Interview with Miss Siew Wai

Went to a not-so-formal interview with Miss Siew Wai on Friday afternoon,thanks to Hafizadt for accompany me during the interview..Below are few questions that has been asked to Miss Siew Wai and her anwers.

Can you describe briefly about yourself and your field studies?

I would say that I’m an artist and of coz my job is a teacher. My background is doing video. So, I make personal art video, not really for commercial purpose, but it’s more like personal artistic practice. Then from my video work, I also develop my own sound for the video, so get interested in sound as well. So little by little, and after that, the journey goes on and I got actually interested in human voice. So right now, besides doing video, some sound works, but not too much, I also do voice improvisation.

Do you actually commercialize it?

It’s not really for commercial purpose, as I said, it’s more for personal artistic kind of interest. So I do perform sometimes, with other musician who does mostly improvise music. And also singing or making sound from voice.

From your point of view, what’s your opinion about Sound Therapy?

I think it works. Haha. This is from very personal experience because there are times that I do practice singing a lot, and there are times that I’m lazy, haha, and when I do practice a lot, actually I feel healthier because this is also part of your body, it’s like doing exercise. So this is the exercise using your voice, your vocals, whatever, and then you can hear it. So it’s kind of like its two ways you express, get out and then come in again. So to me it’s interesting and I feel the different, and of coz if purely (this I’m talking about singing, practicing vocals and etc), if you are just listening, that is also different pitches, different rhythms, all these different elements of sound will affect us very obviously. If you listen to a fast song, you know, pounding base, then it’s like you are excited and you are more energetic or annoyed, it could be the way.

Which kind of sound that you prefer the most as a therapy?

For me, actually natural sound, not necessary music. Natural sound like if I go to the jungle, or if I just listen to the river, or ocean. To me those are most relaxing rather than man-made sound. And also there is a different if I talk about nature sound, and then it can be play by the cd, but if you go to that place, it’s different because the cd is coming out from the speakers, it’s very different. The acoustic and the nature sound are different because it goes through an electronic signal already and the other one is totally just natural. And the cd is usually repeated and loops.

In your opinion, does Therapeutic Sound help people/you to provoke their/your emotions?

I think it works and of coz I’m sure many researchers have done many different type of research about it, I guess maybe from reading this (a book) you can also figure out that are some common attributes that everyone sort of feel the same but there are also individual preference and interest right. For example, maybe for you a relaxing music actually your favorite song, then for me is nature sound, and for him maybe rock music. I guess there is a common round and it’s also a personal preference in sound therapy.

If this method (therapeutic sound) been applied to Malaysian culture, does it really works or not?

I don’t know. I’m not sure about the cultural differences, whether Malaysian listening or American listening or Chinese listening, I guess there is a common round like as long as you are human, it affects, for example the very basic is taken from this book (Macrobiotics and Oriental Medicine) actually, it says like the word “aaaaaa”, basically “aaaaaa” is kind of like let out or release, that kind of thing. I mean, everyone can relate, this is not really about culture right, so, for this category I would say it’s the same for everyone. But of coz sound therapy as you said is sound so, the person needs to have a habit or passion to listen to something.

Do you agree if I said spoken prayers, spiritual songs & music, mantras and so on can be listed as Sound Therapy?

Yes. Yes, I think so.

I know there is also a type of sound therapy is actually just tone. It’s almost like light therapy. You know, some people like they are too depress in winter weather, they will just have some kind of light to shine on them and make them happier. Haha whatever. The concept is because in winter, you don’t get enough sunshine, and sunshine is one of the vitamins for you to be happy. So there is kind of sound therapy that is only using tone. Different tones that they’re just focus on, that which is very mathematical or very scientific one, it’s different from what type of music.

Sincerely,
ALIA