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.