'Angklung' made with fatherly love

'Angklung' made with fatherly love

By Bambang Tiong

YOGYAKARTA (JP): Seventy-year-old Sumitro, who lives in
Tegiri, a small village in Yogyakarta, is a successful maker of
the West Javanese traditional musical instrument known as
angklung, a series of suspended bamboo tubes which percuss when
shaken.

He said that he began making angklung when his first child,
who had been born blind and was then aged 8, was capivated by the
sound of the angklung on the radio. Short of money, Sumitro could
not buy a angklung outright. Fortunately, Kasan Wiyadi, a
resident of the neighboring Menguri village, was moved by the
boy. Kasan was a practitioner of the local traditional art called
uncling, which closely resembles kuda lumping, in which men ride
on horses made of plaitwork and dance themselves into a trance.
Unlike kuda lumping, uncling is accompanied by angklung music.

Kasan promised to make the boy a set of angklung. However,
this angklung, which took him about two months to make, did not
satisfy the child. Prompted by his love for the child, Sumitro
himself tried to make this musical instrument with Kasan's help.
Unexpectedly, the angklung that Sumitro made was exactly to the
child's liking.

Encouraged that he could make angklung, Sumitro, a father of
four children, began making them commercially in 1973.

The instrument is constructed of three types of bamboo --
petung, apus and wulung -- which each have different and
complementary functions. Petung is used for the diatonic tones,
wulung for the accompaniment and apus for the basic tones," said
Sumitro.

He further said that a set of angklung is made up of 60
individual angklung, 44 of which are used to produce melodies and
the remaining 16 for the chords.

To make angklung, 30 pieces of bamboo are used. Each piece
consists of 10 ros (a space between two joints), and each ros is
40 centimeters to 70 centimeters long.

In a performance, a set of angklung will be complemented with
other bamboo musical instruments, such as several kinds of gong
and gambang (a traditional instrument resembling a xylophone).

To be able to get the most melodious sound from the angklung,
the quality of the bamboo is of great importance. One must
consider the fertility of the soil where the bamboo grows.

A bamboo tree growing on fertile soil is harvested at three
years of age. On the other hand, if a bamboo tree is growing on
infertile soil, it will be harvested at one year of age.
According to Sumitro, a bamboo tree growing on infertile soil
undergoes a faster aging process. It is thinner and drier, and
suitable to produce high tones.

A bamboo tree cannot be cut at just any time. You must know
the best months for harvesting the trees. The period between
March and June is believed to be good for this purpose -- the
tree interiors are free from insects during this period. However,
as the period between March and June is the wet season, the
bamboo will be in a humid condition.

"Therefore, as soon as a bamboo tree is cut down, it must be
dried and then kept for a couple of years on top of the roof in
such a way as it is prevented from contact with water and
exposure to sun rays," Sumitro said, adding that this process
will prevent certain elements that insects like proliferating.

Besides, no chemicals are used in preserving the bamboo, he
added.

In obtaining his bamboo stems, Sumitro buys them from areas
around his village.

Making an angklung is not as simple as many people think. As
soon as the bamboo is taken out of storage, it is tested for
tonality. Usually, he said, only 40 percent of the bamboo stems
are used. "As angklung produces unique sound, this uniqueness
must be maintained," he said.

Once the right raw materials are found, they are cut with a
saw and then smoothed with a small knife. Holes are then made
using a pointed iron device. When all is ready, the bamboo pieces
are subjected to another test for tonality. When the maker is
satisfied with the sound, these bamboo are assembled using
refined pieces of bamboo half the size of a little finger. The
little pieces serve as the framework to which the bamboo pieces
are tied with a rattan rope.

A set of angklung is made by three persons in about two weeks.
The traditional working tools include a small saw, a sharpening
knife, a machete and an iron piece for making holes.

Dwi Budiyanto, 29, who has worked with Sumitro for over three
years, said that to make angklung properly is not difficult. What
is difficult is to harmonize the tunes produced by different
bamboo pieces. Dwi also said that he liked his job not only
because it suited his artistic gifts but also because he could
earn Rp 10,000 a day. Gunawan, 27, one of Dwi's workmates, agreed
with him and added that after working with Sumitro for 4 years,
he could help his family financially.

According to Sumitro, few of his fellow villagers are
interested in making angklung -- they are not interested in
working with bamboo.

"I cannot develop this skill in my own village because many
people belittle this undertaking, arguing that the raw materials
are cheap," he complained. One bamboo stem can be obtained at
only Rp 1,500. However, every felling season (March to June),
Sumitro spends Rp 3 million to amass a sufficient inventory of
bamboo for the angklung's yearly demands. Sumitro needs at least
150 bamboo stems every month.

When asked how much money is spent to make a set of angklung,
Sumitro was reluctant to give an answer. He simply said that the
profit could be more than 500 percent. Sumitro sells a set of
angklung at Rp 1.5 million.

Sumitro has sold his angklung to a great number of arts groups
at home and abroad, such as England, France, the Netherlands and
Ireland.

At the end of the meeting with The Jakarta Post at his
workshop called Serambu, Sumitro said he was optimistic about the
prospects for angklung. He believes that in this era of
sophisticated technology, many people will return to the
traditional things in life.