Thanks to a Singapore Heritage Festival bloggers' workshop some of us acted as though we were MPs, if only for a day. But it was at the Art House - the former Parliament building - that we aired our views on 60s music. 
Three sessions for Past Forward: A Heritage Blogging and Social Media Workshop, held in the main chamber on 14th July were moderated by Yu-Mei Balasingamchow (top left) who co-authored the book, Singapore: A Biography.
Panel speakers for Session 2, Not Just Nostalgia: Music of the 1960s, were yours truly and Georgiana Glass (top right), blogger at modcentric.blogspot.com Others who were either on panel workshops or guests included Lam Chun See, (author, blogger), Victor Koo, James Seah (bloggers) , Peter Chan (archivist, photographer), Yusnor Ef (cultural medallionist, author, lyricist ) and Audie Ng (Silver Strings band leader, bassist).
The main thrust of the panel discussion was to encourage all Singaporeans to post their memories on a blog or share online about heritage. The speakers related stories and provided tips from their online blogging and experiences to "demystify heritage blogging" and "help people to feel that they don't have to be experts in order to blog."
In this session, I raised a question as to why local Singapore 60s songs like Shanty, My Lonely Heart and other popular ones have not been orchestrated and performed by SSO while second panel speaker Glass advised her youthful audience that they do not, "need to live in the 60s to blog about music from that period."
Ivan Chew (Singapore Memory Project), Dan Koh, Rosenah Omar, Adrianna Tan, Char Lee and Zakaria Zainal were the other session panellists during the workshop. A wonderful gathering it was with reasonable audience participation. But the rain outside...
The above article is not an official report on the Workshop but a personal observation.
Images: Peter Chan and James Seah Collection, Copyrights Reserved.
17 comments:
Journalist CHRISTOPHER TOH writes:
As a harbinger to the Singapore HeritageFest 2012 starting next week, a group of bloggers will be giving a talk about our heritage, and what it means to blog about our heritage...
(Click above connection to read the rest of the report.)
“A very readable, well crafted work of popular history... should get wider attention well beyond our shores.”
from: Wang Gungwu, University Professor, National University of Singapore and Emeritus Professor, Australian National University
Hi Andy..good that you are all stepping up more with public talks and sharing.
Am still busy with many things ..some u know about already, music, uke, performances..sports etc.
DICK YIP
Congrats Andy. Your presentation was very well done. You were calm and collected, and spoke very naturally. I think it was very wise of you to bring along your music buddies Audie and the Malay gentleman - sorry cannot recall his name.
I thot you shd have spoken a bit about the 60's music scene in the hotel lounges etc. and since our friend Peter Chan was sitting right in front, I invited him to say something. Was sure you didn't mind; as it was an informal occasion.
Great blog and your presentation at The Art House on Saturday, July 14. You are not just a MP at the Old Parliament House. You are the Minister of Nostalgia Blog ( a newly created Ministry in Singapore) to support the National Heritage Board and Singapore Memory Project.
Pls keep up the good job. Well done. Cheers!
Thank you Chun See for support. Actually you are the natural one.
I like your references to "Caucasian friends and their different lifestyle..." Besides your powerpoint presentation was clear and uncluttered, each one summarising the pages of your blog.
Thanks Guru. I am learning.
Thank you James. You are doing great as Ambassador of the Memory project. And this is not a joke because James IS the roving ambassador.
He had a part in organising this workshop I am sure.
Hi Andy,
Thanks for sharing that post. It was really great to listen to you speak (and sing!), and I also really appreciate that you rallied your musician/performer friends to come and share as well.
Some of my friends who are in their 20s and didn't know much about the 1960s music scene, including one of the other speakers Zakaria Zainal, said they learned a lot from your talk and found it really inspiring.
See you at the next FOYers event or perhaps some other heritage get-together!
Best,
Yu-Mei
Thanks Yu-Mei. You moderated well. And the audience participation was informative and interesting.
We should all meet again.
Dear Mr Andy Lim,
Thank you for the photos. Looks like we are the MP for opposition.
Hi Larry,
What kept me busy (below). Your presence would have been great.
Some one asked me why you didn't turn up after I mentioned your name during my talk.
The rain was bad.
Yusnor standing up looks like a minister making his speech dont u think so?
Now who was the Malay minister during Lim Yew Hock's regime? Hehe.
Thank you all for the comments that came both from my email and from the posting.
Thanks also to Peter Chan, Lam Chun See and James Seah for the contribution of photographs without which this posting would never have been a success.
And many thanks to our supporters like Yusnor Ef, Audie Ng, Victor Koo, Mr. Mun and others who participated in our workshop.
1960s Singapore music fans! "Not Just Nostalgia: Music of the 1960s" at 3pm this Saturday. I'm one of the panelists, and hopefully I don't ramble too much. But joining me is Andy Lim of the Silver Strings (local 1960s grp, with the great Shirley Nair) on the same panel, whom I'm really looking forward to meeting. http://www.facebook.com/events/243987645704984
This posting has been revived because it is four years since we met as music bloggers. I am just wondering when our next one will be?
Thanks to all supporters who have kept on reading this blog, even up till today.
THANKS FOR POSTING LIKES:
James Seah
Philip Chew
Yip Dick
Ann Rowena Lim
Eddie Foo
Lina Koh
Irene Yap
Jalani Mohamed
Toh Richard
Randy Lee Keng
Linda Tan
Jon Goh
Chen Hui Si
Amolat Singh
Lee Ringo
Jeff Lee
Helen Teo
Troy Tyrone Gatchalian
Nestor Caranto Macaranas Jr.
Prince Marwin Samson Gamboa
Nelson Bullicer Parreno
Angie Seah
Bambi Santos
Great to see all this. Time to have another one.
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