Songwriters summit creates new melodies

By Johannes Simbolon

DENPASAR, Bali (JP): On Ungasan hill, just south of here, a number of exciting new melodies have been born at the Pacific Music Rainbow songwriters convention, which began last Thursday.

Celebrated composers from the U.S., Indonesia, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam filled the morning air with music at the Bali Cliff Resort, which is hosting the gathering.

"Moonlight on the water ...," sang a group of songwriters during a rehearsal on Friday morning. Candra Darusman of Indonesia was on keyboard, America's Harold Paine on guitar. Their group partners are Indonesia's Dadang S. Manaf, and Brenda Russel from the U.S. The latter has written scores of songs performers like Tina Turner, Aretha Franklin, Donna Summer and Whitney Houston.

The songwriters, who met for the first time only a few days ago, already seem like longtime buddies. There is no trace of the "cultural barriers" which some had feared would hamper cooperation among the participants.

Music, the universal language and culture, has united them in a matter of days, eliminating anything that might have stood between them.

"It feels so right," is a line which surfaces again and again in Candra's group's newly-composed reggae song, which has no title as yet.

After working hard for two days, the composers relaxed all day long yesterday, rafting on the river and visiting the house of bamboo expert Judi Garland in Ubud.

The songwriters were divided into 12 groups by lot-drawing on Wednesday evening. Each group consists of four composers, in most cases consisting of two Americans and two Indonesians.

Feelings were mixed on the part of some Indonesian composers during the lot-drawing, as they found themselves paired up with people whose musical styles are very different from their own.

Indonesian living legend Titiek Puspa, who has a reputation as a stubborn composer who resists the slightest changes to her songs, appeared rather nervous when she learned that she would be working with Klaus Meine and Rudolf Shenker of German supergroup Scorpion. Meanwhile, the young James F. Sundah, who was also placed in the group, looked excited about the rare opportunity.

After a day of working together and completing a song, the anxiety had vanished. The four dined and even went to the disco together.

"I was a bit nervous at first because his (Meine's) voice is high-pitched, so I had to use falsetto to sing with him," said Titiek. "Because they are rock group, I thought they would be rowdy people. Surprisingly, they are very, very gentle. They never hesitated to ask for our comments. Very cooperative and good people," he added with an air of satisfaction.

The Scorpion musicians also seemed satisfied with the song that had been produced, praising the good cooperation that had given birth to it.

"I will sing it for our next album," said Meine, the Scorpion's well-known vocalist, humming the first line of the song.

All of the groups have completed at least one song since the gathering began, but not all have given titles to their works.

The group of Cathy Dennis and Dave Gibson of the U.S. and Indonesia's Irianti Erningpraja and Andre Hehanussa has completed two songs, titled You Don't Have to Say Goodbye and Love Is All We Need.

The group of Gary Nicholson and Mark Hudson, both from the U.S., and Indonesian Amin Ivo, called their song Till You Give It Away.

The larger group of Dave Koz, Victoria Show, Allan Rich, all of the U.S., Tito Soemarsono of Indonesia and Joseph Hwang of Hong Kong called their song My Heart Keeps Calling Your Name.

Allan Roy Scott, Mark Mueller, both from the U.S., and their Indonesian partners Bartje van Houten and Titiek Van Houten produced a number called Touch Me There Again.

Americans Gary Burr and Beth Hooker worked with their Indonesian partners to create a song titled We Need A Light.

All groups had their own ways of coming up with the songs. Some first discussed the basic idea of the would-be melody, while others started off just playing the instruments, allowing a composition to gradually take shape.

Some groups wrote two sets of lyrics -- one in English and another in Indonesian. Others mixed English and Indonesian in their lyrics.

Cooperation had been established so well on the first day that the Indonesian composers were reluctant to change partners. As scheduled, however, lots were drawn again by the organizing committee yesterday and new groups were formed.

"We'll be back to zero again in molding relationships," said one ruffled Indonesian composer.

After each song was completed, all the composers signed a legal document stating joint-ownership in the copyright of the compositions. Under the contracts, Indonesia is given the first chance to publish all the songs, a job which will be handled by the Antero Bagus publishing company.

The first opportunity the public will have to hear the Pacific Music Rainbow compositions will be at the Charity Night show on Nov. 4 at the Jakarta Convention Center, where all the composers will perform their works.

So far none of the composers have dared to predict whether their songs will be successful.

"The success of a song depends on the singer. If a song is sung by the wrong singer, it will fail, however good it is," said Verancio A. Saturno of the Philippines.

Financed by the MEDCO oil company, the unique meeting, which is modeled on the U.S.-Soviet and U.S.-Rumanian songwriters meetings in 1988 and 1994, respectively, will end tomorrow. The participants will then fly to Jakarta to take part in the International Song Festival in Jakarta from Nov. 1 to Nov. 2.