Raya Poem Radio Broadcast!

Last Thursday, me and some of my friends went to record the poems we wrote for Hari Raya for a radio broadcast. You see, our GP teacher was asked to bring in a few poems about Hari Raya for some radio show so he got us to write some up for him. Apparently it’s supposed to be good for my personal statement somehow but I never really heard the reason why it’d look good on that.

Whoever wrote one was allowed to come with him to record it at RTB for Pilihan fm. In total, there were nine of us who came with him, most of us from his GP class and the rest heard about it sent theirs in. There were originally fourteen of us who sent in poems but it seemed that the other five were busy or something.

We were told to bring jackets, photocopies of our identification cards and front pages of our bank books along with a copy of our poems to read. Yeah, apparently we got paid for going on the radio but I haven’t learned how much yet since I haven’t been to the bank to see how much was deposited.

The recording session was to be held from 9.00 am till 11.00 am but we started at 9.15 after everyone finally arrived. We had to leave our identification cards at the front desk to get a pass and then we had to sign in our names at another desk before we could enter the recording studio.

I’ve been on RTB’s recording stage several times and every time I went there I always felt that I needed gloves and ear muffs in addition to the jacket I wore. The recording studio was no different in that respect because it was even colder in there than on stage. And we had to stay there for an hour and a half to record the poems so we almost froze to death. Apparently it was vital to keep the room as cold as England was back when I was five for the sake of the equipment. Incidentally, my room also gets that cold if it starts raining at night but I only feel the effects when I’m awake.

The recording studio was surprisingly large. You could fit in at least fifty people inside comfortably. There was even soundproofing on the walls made of wood and fabric. I only just figured out that the metal things in the back of the school auditorium were actually sound reflectors since they were designed the same but were made of metal. They even kept two grand pianos in there behind some dividers. There was a smaller sub-room in the studio that was probably for recording music in the corner and a row of tables just a couple of steps away. I counted about thirty or so foldout chairs kept inside the room and also a whole lot of foldable stools behind the dividers with the piano.

The room had a small storage room filled with random stuff to the side and the recording equipment in another room that you could see through a glass window. There was a microphone hanging above a small round table with a hole in the middle just in front of that room. I’m assuming that the hole was there to minimize any echoes since the table was also covered with a soft cushiony layer. There were also two red beacons inside the room to warn us when they’re recording and also one outside the studio’s entrance.

Since there were nine of us who’d be recording our poems, we split up into groups of three to record a session of roughly twelve minutes per group. Each session started with us introducing ourselves followed by each us taking turns to read our poems with a little bit of discussion based on poem. Between each session they’d play some Hari Raya music though we never got to hear what music was. We finished by a quarter to 11 and left the studio after taking some group photos. That was the first time I’ve ever heard that there was such a thing as an anti-blinking feature built into a camera. After that I left with the guys to walk to Yayasan where we waited for our cars to arrive.

Here's a pic of us after we recorded... It took a couple of tries to not show we were in freezing hell

With this radio broadcast, I have pretty much made my way into all common forms of public media. Here’s what I got so far:

• I’ve been on TV several times
• I’ve been in the newspaper a few times as well
• I have been mentioned in some online articles
• I’ve written for books and magazine
• I’ve recorded a poem for a radio show

The only other things I can think of getting into are the radio frequencies for the police, air control and the military. I doubt it’d be a good thing if I did though so I’ll pass on those for now.

The poems will be broadcasted on Pilihan fm at 11.00am in the mornings of the 2nd and 6th of Syawal. On the Gregorian calendar, that would be on the 22nd and 26th of September at the same time. I’ll post up the poems here at 12.00pm after the first broadcast so please look forward to them.