Sunday, July 31, 2011

Malaysia Music: Dikir Barat

One of our friends here told us about a type of Malaysian music called dikir barat. I was hoping that we might be able to find a performance in Singapore, but we had to settle for this You Tube video. It's an especially entertaining form of music that is performed by groups. There is a leader who sings and then is followed by the chorus of people. There are barat competitions, where two different groups share the stage. Some are even televised across Malaysia.

photo from dikirbarat.com, where there are also videos and music

There's lots of hand-clapping and energy, which I thought The Whirl Girl would enjoy. We watched the YouTube video together and then practiced doing "lap-clap-lap-clap" so we could join in with the chorus. Then we watched the video again together and tried our best to keep up, dancing along with it.

For other kinds of Malaysian music, there is the Rough Guide to the Music of Malaysia and on Amazon, you can download individual songs (but not if you live outside of the US - boo!). We enjoyed to the samples (play all) a couple of times while we were cooking our Pandan Chiffon Cupcakes.

No comments:

Post a Comment