REVEALING THE HEART: THE POPULAR MUSIC INDUSTRY IN YANGON, BURMA A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School Of Cornell University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Heather Mary MacLachlan August 2009 © 2009 Heather Mary MacLachlan REVEALING THE HEART: THE POPULAR MUSIC INDUSTRY IN YANGON, BURMA Heather Mary MacLachlan, Ph.D. Cornell University 2009 This dissertation is an ethnography of the Burmese popular music scene, which is centered in Yangon, Burma. The author attended concerts, rehearsals, recording sessions and music classes to develop the data discussed in the dissertation. She conducted seventy-seven individual interviews with members of the industry, including singers, instrument players, composers, studio owners, producers, managers, radio station employees and censors. In Chapter 1, she describes a typical recording session and then explains how the people there typify the larger Burmese pop music scene in terms of their gender, religion, career path, and their relationships to their fans, each other, and their government. She argues that musicians‟ frequent contributions to humanitarian causes are relevant to the ongoing debate about the development of civil society in Burma today. In Chapter 2, she describes a typical live show. She analyzes the kind of music that Burmese pop musicians create and describes their theories about music, showing that, for them, preserving the Anglo-American pop tradition is usually more important than creating innovative musical works. In Chapter 3, she explains the Burmese approach to learning and rehearsing music, showing that musicians‟ beliefs about talent mediate their rehearsal practices. Chapter 4 explains that, in Burma, musical recordings are distributed both via legal channels and by pirates, who pose – according to industry members – a tremendous threat to the industry. The author outlines the music distribution network using sociologist Richard A. Peterson‟s production perspective as a framework for the analysis. She argues that one of Peterson‟s most important contributions to the scholarship on cultural industries should be re-examined in light of the Burmese case. Chapter 5 offers a detailed look at the relationship between Burmese pop musicians and the government censors. The author shows that musicians use a variety of strategies to assert agency in the midst of the constraints imposed by the censorship system. She argues that scholar James Scott‟s ideas about power relationships, developed in studies of rural farmers, apply also to famous and influential musicians in Burma. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Heather MacLachlan was born in Winnipeg, Canada in 1972. She earned a B.Mus/B.Ed degree from the University of Manitoba in 1993. Prior to commencing graduate work at Cornell University, she worked for a decade as a public school music educator in French Immersion schools in Manitoba. In August of 2009, she took up the position of Assistant Professor of Ethnomusicology at the University of Dayton in Dayton, OH. iii This dissertation is dedicated to the many Yangon dwellers that graciously granted me interviews, invited me into their homes, and shared their hearts with me Most of them remain unnamed here, because of the danger they still face in present- day Burma They lived out one of the highest ideals of their society: They “warmly welcomed” me, the visitor iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I completed this dissertation, as the saying goes, “by the grace of God and the goodness of the neighbors.” I thank all of the following people for their encouragement and guidance: My doctoral committee, for sharing their wisdom with me, and especially for carefully supervising this dissertation – Martin Hatch, Steven Pond, Magnus Fiskesjo and Ward Keeler. Scholars who wrote additional reference letters, for their willingness to vouch for me – Carol Babiracki, Ian Holliday. Other academic mentors, for graciously taking the time to advise me – San San Hnin Htun, Eric Tagliacozzo, Rhoda Linton, Gavin Douglas, Sean Turnell, Stephen Meyer and Theo Cateforis. My writing support group, for sharing the journey with me – Clifford Crawford, Alexa Yesukevich, Matthew Hoffberg and Baran Han. The GCF early morning prayer group, for repeatedly lifting me up in prayer – Heidi Park, Andrew Yeo, Thea Sircar and David and Rita Hjelle. My prayer partner, for being a shining example of faith and calm – Heather Edvenson. My translator in Yangon, for her gift of time and expertise – Daw Pa Pa. Other friends in Yangon, for their interest, support and friendship – Rachel Tha Hla, Rova and Mawite, Pastor Stanley, Pastor Ler Wah, and the congregation of the Ahlone Sanchaung Karen Baptist Church. My Karen friends in Ithaca, for answering so many questions and for adopting me as their “pi” – Paw Pha, Moo Lerh and Blu Paw. v My extended family, for being an ever-present light along the way – Cliff St. Amand, Sandra