Greg Simmons

Endangered Music of the Sea Gypsies

Volume 1: The Moken of the Andaman Sea

This is a crowdfunded expedition to record, film and disseminate the endangered music of the Moken ‘Sea Gypsies’ of the Andaman Sea. In addition to serving a vital cultural purpose, the project’s Rewards have broad appeal - from musicians and ethnomusicologists to audiophiles and travellers. You can even join the expedition!

Please watch the video explaining the motivation behind this project and the goals it aims to achieve - click on the arrow icon in the middle of the main pic (scroll up).

Who are the Sea Gypsies?

‘Sea Gypsies’ is a generic term referring to the nomadic sea-faring peoples of South East Asia. There are three main groups of Sea Gypsies. They are the Moken of the Andaman Sea (Myanmar/Thailand), the Orang Laut of the South China Sea (Malaysia/Indonesia), and the Sama-Bajau of the Celebes Sea (Indonesia/Philippines).

This project focuses on capturing and disseminating the endangered music of the Moken of the Andaman Sea. If successful, following projects in the Sea Gypsies series will focus on the Orang Laut of the South China Sea and the Sama-Bajau of the Celebes Sea.

The Moken (pronounced ‘Maw-ken’) traditionally lived on small houseboats called kabang; spear-fishing, free-diving, and foraging in the shallows for prawns, shellfish and sea cucumbers. Due to commercial overfishing, settlement and assimilation into dominant cultures, the Moken are losing their way of life and their identity - including their music.

This project aims to record, film and disseminate the endangered music of the Moken. The project’s founder, Greg Simmons, has already captured music and stories from two Moken communities. He is now seeking crowdfunding to visit less accessible communities, capture the diversity of their music and stories, and expand the collection.

As well as being returned to the performers, all recordings, videos and pics captured for this project will be brought together on a webpage to form a ‘deconstructed documentary’ - a collection of complete files, each prepared for listening and viewing without being forced to fit into a specific documentary format, duration or angle.

The files will also be shared broadly on free-to-access social media platforms with careful use of keywords, hashtags and Search Engine Optimisation to make them easy to find for anyone interested in the music of the Moken - including, most importantly, future generations of Moken. [Note that the website and social media content will be in streaming-only formats, and not downloadable. High resolution downloads are reserved as Rewards for project backers.]

What is endangered music?

‘Endangered music’ is tribal music that has been passed down from generation to generation for centuries but is now at risk of being lost, mostly due to assimilation into dominant cultures. Increasingly more field recordists and ethnomusicologists are being asked by tribal elders to bring copies of their music recordings back to the villages because they have “no one to pass it on to” - the next generation is not interested in taking on the traditional role of ‘music keepers’. With no one to pass it on to, this endangered music will die off with the tribal elders. There is a vast amount of tribal music around the world that is literally one generation away from being lost forever.

How will the Endangered Music project help?

By going to where the endangered music lives, capturing it as authentically as possible and sharing it as broadly as possible on the internet, the Endangered Music project aims to create an on-line collection of endangered music from around the world that is easy to find, free to access, and readily available to the people who need it the most - the future generations of tribal people.

If you like the goals of the Endangered Music project, please support this campaign and share it widely!

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ABOUT THE REWARDS

The Rewards offer everything from credits on the project’s webpage and videos, to high resolution downloads and handmade gifts from the Moken. There are also specialised Rewards aimed at vicarious travellers, sound engineers, recording musicians, audiophiles and adventurers. These include Mix Critique, Voice Chat, Behind-The-Scenes and Come With Me! See below...

Voice Chat

Greg Simmons travels a lot, all with the aim of capturing music. He’s got zillions of stories to tell and heaps of advice for novice travellers - especially those interested in visiting developing countries in Asia and the Himalaya. If you’re looking for travel advice, want to hear some great stories, or just want to talk about sound engineering or audiophilia, the Rewards with Voice Chat are for you. The conversation will take place on-line via Skype, Facebook Messenger or similar services that allow voice conversations over the internet. Be careful what you ask for, however! With 33 years of teaching experience - most of it involving six to nine hours per day of non-stop talking - Greg can certainly talk. If talking was an Olympic sport, he’d be a gold medallist.

Voice Chat is offered in the Vicarious Traveller, Audiophile Producer and Executive Producer Rewards.

Mix Critique

Greg Simmons has 40 years of audio industry experience and 33 years as an audio educator. For many years he’s offered an on-line Mix Critique service to aspiring engineers, composers and others. The process is simple: you send your mix to Greg and communicate via Facebook Messenger or similar on-line text-based services. Greg listens to your mix and makes suggestions of what to change and why. You make the changes, upload the new version, and the process repeats. Your mix gets better through a series of incremental improvements that you did yourself and can repeat and compare as many times as you like until you’re ready to move on to the next one - unlike watching over someone’s shoulder as they fix it for you and move on! By the end of the session, you’ve got a better mix and a series of messages and mix revisions that you can review and continue to learn from. It’s based on the old maxim, “Tell me and I’ll forget. Show me and I’ll remember. Let me do it myself and I’ll understand.” Mixes that have been through Greg’s Mix Critique process have featured in globally award-winning advertisements and on numerous independent albums.

