Baki's guitars hit the right note<\/p>\n
Text and photos by Ali Budiman<\/p>\n
SURAKARTA, Central Java (JP): Guitars have created jobs in the
\nvillage of Baki.<\/p>\n
It's not because the people are talented musicians, even
\nthough there is a Senin Kemis keroncong music group in the
\nvillage.<\/p>\n
They do not play guitars in Baki. Instead, they make them.<\/p>\n
The guitars produced in Surakarta used to be popular because
\nof their low price and bright colors, even though the quality was
\nvery poor.<\/p>\n
In the early 1970s, after working for 11 years with a guitar
\nfactory with fading prospects in Surakarta, Hadi Wijono decided
\nto produce guitars in his house in Baki village.<\/p>\n
Now 62 years old, he developed his business with the help of
\nrelatives and neighbors.<\/p>\n
In a matter of months the village of Baki became known as the
\nmost productive guitar industry center in Central Java.<\/p>\n
Currently 80 percent of the 200 family heads in the village,
\nsurrounded by ricefields and sugar cane plantations, make their
\nliving building guitars, relying on manual skill and simple
\nequipment.<\/p>\n
Sutiyem -- who is a relative of Hadi Wijono -- working
\nclosely with her husband Sutanto, established their then nameless
\nguitar factory in 1985 when they got married.<\/p>\n
With a capacity of 10 dozen guitars a week and a permanent
\nwork force of 20, their guitar factory SS (Sutiyem & Sutanto) has
\nbecome one of the foremost enterprises in Baki.<\/p>\n
Sutiyem said that from the very beginning she was looking for
\na piece of the market where quality was more important to
\nprospective buyers than low cost.<\/p>\n
It is dangerous for a company when it becomes trapped in cut-
\nthroat competition.<\/p>\n
Reduction of production costs from the sector of raw material
\nmeans a decline in quality. There are factories producing guitars
\nfor less than Rp 50,000. They rely on a large turnover.<\/p>\n
Her guitars, priced at more than Rp 100,000, have better
\nquality wood, planing, paint, necks and tuning pegs.<\/p>\n
Sutiyem, 32, a graduate of an economics junior high school in
\nSurakarta in 1984, claims that her products can hold their own
\nagainst similar instruments made in South Korea and Taiwan
\ncosting Rp 400,000.<\/p>\n
The smoothness of the neck, the plucking and the sound of the
\nstrings are on par with imported instruments.<\/p>\n
She is aware, however, that from the aspect of accuracy and
\nsmoothness of the planing of the wood, their guitars cannot hold
\na candle to guitars from big factories like Yamaha.<\/p>\n
Sutiyem has never seen a guitar factory using machinery but
\nshe can imagine that big factories make use of sophisticated
\ntechnology, like computerized cutting, wood planing and automated
\npainting.<\/p>\n
Manually it would be a complex process to achieve a product of
\nthe highest quality.<\/p>\n
When the economic crisis hit Indonesia in 1997 the only real
\nproblem for the SS factory was in trying to find imported
\ncomplementary parts such as string pegs.<\/p>\n
The marketing of the products has never been a problem at all.<\/p>\n
The Paragon guitar company in Jakarta, which has been an
\nassociate of SS for the past four years, exports the guitars to
\nsome Latin American countries and Africa.<\/p>\n
The SS factory, which is often unable to meet the high demands
\nof Jakarta, must also consider marketing their products in other
\ncities like Surakarta, Yogyakarta and other places in Java as
\nwell as Ujungpandang in Sulawesi and Banda Aceh in Sumatra.<\/p>\n
The company has come up with a long-term program to expand its
\nbusiness.<\/p>\n
Sutiyem said it must remain in Baki because outside the center
\nthey would lack the facilities which have so far been provided to
\na great extent by locals.<\/p>\n
For the initial process, such as the shaping of the bar from
\nlogs (mahogany, waru or singon), the cutting of 3 mm plywood for
\nthe body and the pressing of the ribs up to the joining of those
\nparts, a skilled worker like Pak Manis, the leader of \"Senin
\nKemis\" band, is required.<\/p>\n
New workers are given abrasion work. Painting with the use of
\na compressor again requires a skilled and experienced worker. The
\npainted guitars are then hung in a cool place to dry.<\/p>\n
Finishing is considered the most important part of guitar
\nmaking, an abrasion process using the finest sandpaper.<\/p>\n
It is called a wet process because water is also used.<\/p>\n
The guitar is then cleaned and the neck is installed.<\/p>\n
Here Sutanto, the boss, must take the matter in hand. He
\nsprays the instrument with melamine, a transparent layer for
\ncoating, making the guitar shine. The coating must be even over
\nthe whole body of the instrument up to the string pegs.<\/p>\n
Baki village, with its narrow streets, seems to be filled with
\nguitars, especially in the morning and in the afternoon. Piles of
\nsemi-finished guitars carried by young men on bicycles are
\neverywhere.<\/p>\n
The young men take the guitars from the factories and
\nsandpaper them at home.<\/p>\n
They are paid a lump sum for their work. Rp 12,500 for one
\ndozen.<\/p>\n
When the number of orders increases, life in Baki village not
\nonly revolves around guitars. Orders also come in for violins,
\ncellos even old-fashion basses which are still used in keroncong
\ntraditional orchestras.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately even today the guitar entrepreneurs in Baki do
\nnot feel the necessity to create an organization or a
\ncooperative. The consequence of this is that there is no standard
\nof quality or of cost. In home industrial centers like the one in
\nBaki, unhealthy competition easily occurs and they often have to
\nsell their products at a low price to middlemen.<\/p>",
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