St. Amand, Cheryl St. Amand, Kim St. Amand, Gary St. Amand, Sheila Seesahai, Richard Seesahai and Anthony Seesahai. And my precious husband and son, for everything – Christopher St. Amand and Riel St. Amand. TABLE OF CONTENTS BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH iii DEDICATION iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS v LIST OF FIGURES vii INTRODUCTION - A Brief History of Popular Music in Burma 1 CHAPTER 1 – Creators of Burmese Pop Music: Who are They? 14 CHAPTER 2 – Burmese Pop Songs: Sound and Significance 71 CHAPTER 3 – Learning Music in Contemporary Burma 140 CHAPTER 4 – A Bird‟s-Eye View of the Burmese Pop Music Industry 193 CHAPTER 5 – Musicians and the Censors: The Negotiation of Power 244 APPENDIX 296 REFERENCES 298 vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1.1: Construction in Yangon 1 Figure 1.2: Hsaing waing performance 2 Figure 2.1: Billboard advertising a new series 35 Figure 2.2: Lay Phyu advertisement 45 Figure 2.3: Lay Phyu selling Yum Yum noodles 46 Figure 3.1: Comparison of American and Burmese melodies 83 Figure 3.2: C Rule notation 106 Figure 4.1: Recording studio 145 Figure 5.1: Retail shop selling recordings 195 Figure 5.2: Pirates selling recordings 198 Figure 5.3: Duplicated Western recordings on sale 224 Figure 5.4: Billboard advertising a live show 236 Figure 5.5: Billboard advertising Lay Phyu‟s BOB album 237 Figure 6.1: Tatmadaw soldier in uniform 278 Figure 6.2: Censored album 288 Figure 6.3: Album marked “for distribution within the congregation” 288 Figure 6.4: Tain-yin-tha album 289 vii INTRODUCTION: A BRIEF HISTORY OF POPULAR MUSIC IN BURMA In 1755 King Alaungpaya, the founder of the last great Burmese monarchial dynasty, arrived at the small fishing village of Dagon. At the end of a long campaign to conquer and unify much of what we now know as Burma, he decided to found his new capital. He renamed the location Yan-gon, meaning “the end of strife.” Standing in modern-day Yangon (also known as Rangoon), it is easy to imagine what Alaungpaya must have seen. Undoubtedly he raised his eyes to the glorious sight of the Shwedagon Pagoda, where devout Buddhists have venerated a shrine containing eight hairs from the head of Gautama Buddha for more than a millennium. He must have seen small family homes made of bamboo, and women carrying their produce to market in baskets balanced on their heads. He would have given alms to saffron-robed monks who wandered the streets at dawn, begging bowls in hand. Figure 1.1: Workers' house next to a mansion they are building, Dhamma Zedi Lan, Yangon It is easy to picture the scene as it looked two hundred and fifty years ago because, in each of these ways, Yangon has not changed. Nowadays the bamboo huts are interspersed with concrete and steel; there seems to be a new construction project 1 on every major thoroughfare. Cars race past the open-air markets, and monks wear eyeglasses and ride public buses. But glimpses of the older Yangon are everywhere in the contemporary city. We can still see what Alaungpaya saw, and we can still hear what he heard. The musical tradition that developed and flourished in the courts of kings like Alaungpaya, known as the Maha Gita, continues to be a vibrant and important part of Burmese life in the twenty-first century. The Maha Gita is a body of song texts which were written down some centuries ago. The melodies that accompany these texts have been passed down orally. The songs are accompanied by a variety of distinctively Burmese musical instruments, like the saung gauk (harp) and the pattala (xylophone). The king‟s mighty instrumental ensemble, known as the hsaing waing, includes pitched drums and gongs and an aerophone with a particularly piercing sound, the hnay. (For more on this music, see Becker 1969, Garfias 1975 and 1985, Keeler 1998, Williamson 2000). Now, as then, singers and instrumentalists trained in the Maha Gita perform for Buddhist rituals and at weddings, and play an important part in public Figure 1.2: Hsaing waing performing at a wedding in Yangon, January 2009 2 festivals. They appear frequently in government-sponsored television shows, and young people study the tunes and techniques at university (see Douglas 2001 and 2003 for how this tradition is evolving today). From our historical vantage point, we can also hear Burmese musical sounds that Alaungpaya could not have ever imagined. His dynasty ended, slowly and painfully, as the British colonized Burma in waves of invasion during the nineteenth century. English cultural products, including musical instruments, came to Burma with the colonists, and the resourceful Burmese adopted them for their own use. Through the twentieth century, Burmese musicians developed uniquely Burmese ways of playing the piano and the violin. In addition, they combined their own melodies and singing style with Western instruments (like the slide guitar, and later, electronic keyboards and guitars) to create a new fusion music.