Mix Critique is offered in the Sound Engineer/Recording Musician reward.

Behind-The-Scenes

For those interested in sound recording, and those who just want to gain a deeper insight into how the recordings were made. In the Behind-The-Scenes videos, Greg Simmons will explain the surrounding circumstances of each recording and how they influenced his microphone placement and techniques. He will discuss any difficulties posed by the recording situation, the solutions he came up with to minimise their effect on the recorded outcome, and what he’d do differently if he had the chance to make the recording again. With 33 years of audio education experience, Greg knows how to explain this stuff in a clear and easy-to-understand manner.

Behind-The-Scenes is offered in the Guerrilla Ethnomusicologist, Sound Engineer/Recording Musician, Audiophile Producer and Executive Producer Rewards.

Handmade gifts from the Moken

As with many displaced cultures that have become tourist attractions, the Moken supplement their income by making small souvenirs to sell to visitors. These typically include wristbands, necklaces and wooden carvings.

Handmade gifts from the Moken are offered for the Executive Producer Reward.

Come With Me!

This Reward takes place during the proposed 14-day exploratory phase of the expedition, as shown in the dates below. Apart from having an amazing once-in-a-lifetime adventure, you’ll be getting the top-ranked listing in the ‘Executive Producer’ credits, and possibly other credits depending on the roles you undertake during the expedition. If you pledge AU$3020 or more you can bring your partner or a friend - as long as you don’t mind sharing your room!

       Start Date: Sunday, 17th March 2019

       End Date: Saturday, 30th March 2019

Your pledge single-handedly guarantees the funding of the project and therefore locks in the Start Date and End Date (see above), so book your flights ASAP! Your pledge covers your transport, accommodation and some meals (when provided as part of the accommodation), from your arrival in Bangkok on the Start Date to your departure from Bangkok on the End Date. It does not include the costs of your transport to Bangkok on or before the Start Date, and it does not include the costs of your transport from Bangkok on or after the End Date. Nor does it include the cost of visas, vaccinations, travel insurance and spending money. Greg has conducted dozens of small group expeditions through Asia and the Himalaya over the last 14 years and can provide all the advice and information you need to get yourself to Bangkok and back again.

Note that due to the exploratory nature of this expedition, combined with the semi-nomadic lifestyle of the Moken and the lack of reliable internet on some islands, flexibility is important and it is not always possible or wise to lock in accommodation too far in advance. As such, the quality of accommodation could vary. Whenever possible, you will be provided with a private room; however there may be occasions where it is necessary to sleep in a bamboo hut, a dormitory or a tent. It’s an adventure, not a holiday!

Credits

For each Reward that includes credits on the project’s webpage and videos, names will be listed in order of highest to lowest pledges within that Reward category. Rewards of the same amount will be listed in order of first to last. Note that the pledged amounts won’t be shown.

Credits are offered in all Rewards except No Reward.

Downloads

All music recordings will be made as 24-bit 192k wav files. After editing and mastering at 24-bit 192k, downsampled versions will be made at numerous resolutions including 24-bit 176.4k, 24-bit 96k, 24-bit 88.2k, 24-bit 48k, 24-bit 44.1k and 16-bit 44.1k (CD format), along with perceptual-coded versions (mp3, etc.). The original audio files and all variations will be placed on-line for downloading by project backers, with access determined by the Reward level. The files will be provided under the Creative Commons’ Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs (CC BY-NC-ND) license, allowing you to download and share the files freely as long as you credit the owner (Attribution). You are not allowed to sell the files or use them for commercial purposes (Non Commercial), and you are not allowed to change the files in any way or use them as part of other compositions (No Derivatives) - including backing tracks for films or videos - without prior consent from Greg Simmons.

Downloads are offered in all Rewards except No Reward.

Bonus Live Streaming!

Greg Simmons will attempt to live-stream the recording sessions for all backers of this project. However, please note that internet connections are often slow and intermittent in remote communities, and especially on islands. It may not be possible to live-stream at all. Furthermore, many tribal cultures have a low-resolution concept of time that doesn’t get more accurate than morning, afternoon and night. There can be no guarantee that recordings will start or end at the announced times, and advanced notice may be short and inaccurate.

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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Here you’ll find additional background information related to the project and/or referred to in the introductory video. If you haven’t watched the introductory video, click on the red circle next to the Pledge Now button (scroll up to the top of the page).

About the Moken...

The following is an excerpt from Wikipedia: “The Moken are an Austronesian people of the Mergui Archipelago, a group of approximately 800 islands claimed by both Burma and Thailand. Most of the 2,000 to 3,000 Moken live a semi-nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle heavily based on the sea, though this is increasingly under threat. The Moken identify in a common culture, and speak the Moken language, a distinct Austronesian language. Attempts by both Burma and Thailand to assimilate the Moken into the wider regional culture have met with very limited success. However, the Moken face an uncertain future as their population decreases and their nomadic lifestyle and unsettled legal status leaves them marginalized by modern property and immigration laws, maritime conservation and development programs, and tightening border policies.”

