Transcript of interview with Ann Tan (conducted by Amanda Lee), 27 May 2016, 5.00 pm, Skype.
Ann is a 23-year-old female Chinese Singaporean and is a student majoring in psychology at the Singapore Institute of Management. She does not listen to English pop music as she finds it to be of low quality and lacking in purpose. She likes metal music for its bass, drums and guitars. She says that she gets a certain feeling listening to metal music which makes her want to listen to it more. She also thinks that as people, we are all different and that translates into the different genres of music that each of us likes. Thus, every genre of music is important. She used to visit the Esplanade when she was younger and caught local rock and pop bands performing. However, her taste in music has since changed as she got older so she mainly listens to music online now. She also listens to classical music and enjoys Beethoven and Vivaldi. Most of the classical music she discovers online is through related and random selections. She also thinks Western classical music is important as it is the root of a lot of genres of music. Ann does not listen to a lot of Chinese pop music and regards it as “garbage” just like English pop music. However, she does like traditional instrumental Chinese music as she finds it relaxing. She also enjoys crossover music, citing a Japanese band called Rin, which uses both Japanese and Chinese instruments. She believes that traditional Chinese music resonates mainly with the older generation of Chinese people and brings them closer together.
“To be honest the radio music in Singapore is terrible. It is of low quality, er, the music makes no sense and there’s no – there’s no soul, there’s no purpose in the music, other than to sound catchy, so I don’t listen to radio music.”
“All I know is that for some reason, it – you feel – there’s this certain feeling that I get when I listen to it, so ... and I like that feeling when I listen to that particular piece of music, it makes me feel like I want to listen to it more.”
“It was the base – er, it was one of the first few probably, musics that came out ... so ... yeah it’s a lot, it’s ... a lot of music nowadays, even the mainstream music got its roots from there.”
“I only listen to traditional Chinese music because there was this Japanese anime ya, er – theme song – the ending theme song, that actually utilize Chinese... Chinese slash Japanese instruments.”
“Music can never truly die out. As long as there is someone, somewhere – it doesn’t matter where it is – in the world, who likes traditional er, Chinese music, that music will stay on.”
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