Diverse cultures, musical styles meet at Bamboo Music Festival

Diverse cultures, musical styles meet at Bamboo Music Festival

Text by Dini S. Djalal Photos by Mulkan Salmona

UBUD, Bali (JP): Musicians often say that music is something
that is felt and difficult to quantify. Others would continue to
say that music is a unifying force, able to bring together people
of all cultures.

The only conclusion I was able to make during the Bamboo music
festival in Ubud, this week, is that music is very much part of
cultural tradition, and the divide between the world's cultures
remains wide, even as its peoples are facing each other.

Twenty-six musical group played at the four-day festival, 15
of them from Bali. Six ensembles came from outside of Bali such
as the Bamboo Orchestra of Manado, North Sulawesi, and Gumarang
Sakti and Dance group from West Sumatra. The five international
artists also came from a variety of traditions, such as
Australian didgeridoo player Alan Dargin and Japan-based flutist
John Kaizan Neptune.

And for some, the concept of "world music" came alive. The jam
session on June 20 between the International musicians brought
out passion and fire, as the different players adjusted to each
other's rhythms and notes.

Yuko and the Bamboo Brothers's dense textures unfolded slow
sure rhythms while Dargin's booming didgeridoo quaked through the
whole valley. Katsuhide Tsuru's light bamboo drums were in
perfect harmony with Neptune's elegant flutes. A Massive crowd
turned out for the event, adding to the buoyant atmosphere.

Furthermore, speaking the common language of English, the
musicians were able to communicate with the audience as well as
to each other. As the band played, a group of Balinese villagers
gathered nearby, entertained more by the crowd if tourists in the
audience than by the musicians onstage.

Following this session, all the Indonesian musicians gathered
for a daily jam session on the hilltop of Linda Garland's idyllic
30-hectare hilltop hideaway. The audience is exhilarated, and to
a lesser degree, so are the musicians. But the musicians never
really speak to each other.

Sometimes even good intentions cannot bridge cultural
differences.

A California native who has become one of Japan's top masters
of the shakuhachi flute, John Kaizan Neptune is aware of these
differences. "My goal is not to be one melting pot," he said. "I
just hear sounds that I like and want them in my music,"
explained Neptune about why he studies and adopts different
musical traditions.

Neptune does concede, however, that there should be wider
appreciation of the world's different musical traditions. An
ethnomusicology graduate of the University of Hawaii, Neptune
waits for the elimination of the term ethnomusicology.

"Musicology means the study of music, but only Western music.
All other music comes under the term ethnomusicology," he said.

"I have nothing against Western music, because it's probably
the best thing to have come out of the Western world," he added.

Neptune doesn't like categorizing music altogether.

" Music is not words, it's sounds, so you shouldn't categorize
it," he said.

Speaking about a Japanese string quarter who plays swing-jazz,
he asked "What do you call that? What do you put it under? I just
call it contemporary music."

Yet music is more than just sounds. To some, including
Neptune, it is a way of life.

"It's process, it's how you live," he said.

Neptune participated in the Bamboo Music festival partly
because he is interested in bamboo instruments, and also because
he would like bamboo to be used more as a timber product. To him,
this message is better conveyed by action rather than speech.

"I try to make people aware of this issues with the music," he
said.

Neptune is taking this method of advocacy further. Having
completed recordings with Indian musical instruments and
musicians, as well as classical Japanese koto music, Neptune
hopes to record a CD with only bamboo instruments. Many of these
instruments he plans to make himself-- "not because the ones
available aren't good enough, but because instruments with the
kind of tuning that I am looking for aren't not available," he
said.

Neptune says bamboo may be used for all musical purposes, from
bass to rhythm to harmony. He plans to take back the raw material
to Japan and perhaps order some instruments to Bali, because
certain species of tropical bamboo resonates. Japanese bamboo
does not vibrate.

In a shakuhachi flute, however, it is the air column that is
vibrating, and not the bamboo. Neptune has used plastics,
ceramics, even a rock, to make flutes, all with the same effect.

"I use bamboo because I like it, because it is so light that I
don't even know that it's there, it feels like a part of me," he
said.

Neptune added that he prefers bamboo because every piece of
bamboo has a different quality, so "each flute has a different
voice, and becomes like an individual person."

When Neptune plays, his numerous shakuhachi flutes do take on
a multitude of identities. His tiny joss harp with metal tips
sound like an electronic violin or a psychedelic Hammond organ.

Ultimately, it makes you realize how futile words become when
describing music. As Neptune explained," music is interpreted by
different people in different ways. I've had people crying and
people sleeping at my concerts. I guess my ,music took them to
where they wanted to go."

Academic analysis of music, however, was not obvious visible
among the "traditional" Indonesian musicians. Asked about his
view on the matter, Neptune contends that becoming a musician
here, as elsewhere in traditional societies, is akin to
inheriting an heirloom, handed down the generations.

"It's probably the only thing they know how to do," said
Neptune.

One of Neptune's songs is called East of Everywhere, and
refers to how music to him no longer has national boundaries. yet
to someone who has never left their home island, the removal of
boundaries is as inconceivable as the strange world outside.

Its is Nikodemus Ndun's first visit to Bali, and his first
departure from his home in Kupang, Timor. Ndun plays the sasando,
a string instrument with a conch-shaped resonator made of Lontar
palm, with a bamboo stick in the center with strings attached.
Traditionally, bamboo strings were used for the strings, but they
have since been replaced by wire. The sound is similar to a
sitar, but Ndun makes it sound like country/bluegrass music.
Bluegrass music is folk music, and Ndun's music consists of life
stories. His lyrics are repetitive, and sung in a monotone
plaintive voice. the songs are very long, winding and winding
upon its melancholic themes.

Ndun has been playing since l971, and plays at Kupang's hotels
for tourists. He inherited his art, his songs, and his
instruments, from his parents. Music is his heirloom.

When asked why the lyrics are repetitive, he answered,
"Because they are that way." Ndun does not articulate his music
through words, but through his mesmerizing performance. His
songs--about life without parents, about family solidarity, and
working outside of the village--may have been written from a now
lost age,but they are still heartfelt.

When Ndun plays, he doesn't look into the audience, or
interact with them. He plays one song after the other, oblivious
to the world around him, as if interested only in perpetuating
the tradition which he carries.

"I have five students in Kupang who are learning to play the
sasando," he said proudly," and I will return there to play at
the hotel." when asked about his aims in playing at the bamboo
music festival, he answered shortly. "I was invited and I wanted
to play."

The two high school girls of Bandung-based anklung ensemble
Anklung Mang Ujo also gave a no-nonsense answer. Along with the
other 24 other teenage persons in the group, they -- Oci and
Ully -- were invited to play, and thought it would be fun.

Unlike Ndun's hereditary responsibility, playing anklung for
tourists us a hobby to them when they finished high school. "I
just like it, It's better than doing nothing," said Oci. After
high school, however, they have " different ambitions."

The many Balinese musicians at the festival, many of them
older, may have more things in common with Ndun than they would
with high school girls when I spoke to them, they are passionate
but inarticulate about their music. As they play, they look into
the distance, having memorized the music from decades of playing.
One ensemble sat on the same stage as Ndun while he played his
sasando. Some of the musicians watched, others smoked, and none
spoke. When the performance was over, they gathered their
instruments and left the stage quietly.

Perhaps the language barrier provide an obstacle to their
communication. Later, I saw the same ensemble preparing for the
"jam session," surrounded by other musicians. they sat within
meters of another Balinese ensemble and a bamboo orchestra from
Flores, East Nusa Tenggara, but seemingly worlds apart.