Music-Culture of Indonesia

The music of Indonesia is as largely unique and beautiful as the country itself. 

"Bhinneka Tunggal Ika" is a national motto in the old Javanese language that means, "Unity in Diversity." Variety of styles is a trademark of Indonesian music.

The music of Java, Sumatra, Bali, Flores and other islands have been documented and recorded, and research by Indonesian and international scholars is ongoing. The music in Indonesia predates historical records, various Native Indonesian tribes often incorporate chants and songs accompanied with music instruments in their rituals. Today the contemporary music of Indonesia is popular in the region, including neighboring countries; Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei.

Musical Instruments

The musical identity of Indonesia as we know it today began as the Bronze Age culture migrated to the Indonesian archipelago in the 2nd-3rd century BC. Traditional music of Indonesian tribes often uses percussion instruments, especially gendang (drums) and gongs. Some of them developed elaborate and distinctive musical instruments, such as sasando string instrument of Rote island, angklung of Sundanese people, and the complex and sophisticated gamelan orchestra of Java and Bali.

            Gamelan

The most popular and famous form of Indonesian music is probably gamelan, an ensemble of tuned percussion instruments that include metallophones, drums, gongs and spike fiddles along with bamboo flutes. Similar ensembles are prevalent throughout Indonesia and Malaysia, however gamelan is originated from Java, Bali, and Lombok.

The role of the gamelan orchestra throughout the Indonesian archipelago is very important. Gamelan music is connected with public events that serve as an important transitional point in a person's life or community rather than simply serving as just entertainment. For example, gamelan music is used to commemorate a day worth remembering. Important family events that include gamelan music are the birth of a child, a circumcision, a house warming, a wedding, an anniversary, a death, etc. But gamelan music may also be used for different forms of entertainment that are often connected with other performing arts.

The gamelan orchestra can function as a complement to actors/dancers in theater as well as to go along with the art of singing with dancing. 

In Indonesia, a srimpi or bedhaya, which includes gamelan music accompanying a group of dressed female dancers dancing to different musical styles, is very popular. Indonesians also use gamelan music to support the puppet theater, which is held in the highest respect by the people of Indonesia.

            Throughout Indonesia, it’s very common to find the gamelan orchestra used for related purposes from one place to the next. However, it is also clear that gamelan music are different from one region to another. One of the biggest competitions in gamelan music takes place between the neighboring islands of Java and Bali. 

Traditional Indonesian gamelan music and instruments were first developed on the islands of Java and Bali, whose inhabitants made two different main styles of gamelan. Although an untrained Western ear wouldn’t hear the subtle differences between the two cultures' music styles and instruments because there are a lot of similar things between the two, the cultures are different in terms of tunings, instruments, and playing styles.

            Even though Indonesian vocal and instrumental music have clear cross-regional similarities, the large difference between music-cultures from one island to another or with many regions on one island has also become socially and culturally difficult. For example, the musical styles of the Batak people from North Sumatra are really different from Javanese music that the two cultures cannot find each other's music pleasant to hear. 

For example, the Batak musicians enjoy the constant busy clicking sound made by the bamboo keteng-keteng percussion instrument. Though keeping a strong musical texture may be common among many gamelan works all throughout Indonesia, the Batak's nonstop clacking of bamboo parts found in the traditional forms of Batak music is not considered as music to the Javanese. 

One music example from Sumatra that may not be considered as music in Java is gendang keteng-keteng, which features a smaller group consisting of two bamboo tube zithers called keteng-keteng, a kulcapi, which is a small two-stringed boat-shaped lute, and a mangkuk, a porcelain bowl. The Batak people don’t seem to care for the music of the Javanese gamelan.

            The rich and loud gamelan orchestras around the Indonesian archipelago are by far the most important and well-known traditional forms of Indonesian music. Although gamelan orchestras are also common in Malaysia and to a smaller degree in the Philippines, they are found throughout most of the populated Indonesian archipelago, with the roots of the gamelan orchestra, which symbolizes traditional indigenous Indonesian music, established in three neighboring islands: Java, Bali, and Lombok.

