of old age, the mood at the funeral can be slightly different. The atmosphere is relatively lively and light hearted where relatives gather and chat. I will like to capture the atmosphere of a traditional chinese funeral. It gives me the inspiration to compose a piece to re-enact this unique Singaporean approach towards funeral.
For my presentation, in order to have a beginning and a continuation and an end, I have used a few different elements to make it happen.
First, I have chosen to use the Mahjong as my presentation platform. At the start of the mahjong game, we will assign the game to the east wind. It will be represented on the dice at the corner of the mahjong table. As the game progress, it will be changed from east-south-west-north respectively. Each wind will be representing each day of the funeral, which is intended to be 3 days.
Mahjong table set up
Photo of east wind
Next, a priest will be assigned to come and go each day, doing a prayer when he or she comes. When the priest comes, he will place a chip on the connecting wires that will trigger a 'gong' sound, that symbolizes the daily prayer. Participants will pause the mahjong game n stay silence till the ringing of the gong stops. Participants may not know what to do during the first time, but with this motif, on the 2nd and 3rd day, participants will automatically pause the game n do the prayer.
Metal chip connected to the connecting wires, triggering the 'gong' sound.
Chip with metal plate attached to it. Metal plate used to connect the connecting wires.
Connecting wires
Lastly, on the third day, the priest will come in again. This time doing the prayer and followed by a funeral march. The priest will guide the participants around the mahjong table while the march is being played and then leave the performance area, indicating the end of the piece. I got the marching idea from the following video. (watch it from 5.45 onwards).
For my presentation, in order to have a beginning and a continuation and an end, I have used a few different elements to make it happen.
First, I have chosen to use the Mahjong as my presentation platform. At the start of the mahjong game, we will assign the game to the east wind. It will be represented on the dice at the corner of the mahjong table. As the game progress, it will be changed from east-south-west-north respectively. Each wind will be representing each day of the funeral, which is intended to be 3 days.
Mahjong table set up
Photo of east wind
Next, a priest will be assigned to come and go each day, doing a prayer when he or she comes. When the priest comes, he will place a chip on the connecting wires that will trigger a 'gong' sound, that symbolizes the daily prayer. Participants will pause the mahjong game n stay silence till the ringing of the gong stops. Participants may not know what to do during the first time, but with this motif, on the 2nd and 3rd day, participants will automatically pause the game n do the prayer.
Metal chip connected to the connecting wires, triggering the 'gong' sound.
Chip with metal plate attached to it. Metal plate used to connect the connecting wires.
Connecting wires
Lastly, on the third day, the priest will come in again. This time doing the prayer and followed by a funeral march. The priest will guide the participants around the mahjong table while the march is being played and then leave the performance area, indicating the end of the piece. I got the marching idea from the following video. (watch it from 5.45 onwards).
How it is done?
First, it is done by setting up a mahjong table with a complete mahjong set. The mahjong tables will be pre-layed with connecting wires where a gap is left in between them. Once, the set up is done, the mahjong game will begin.
1)When the game begins, a dice with the words, North-South-East-West will be placed at a corner of the table. This dice will trigger the first sound, Prayer.
2)As the game is played, tiles will be thrown out to the pool in the middle of the table. In this pool, the connecting wires that was laid before hand will be connected by the metal plates that are pasted on the base of random mahjong tiles. These connection will trigger different sounds and the sound will stay on till it is disconnected.
3)There will also be a priest that will appear 3 times in total, each time representing one day. The priest will place a chip on the trigger at the side of the mahjong table and that will trigger a gong sound which symbolizes the daily prayers. When the gong sound is triggered, the mahjong game will pause and the prayer will be made. On the third prayer(third day), the gong sound will be followed by a funeral march, called the "Dead march from Saul". The march signifies the end of the funeral where the relatives will guide the dead to his last pathway to after life.
*The gap between the connecting wires are connected by the metal plate when the mahjong is being played as shown below
Mahjong tile with metal plate attached to it.
*Random tiles will be attached with a piece of metal plate at the base atmosphere of a funeral using the mahjong set up and triggering various sounds that can be heard at a traditional chinese funeral. Why mahjong? Because, it is a tradition game that will be played during funerals especially if the dead is an elder, who died of old age. This is to symbolize the unity of children and the harmony of relatives by making the environment as lively as possible. Due to the fact that I did not video my actual presentation, I have uploaded my mock-up that was used to test my program before the presentation. The video is presented below.
The software
I am very grateful to zong hao. Without his help i will never figure out the existence of sfplay~. This has been an useful object that stores my audio file. With the guide of Dirk, I use the analogue part of the arduino to deal with something that requires digital.
Basically, I have 2 connecting wires which have a gap in between. I intend to use metal plates that will be attached to the mahjong tiles, to the connect the wires. The connection will close the circuit and trigger the various sounds stored in the sfplay~.
The sounds that I included are crying, laughing, talking and praying. Furthermore, I also added the priest part, which is symbolized by the 'gong' sound. Since the funeral is set to be 3 days, on day 1 there will be one gone sound, day 2 will have 2, and so on... However, on the final day, i added a funeral march called "the Dead march from Saul". It is an extremely beautiful funeral march that was used by many important people in their funeral, like Winston Churchill, etc. The march symbolizes the walk towards afterlife, as its part of the chinese funeral tradition to have guidance to afterlife.
General view of the software.
Short video on my working software and the use of Audacity.
Dead march from Saul:
On the presentation day
Actual layout of the mahjong table. This the table top.
Let's look at the real mess!!! under the table.. Oh my... Horror!!!
Unfortunately, I did not take any video on the actual day of my presentation. But I uploaded the mockup. I hope its sufficient.
Take awaysss!!
With the presentation done on 17 April, it marks the end of course. Lots of emotions... It my last elective in the whole NTU life, my last semester, my last presentation in school. Although it was not the best, I had fun. Lots of gratitude towards Dirk, our mentor, tutor, consultant. I never expect myself who attended class only on week 3 to actually catch up with everyone, and manage to come up with a workable program at the end of the course. It was a dreadful process though. But its because of these treacherous process that we learn the most and most memorable.
I was actually kind of disappointed that the presentation did not go well!! oh wells, panic attack will kill u. Anyway, I'm starting to gain interest in Sound engineer, intending to read up more on it. Learning it for leisure, entertain myself and maybe some friends who may appreciate my art. LOLS.
I will like to express my gratitude to a few extremely helpful peers in class, Melvin and Zonghao. They will never refuse to provide assistance when we need help. Especially Zonghao who will stay up late with us during non-lesson days to help us!!! Even on the presentation day itself, while I was panicking that my program don't work, he was also there to comfort me. Of course friends are also made in class, Christopher and Azhar, My bros throughout the course. Of course you, Mr Dirk! Fortunately we took a picture tgt, otherwise, who knows when we meet again... lol
Last view of the classroom.
Photos: tagged Dirk, Azhar
Tay Guang Liang, signing out from my blog for the last time...
19 April 2013
