Harry composes a melody with audience

Harry composes a melody with audience

By Johannes Simbolon

JAKARTA (JP): Harry Roesli surprised the rock music lovers
packing the Classic Rock Pub near the Blok-M Bus Terminal in
South Jakarta on the eve of Independence Day by involving them in
the composition of a melody to be dedicated to the 50-year-old
Indonesia.

Everyone showed enthusiasm when Harry urge them to contribute
a word, phrase or verse to the lyrics of the would-be song. None
had the slightest idea of how the song would be turn out. Yet the
room, which is usually filled with high-voltage tunes of Western
rock songs, was all at once transformed into a freedom of speech
forum.

"Fifty years of Indonesia's independence," shouted one guest.
"Debt!" exclaimed another. "Monopoly," "Revolution fund,"
"Anxious Indonesia," "Fat Harry," "Travel ban for Ali," "Ines,
the secretary, is available," etc. Harry jotted down dozens of
words and verses from the bar's visitors.

Then he sang to the accompaniment of a guitar. One by one the
verses came out of his lips in an improvised tune.

Harry subsequently continued to another "strangely" improvised
melody with lyrics peppered with socio-political protests and
rather obscene words. The bar's visitors elatedly clapped their
hands, giggled, whistled and shouted in response.

At the end of the song, he surprisingly inserted a patriotic,
solemn melody, well-known to all Indonesians Satu Nusa, Satu
Bangsa (One Homeland, One Nation). Silence then settled on the
room. Had Harry stopped protesting? No way! He changed the last
verses of the song into cynicism, bringing the room back into an
uproar.

That was how Harry celebrated Indonesia's golden anniversary
that night.

After the show, the man who loves wearing black in his shows,
sipped bottled tea outside the bar, heaved a heavy sigh, and
watched the street vendors who were still busy working in the
early hours.

"Our country has still too many shortcomings. We don't deserve
celebrating a golden anniversary with great festivities," he told
The Jakarta Post.

The 43-year-old musician then mentioned the shortcomings one
by one: the wide gap between the poor and the rich, the poor
mentality of the people in general, the repressive governmental
policy towards democracy, the government's preference of high-
tech technology over efficient industry, etc.

"I celebrate this anniversary crying," he concluded, sipping
his tea.

For his outspokenness regarding socio-political affairs, Harry
has long been regarded by the public as a protest musician. His
humorous criticisms have made his fans laugh, but they have made
the authorities, the Bandung authorities in particular, angry.
Thus, he has often been imprisoned for as long as three months at
a time. By his own admission, the town's authorities still ban
his shows. Even, he said, some "unidentified" persons
occasionally watch over his house, especially when there are
gatherings inside. But he can play in other towns relatively
freely.

"I don't know why the Bandung authorities treat me so. Maybe,
I haven't yet worked hard to lobby them. But, you know it is not
easy to lobby them. A military chief is replaced ever so quickly.
The longest tenure for a chief is two years and by that time we
haven't yet finished approaching him, when the new one comes," he
said.

Harry is a musician in the first place. And for his music he
draws inspiration from socio-political occurrences around him.

"Music is for me a medium through which I channel my concerns.
Nothing is particular in that I have concerns with socio-
political affairs because all well-educated people have them," he
said.

With music, too, he now aggressively campaigns here and abroad
against nuclear use in general and the Indonesian government's
plan to set up nuclear plants here.

"We are not prepared to have nuclear plants. How can we handle
it if we cannot even manage toilets and public buses?" he argues
at every opportunity.

Born in Bandung in 1951, Harry started playing music at the
tender age of six. His father, a military member who later
retired as an army major general, bought his four children a set
of musical instruments. The youngest child, Harry, curiously
tried all the instruments.

At a junior high school of his hometown, his music teacher,
Suhardi, quickly recognized the boy's talent. The teacher, Harry
said, was the first man to introduce him to music. The teacher
asked him to take additional training for clarinet from him at
his quarters three times a week after school.

"My mother angrily reprimanded me for coming home so late. On
the other hand, I dared not disobey the teacher," he recalled.

His music activities intensified during senior high school. He
played many gigs with schoolmates -- too many, it seemed, that
his parents interfered by allowing him to play only twice a week.

"As usually happens with adolescents, the more my parents
forbade me from playing music, the more the urge to play was
reinforced," he said.

After high school, he enrolled in the civil engineering
department at the prestigious Bandung Institute of Technology,
while all his siblings learned medicine to follow in their
mother's footsteps. After four semesters, he quit ITB to dedicate
his life to music. In the beginning, his parents took issue with
his decision. "Band players are drunkards," his father argued.
Harry's his father eventually gave up trying to discourage him.
"But don't play music with the intention of making a profit," was
his advice.

The grandson of Marah Roesli, Indonesia's first modern
literary man, started to become engaged in "serious" music and
made many experiments. To polish his talent, he studied music in
the Netherlands on a scholarship, and obtained a doctoral degree
from Rotterdam Conservatorium in 1981. His thesis was focused on
the negative impact of music on a high school student's endurance
for studying.

Music lovers were shocked when he turned everything into
musical instruments, from cans to pieces of broken bottles. In
one show, for example, he continually pushed and pulled a door in
such a way as to produce what he called "lulling" music.

The "strange" music, coupled with his humorous, critical
lyrics, is really amusing entertainment. Moreover, he often
presents his music in theater shows. But none of his recorded
works ever achieved commercial success.

"My music is not selling because it is an experiment, analysis
and concentration," he said.

He has produced dozens of albums, of which the
most-critically-acclaimed ones are Titik Api (Focus, 1976), Ken
Arok (1975), Cas Cis Cus (Chatter, 1992). He has never bothered
to find out how many albums were sold.

Today, as a musician Harry tries to intensively revive
Indonesia's traditional music, which he said has been in the
process of vanishing due to the influence of western cultures.

"Our sense has been uprooted from our own culture. That's why
many musicians are now vying to revive their own cultural music,"
he said.

As for his socio-political concerns, the father of twin sons
promised that he will be consistent with his outspokenness. He is
not afraid that because of his criticisms he will someday be
sacked from his job as music teacher at the state-run Bandung
Teachers Training Institute.

"No need to be afraid," he calmly said, "The system in the
bureaucracy has already deteriorated that in order to fire a
civil servant, the process will take five to ten years," he
concluded.