Why is there no one to pass it on to?

There are many reasons why tribal music can be put at risk. Wars, cultural genocide and ecological collapse (often due to commercial interests such as mining, logging, farming and fishing) are some of the more obvious examples. Well-intentioned actions of governments, NGOs and missionaries can also lead to endangerment of tribal music. For example, development, displacement, and assimilation of tribal peoples into dominant cultures often contribute to impoverishment and a loss of cultural identity. Meanwhile, access to social media provides tribal youth with an idealised impression of an easy and affluent lifestyle somewhere beyond the village. The side-effects of these processes include an exodus of youth from the villages, a belief that their traditional culture is holding them back, and a corresponding disinterest in taking on traditional roles that require them to remain in the village - such as ‘music keepers’.

Recording & Video Equipment

Endangered music is often found in areas that are not accessible by car or motorbike, and there is no guarantee of electrical power. Heat and humidity pose additional problems for electronic technology. Furthermore, this project includes visits to seaside villages that require wading to shore from boats. The chosen equipment must be portable and battery powered, and capable of being stowed in waterproof containers and carried through water. All audio for this project will be captured with some of the finest and most suitable portable audio equipment on the market. The primary sound recording rig consists of a matched pair of Sennheiser MKH800 microphones, a Nagra Seven field recorder, Etymotic ER4 microPro canal phones, connectors/cables from Mogami, Gotham Audio and Neutrik, and hardware by Manfrotto, Sirui and Mikrofonschiene. This direct-to-stereo recording rig - refined over many expeditions - offers extremely high audio performance with great flexibility, long battery life, high reliability in humidity, and low weight. The main video footage for this project will be captured with a Sony RX100 MkV camera, considered by many professionals to be one of the best pocket cameras on the market. Its one-inch sensor and Zeiss lens delivers picture quality that rivals DSLR and MFT cameras, with the visible differences being insignificant when streamed on social media.

About Greg Simmons

Greg Simmons is a writer, educator, traveller and sound recordist with over 40 years of recording experience encompassing everything from heavy metal bands to string quartets, snake charmers to Tibetan monks, and children’s stories to talking dolls. He has also had extensive sound reinforcement experience including rock, pop, jazz, world music, orchestral music, theatre, dance and performance art.

Greg is also one of Australia’s leading audio educators, with over 30 years of regular teaching experience. He gave his first audio lectures in 1985 and has since taught hundreds of students the finer points of sound engineering in an effort to pass on his enthusiasm for high quality sound in every situation. He has also been actively involved in editing and publishing magazines for the Australian audio industry since 1987. As creator and Founding Editor of the prestigious Australian magazine AudioTechnology, he regularly contributes interviews, tutorials and reviews.

Greg’s interest in making high-quality audiophile recordings began in the late ‘80s after auditioning a pair of ATC SCM20 speakers for a magazine review. Refusing to give them back, he purchased the speakers and set about making recordings worthy of them. He has since made hundreds of direct-to-stereo recordings of acoustic music, including dozens of chamber music concerts in some of Australia’s finest performance venues. He has given presentations to hifi clubs and consumer electronics shows, and held ‘behind the glass’ workshops for audiophiles in local recording studios. He has also received excellent reviews for the high resolution (24-bit 352.8k DXD) albums he has made. He strives to make recordings that transport the listener to the recording space - something that is particularly relevant to the contextual recordings he makes for the Endangered Music project.

Greg enjoys combining his writing, educating and recording skills with his passion for travelling. Since 2004 he has spent all of his spare time recording traditional music in Tibet, Nepal, India, Borneo, Burma, Laos, Indonesia, Thailand and more. He holds a Grand Master in Dad Jokes, and is particularly fond of writing about himself in the third person.

This crowdfunding proposal aims to raise a minimum of AU$1926 to cover the costs of a 14-day expedition plus post-production and uploading. The target amount covers transport, food and lodging, permits, payments to musicians and interpreters, post-production and anticipated miscellaneous expenses.

Stretch goals

This project is exploratory, so any funds above the initial target will be used to visit more Moken communities in search of more music and related content for the project.

There are some purchases that would benefit the goals of the project without adding significantly to the weight or bulk of the recording equipment. For example, a 360 degree camera with waterproof housing (e.g. GoPro Fusion) would capture footage that allowed the viewer to explore the world of the Moken, such as at sea in a ‘kabang’ (Moken house boat), underwater with Moken divers, or foraging through mangroves. Placed between the performers and the recording team, it would provide a great way of being both ‘present’ and behind-the-scenes during a recording session in a village!

If there are sufficient excess funds, a small run of CDs will be made featuring selections from each village’s recordings. A number of these CDs will be returned to each village for the musicians to sell to tourists, thereby earning extra income and reinforcing the value of their culture. A copy of the CD will also be sent as a bonus to each backer above a certain Reward level.

If you like the goals of the Endangered Music project, please support this campaign and share it widely!