Other Musical Instruments

Kecapi suling

Kecapi suling is a type of instrumental music that is highly improvisational and popular in parts of West Java that employs two instruments, kecapi (zither) and suling (bamboo flute). It is related to tembang sunda.

Angklung

Angklung is a bamboo musical instrument native to Sundanese people of West Java. It is made out of bamboo tubes attached to a bamboo frame. The tubes are carved so that they have a distinctive resonant pitch when being vibrated. Each angklung only plays one note.

Sasando

Sasando is a plucked string instrument native of Rote island of East Nusa Tenggara. The parts of sasando are a bamboo cylinder surrounded by several wedges where the strings are stretched, surrounded by a bag-like fan of dried lontar or palmyra leafs (Borassus flabellifer), functioned as the resonator of the instrument.

Tapanuli ogong

Musical performance from Tapanuli area of Batak of North Sumatra. Tapanuli ogong is a form of dance music played with a type of lute, trumpet and flute.

Kulintang

Kolintang or kulintang is a bronze and wooden percussion instrument native to eastern Indonesia and also The Philippines. In Indonesia it is particularly associated with Minahasa people of North Sulawesi, however it also popular in Maluku and Timor.

Kulintang belongs to the larger unit/stratum of “knobbed gong-chime culture” prevalent in Southeast Asia. It is considered one of the region’s three major gong ensembles, alongside the gamelan of western Indonesia and piphat of Thailand, Burma, Cambodia and Laos, which use gongs and not wind or string instruments to carry the melodic part of the ensemble. Like the other two, kulintang music is primarily orchestral with several rhythmic parts orderly stacked one upon another. It is also based upon the pentatonic scale. But, kulintang music differs in many ways from gamelan music, mainly in the way the latter makes melodies within a framework of skeletal tones and prescribed time interval of entry for each instruments. The framework of kulintang music is more flexible and time intervals are nonexistent, allowing for such things as improvisations to be more prevalent.

Because kulintang-like ensembles extended over various groups with various languages, the term used for the horizontal set of gongs varied widely. Along with it begin called kulintang, it is also called kolintang, kolintan, kulintangan, kwintangan, k’lintang, gong sembilan, gong duablas, momo, totobuang, nekara, engkromong, kromong/enkromong and recently kakula/kakula nuada. Kulintang-like instruments are played by the Maguindanao, Maranao, Iranun, Kalagan, Kalibugan and more recently the Tboli, Blaan and Subanao of Mindanao, the Tausug, Samal, Sama/Badjao, Yakan and the Sangir/Sangil of the Sulu, the Ambon, Banda, Seram, Ternate, Tidore, and Kei of Maluku, the Bajau, Suluk, Murut, Kadazan-Dusun, Kadayah and Paitanic Peoples of Sabah, the Malays of Brunei, the Bidayuh and Iban/Sea Dayak of Sarawak, the Bolaang Mongondow and Kailinese/Toli-Toli of Sulawesi and other groups in Banjarmasin and Tanjung in Kalimantan and Timor.

The kulintang is played by striking the bosses of the gongs with two wooden beaters. When playing the kulintang, the Maguindanao and Maranao would always sit on chairs while for the Tausug/Suluk and other groups that who play the kulintangan, they would commonly sit on the floor. Modern techniques include twirling the beaters, juggling them in midair, changing the arrangement of the gongs either before or while playing, crossings hands during play or adding very rapid fire strokes all in an effort to show off a player’s grace and virtuosity.

Conclusion

Based on the instruments that the people from Indonesia use, one would say that it is very much alike the ones we used in the Philippines. The gongs, the stringed instruments, and the bamboo apparatus itself is very similar to what the Philippines utilize.

It is enjoyable to see that not all countries are different. There is always a similarity in which one country and another are the same. That way, we see how connected we really are in this world. Art and music is secretly reuniting us as one.