answer to the Kazaks journalist - Meruyert Burkitbayeva - invitation for feedback of introducing kazahs culture through Dimash music.
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For the use of fb
Through D's beautiful voice and visual presentations, humour, I was able to appreciate the mass media approach to enjoy neo classical music. The very rich access to various international tv performances not only shows me how D's music has been received in different cultures, but also the host tv stations programming and styles and fellow performers in each country for example Kazaks, Russia, and China are so interesting to watch. I wish all the best to Dimash and hope to see more of his works to come.
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Why I find the singer Dimash so interesting to watch.
First of all, his public persona truly reminds me of everyone's first dream boyfriend, or a very kind older brother, who has the same style, tall, athletic, and with his private slight sadness - youthful beauty, we were once all beautiful and young with each our own sadness. Some of which is more profound and others a kind of youthful fluff, but doesnt matter the size of the sadness and seriousness of the source, the effect on the person involved is the same. Takes up the same amount of time! If you only broke some small object, and to the ruining of a whole seasons work, up to destruction of a whole family thats beyond your own control... at the end, if your trouble is a small one or a larger one, you suffer, you will have your share of suffering. Nobody could help you.
This sadness that Dimash sings, is inherent in all human beings. Do you think a baby does not know of the sadness of not seeing his/her mother all the time? When the baby needs the mother, its a searing want. This separation and sadness at a baby's level is as heart wrenching as any later breakups in adulthood. This sadness, universal sadness at whatever level is present in the sad songs that Dimash sings, especially the songs in the original Kazak langugage. ( Not present in the foreign language ones. )
I first heard the song "The crown (of thorns) " in Dec 2020, the Chinese version has a really good, easy to follow sing along music tune. The beginning verses playfully uses standard double character to present a common heart break situations, as in Chinese language almost all situations has standard 4 words phrases to package the moment neatly - so much so that its almost over used and young Chinese people could only think along in the language set ups - just like all language allows some kind of thinking and not other kinds. This is the nature of using language to formalise our feelings and life experiences. So the beginning of the songs quick and neat sums up heart break, deception, slight of hand treatments of love, and fading of the love memories, this slew of quick paced summing up of the person singing then overlaids the story with an image of a martyr wearing the crown of thorns. Great lyrics, super catchy tune. Beautifully sung - with a marvellous little solo near the end displaying the skill of the singers voice, decorative, terrific, memorable amongst the lyrics making references to western museums, suffering sculptures, playing with martyr images; with tongue in cheek humour. Then it ends, fast and easy, that love is a beautiful sumptuous decaying process. The end. What an interesting song. Its contemporary, love is not about being apart, or un reachable longings - which is the theme for so long in Chinese pop music, since the 60s or even earlier i am sure. When women are to stay at home to wait for the man. But this song is about cruelty with a tongue in cheek humour. Similar love songs i heard by Chinese musicians have a much more dashing lyric, how the new generation is already miles and miles away from the waiting game. Its about getting the guy to be honest, its about love is not such a glorious game, about eating fried chicken at the public square and some intrique, about stupid beautiful women who languishingly waits makes herself all pretty and lying to herself etc, very funny, very realistic lyrics. And then, there are also back to lyrical poetry type of verses, thats classic chinese songs.
This "The Crown" (Kim
Eken in kazaks) is a very good song for everyone to sing. Chinese or non Chinese, easy to learn. It is not profoundly sad, just a little, and easy to remember due to the repeating couplets. What a great song!!! Music is by Kazahs composer Ulukpan Zholdasov.
So I thought if i were to have a musical event for a Chinese audience, this would be a good song for the audience to sing along with the singer.
After that, I watched some other music videos of Dimash, and saw a picture of him as a child. What a cute baby he was !! It is always amazing to see a small child grown into a big tall good looking young man. You could only see this progress from people you know personally, like your nephew or little brother, so these pictures somehow makes you feel close to the public super singer Dimash, almost as if he was your little brother! I dont see other pop stars sharing their lives in such a detailed way. Very generous and much in need in todays much needed love hungry societies.
Little by little listen to more songs, discovered the family system and values of Kazaks people as expressed by Dimash and his family.
I thought, I didnt know that they are really very similar to Chinese traditional closely tight knitted family values. I also saw the same remarks by Indian viewers, they also thought Kazaks family - Dimash family - is v similar to their own Indian family. The very heart warming mutual support system of grand parents taking care of grand child so the young parents could develop with their own work. But I suppose in all old countries its very similar - in France for example, in the previous generation it is the same, but today its no more grandma baby sitting, its the professional baby sitting service; grandmas go line dancing, have a full program of entertainment to occupy their precious leisure time well earned after a life of child raising.., there are many variations of families with different details.
The cultural variations are in the details. What makes one culture a particular flavour and another with a different twist depends on the details. I will not go into details here.
Then, I noticed when Dimash sings his songs in a foreign language - in all his non-kazaks songs, he has a high performing musical flow and artistry. However he does not have the slightly urgent raw beat with a kind of rush - that is in his kazak songs.
