Setting Sail with Sound and Syairs
The importance of sound as a literary device in the and how it led me to a game where the the only thing holding you back is your imagination and the care you share for one another.
In case you missed it, I just launched my ko-fi earlier this week with a gift book, Project Setting Sail. It’s a showcase of A Tale About the Ships in the Swamp, my submission to the HarperCollins Author Academy, and it includes a whole bunch of bonus content such as version exclusive character art, a songbook and an explanatory note on what inspired my work. As the essay is merely an introduction, I thought I’ll use this space to get into further details on the cultural context that my novel builds upon for those of you who want to geek out with me.
To kick things off, I will start by discussing the heart of my story being Table-Top Role-Playing Games and its parallels to the Malay World’s Oral Storytelling Tradition. A bit of background information is needed here so please bear with me as I get into my life story. Before I got interested in writing, a lot of my time was actually devoted to music. Having performed with both concert bands and orchestras, I had a deep appreciation for sound’s capacity to tell stories and the music within my words was something that I paid special attention to.
As I researched further into the relationship between storytelling and music, I came to realise that silent reading was actually, a relatively modern phenomenon, and that sound was in fact, a vital part of many literary experiences. One of the most striking instance of this was within the Malay World itself.
Defined by its shared use of Malay languages, the Malay World commonly refers to the postcolonial nation-states of Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore today. Within this region, syairs are a literary form that was popular from the 19th to early 20th century in present-day Indonesia. A kind of extended narrative poem, they exist as manuscripts written in jawi though they were traditionally performed orally to a live audience through melismatic melodies. They are commonly accepted as a form of oral-literature though there are variations in how they were performed over time and space.
While the texts do not record the melodies used to recite syairs, they provide information on the aesthetic evaluations of sounding voices, their social meanings and affective responses to them. Syair Buah-Buahan for instance depicts ‘fruits’ reading late into the night, such that when they do finally go home, they are ‘unable to sleep’ because they are so affected by both the romantic storylines and the beautiful sounds of the reciting voices themselves.
Anggur membaca sedap lagunya
Nyaring suaranya asik rasanya
Sekalian masing-masing mendengarkan
Hikayat dibaca Anggur mulakan
Following from the narrative’s emphasis on how sound affects its listeners, the way syairs are performed to the audience is needless to say, very important. Moreover, its meaning can be interpreted differently whether one focuses on the words or the style of delivery. A whole lot more can be said about this but something I want to highlight is the way sound is also understood to have magical properties. According to my conversations with the nusantara otaku Hafiz Rashid, a manner where this can still be observed today is the recitation of Syair Ikan Terubuk by some fishermen, as a ritual for better catch.
Given sound’s position as narratives of powers in itself where it is said to be capable of stirring emotional and political responses, resistance towards the public reading of syairs came about. Many of these arguments can be traced to the works of 11th century Arabic writer al-Ghazali which detailed the circumstances in which listening to music and singing is acceptable, and those in which it is not. Most affected by these developments were romances like the above-mentioned syairs as it has been reported that ‘those who present themselves as religious’ would refrain from the recitation of such ‘frivolous’ stories, leaving them to ‘the less educated and women’.
Despite the pushback on live readings of syairs, this literary tradition was kept alive thanks to advancements in technology. One such change happened in the late 19th century with the proliferation of the printing press which enabled syairs to be circulated more widely through paper. Additionally, the advent of broadcasting technology also meant that syairs could still be performed albeit in new ways. In fact, up till the 1950s, they remained popular through radio transmissions and film adaptations. Even though syairs survived, the physical relationship between the reader and their immediate audience had been undeniably changed. Wanting to find traces of this crucial aspect of this oral-literary tradition in our contemporary life, I stumbled upon Table-Top Role-Playing Games.
Straight off the bat, there are many similarities between the two. Most obvious would be their shared emphasis on voice since game masters and players alike would put on different accents and inflections as they adventure so as to create an immersive experience. It comes as no surprise then, that Critical Role, a team of voice actors are perhaps the most popular faces of the wider Dungeons and Dragons fandom right now. Within the game meta itself, the magical properties of sound as seen through the casting of spells can also be linked to the aural affects of syairs but in terms of form, the way adventures are played across several sessions also mirror how syairs are typically performed over several evenings as they can be up to a 1,000 verses long. This demonstrates the joint importance of collective memory and community building where experience is just as important as the narrative itself to both syairs and Table-Top RPGs.
Most interesting to me however is the way both mediums deal with participation. While syairs can be interpreted differently whether one focuses on the words or the style of delivery, Table-Top RPGs far exceeds these variations in how the narrative is performed by foregrounding player agency. Not only are there branching narratives, you can even play with how written scenarios unfold by highlighting your character’s background and personality. Those who are familiar with what I do may already know of my interest in toys and the importance of looking into the gaps within our written history but this is where it all comes together. Unlike video games where everything is pre-programmed, the possibilities are truly endless as the game unfolds through a series of oral negotiations. Realising that the only thing holding you back is your imagination and the care you share for one another, I settled upon Table-Top RPGs as the heart of my story as I aim to highlight the unsung stories from the past while also re-imagining what history is like for people of all backgrounds.