When he sings in Kazaks, it has a different, an additional underlying movement thats more than musical artistry which is very interesting. He's almost like another person - a youthful male energy rushing up to the surface. Then I saw recently an old interview on Kazahs tv with D's mother - who is a prize winning singer - said D's hair is naturally curly, then I imagine if he had curly hair, what kind of young man does he look like? He would of course be a handsome one. As an Asian, my hair is straight, but I was obliged to get perms as a child because my own mother wants to see curly hair on me. Then much later, in the 80s it was very popular to have an afro hair, which I found so good looking too. So I also got an afro - very few Asians get afros then - but a perm is only a perm, it takes a lot of continuing care to make that afro stay. So after a few perms I just got tired of this high maintenance task.
So this hair thing is kind of interesting - a hair style stays with you you take it with you everywhere unless you use wigs then you could change hair. Straight hair people wants to have curly hair and curly hair people wants straight hair.
So unless I know some Kazaks language, this is as far as we could go, just by external appearance. To know a country and a culture, knowing the language allows you to enter another world. Without the language, it is all on the surface, mainly visual, sensual on the skin so to speak.
Through D's beautiful voice and visual presentations, humour, I was able to appreciate the mass media approach to enjoy neo-classical music. The very rich access to various international tv performances not only shows me how D's music has been received in different cultures, but also the host tv stations programming and styles and fellow performers in each country for example Kazaks, Russia, and China are so interesting to watch. I wish all the best to Dimash and hope to see more of his works to come.
Next
So, after I begun listening to the great voice of Dimash, I listen to other great singers and try to see what are the parallels in pop music. The various ways of singing, methods of training a voice. Everybody has a voice, and all the teachers online says basically that what is important is not how high or how low an extraordinary voice is, but it is in the transmission of your feelings. Dimash himself often says that yes he could sing very high but that is not the most important thing in his singing.
So, I decided to see if i could also train myself, and up to what point? So I bought a keyboard, a vintage yamaha ps25, because even though it has only 48 keys it does the job, it covers my upper and lower voice range. And I really like the sounds of this 80s synthesiser. Now, what kind of songs? What do I like to listen to? I re-discover Sinéad O'connors, Prince, Angelina Jordan, Beatles, Sam Cooke, Tina Turner, Little Jimmy Scott, Chet Baker, Barry White, Camille, Momo Wu, Elvis Presley, Aretha Franklin, Karen Carpenter, Dolly Parton, Cleo Laine, Pavarotti, Lucio Dalla and many many others. Not only I listen to singing, I also listen to analysis of different kinds of music. Somebody told me about Erroll Garner, who learnt to play the piano by sight, he did not read music! And he grunts along with his piano playing. All this is listening in parallel. I get a tuner to see did i hear myself sing correctly? A huge colorful world is opened in front gradually. I listen to the Kazaks versions of the sounds along side the Chinese versions, the English versions, also looking at the lyric translations, whats the song about?
What are people singing?
Aside from this, I look at Michael Jacksons last preparations for his concert "This is it", and many other shows. Talent shows for children, for seniors, for regular The Voice, so many talented singers. And so many so young too. So many , 17 years old, 11, incredible and amongst all these talented singers is an an exceptional voice, Angelina Jordan , at a very young age, she already had all the nuances of phrasing that we sometimes hear in mature musicians. Amazing.
I also started paying much closer attention to film music. Film music is a voice, a narrators voice, it supports the images to tell a story. Images follows the sound.
Then I remember the movie Gohatto by Nagisa Oshima with the eerie minimal sounds, and of course, the center character a very beautiful young man - I re-watched the whole movie. In fact, not only the central character is beautiful, almost all the rest of the cast are quite handsome each in their own style. Each samourai has their own character and beauty, courage finely expressed indirectly. How did the director transmit the intangible tremor of desire? Interdiction and beauty together, woven by little suggestions of a few music notes. Ryuichi Sakamoto is the composer.
From day to day, we dont always pay attention to every details in sights and sounds, in nature, in man made materials, in imaginary suggestive constructs, but when we do, there are infinitesimal levels of refinement that we could focus on.
more later...
starting point of this entry
Face Book :
Could you share your thoughts on how Dimash encourages you to learn Kazakh culture? What inspires you the most to explore a new language, traditions, way of life, people? I am a journalist. I am writing a piece on how Dimash promotes his culture. I would appreciate your answers
Please feel free to DM me if you have anything to share with me. Thanks a lot. I am also a fellow fan)) Please share your personal story. It will be published in one of the biggest national newspapers in Kazakhstan "Egemen Qazaqstan".
Please feel free to DM me if you have anything to share with me. Thanks a lot. I am also a fellow fan)) Please share your personal story. It will be published in one of the biggest national newspapers in Kazakhstan "Egemen Qazaqstan".Shuengit Chow Through D's beautiful voice and visual presentations, humour, I was able to appreciate the mass media approach to enjoy neo classical music. The very rich access to various international tv performances not only shows me how D's music has been received in different cultures, but also the host tv stations programming and styles and fellow performers in each country for example Kazaks, Russia, and China are so interesting to watch. I wish all the best to Dimash and hope to see more of his works to come.
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