Local folk songs have diverse 'borrowed' origins
By Remy Sylado
JAKARTA (JP): "Folk song" was a popular musical expression among youngsters here in the early 1970s. It was embraced as an alternative to compete with the pop industry segmentation used by traders at music centers such as in Glodok, West Jakarta.
Folk songs used to be understood as only popular folk music -- both new and traditional -- adopted from the Anglo-American world. Names like Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and Donovan were idolized. But the term "folk song" was a trend in the 1970s here, and did not carry the same meaning as the original term or, for instance, volkslied in German or Dutch.
In Indonesian, the term used as the literal translation of "folk song", lagu rakyat, would actually correctly refer to lagu daerah, songs from the regions. These would be the folk songs whose composers may be both known or unknown and which can be sung by seven out of 10 people at least.
But a little understanding of musical history raises doubts about whether all our folk songs are of indigenous origin. The diatonic scale comprising intervals of five whole steps and two half steps became familiar here only under colonial rule.
Well-loved songs using the diatonic scale include Soleram (from Riau province, Sumatra), Inani Keke (Minahasa, North Sulawesi),Kole-kole (Ambon) and Bolelebo (Timor).
However, we should believe that some songs are indigenous, particularly those based on the pelog tone (do-ti-sol-fa-me-do) and several based on the slendro tone (do-la-sol-me-re-do).
Not all slendro songs would be original because slendro itself is not native to Java, but has its origins in China, dating back to the period before Christ. We can say with more confidence that the pelog is native to Java. Both tones are used in the gamelan orchestra.
But in the spirit of "unity in diversity", we can leave the intricacies of history and look at folk songs, or lagu rakyat, in eight typical groupings:
1. Children's games: Dutch musical experts, for instance Brandtbuys, has studied songs accompanying children's games in Java, the dolanan lare. Studies concluded most songs were in slendro. In this grouping, children's songs can be divided into songs sung by girls (Bing Ana, Little Girl, Madura, East Java) those sung by boys (Tete da Tidor, Sister Has Gone to Sleep, Minahasa) and songs sung by both sexes (Ampar-ampar Pisang, Putting Out the Bananas, Banjar, South Kalimantan).
2. Teenagers: These are songs with most variations, and the most popular are, of course, love songs. Most intense lyrics are found in songs drawn from the Melayu tradition of the pantun (verses consisting of two couplets), sung when sweethearts meet at night. They would sing in turns, the verses being a response to the earlier one. One example is:
From where do you come, and where are you going to,
from Japan to the port of China
If I am allowed to ask of you,
who owns the flower in yonder yard?
Courting traditions in East Indonesia, especially in Manado and Timor, are imbued with Portuguese and Spanish influences. In Timor, men sing while strumming the sasando instrument. In Manado the strumming is called karambang, from the Spanish exclamation caramba (splendid). The songs are called maka-aruyen, from the Spanish arullo, or crooning, more or less like lullabies. The strumming by the male, it was believed, could entrance the girl to sneek out of her window and meet him.
3. Marriage. Tunes sung in wedding ceremonies have less variety. In Aceh, a popular song for such purposes is Dendang Sayang (Song of Loving), accompanied by the violin, percussions and gongs. Such songs contain the sacred ideals of marriage; Bersuluk from Riau, for instance, means a tune of Islamic prayers hoping that the newlyweds will have an everlasting life together.
4. Making a living. These songs are particularly found in traditional Melayu theaters in the Natuna Islands, Riau province. The tune is sung when an actor takes off his hat in the middle of a performance and goes around the audience asking for tips. One song is called Cik Siti (Miss Siti), which goes:
Oh Miss Siti
Miss Siti of the sea
If you have more, please give some to me
Please be willing to give us some
We're coming and please don't run.
5. Nostalgia. These songs originated from natives recruited into the Dutch army, particularly the Ambonese and Manadonese. The songs became popular across the archipelago and included Ole Sio (How Beautiful), Kole-kole (Small Boat) from Ambon) and Si Patokaan (Manado).
6. Criticism. These can be traced to the colonial days in which the songs were reactions to injustice. In the decades of the forced crop cultivation in the 19th century, the West Javanese tune Deungkleung Dengdek was born among coffee peasants. With a playful-sounding warning against bothering one's coffee crops, it implied that colonizers should stop exploiting the already suffering motherland, symbolized by the heavy, hanging crops.
The war days in Aceh saw the birth of the song composed by Dolkarim, Goumpeni Kaphe, (Infidel Company, the Dutch VOC trade firm in charge of the Indies), which became a fiery war call among the local Moslems.
7. Playful tunes. These were popular following independence in 1945, and did not last long because they were only relevant to a certain period. One song around the 1955 general elections seems to express the voter being simply overwhelmed by major competitors; the communist party, the Moslem Masyumi and the nationalist PNI and their respective symbols:
The hammer and sickle of PKI
The crescent moon of Masyumi
The mighty bull of PNI
These my choices will be.
The tune was adopted from the theme song of a popular Western film at that time, Anna.
8. Spreading religious teachings, namely Islamic context (syiar). This form has its roots particularly in Java. A well-known tune is Lir ilir, which according to the court history of Java, Babad Tanah Jawi, was written by Sunan Kalijaga, a king and preacher of Islam of the 16th century.
The tune is sung by children at full moon; it refers to a shepard boy told to climb up a starfruit tree. But in the tradition of the syiar containing both explicit and implicit meanings, the verses really refer to the growth of Islam in Java, the core of which is Islam's five obligations, symbolized by the five angles of the starfruit. Even though the "tree" is hard to climb, one must keep on trying to embrace the religion.
The above notes show us that our folk songs are tied to specific ethnicities, each of them culturally rich in their own right. Such richness has posed the difficulty of defining the songs as traditional, folk songs, lagu rakyat, and songs of the regions, lagu daerah.
From a sociological point of view, folk songs have been associated with the struggle for freedom, or those with a political context. On the other hand, songs of the regions refer to a more etnomusicological term.
So neither quite fit in to the term "folk song", referring to the influence of Anglo-American songs in the culture of the young of the 1970s here.
Such confusion, cross-cultural influences without proper documentation and notorious lack of awareness of copyrights, led to the many hijackings of foreign songs which were eventually claimed to be Indonesian.
A national blunder occurred when the government honored the late composer Ismail Marzuki for a number of his well-loved songs here such as the farewell melody, sung to the tune of Auld Lang Syne and the Sundanese Panon Hideung (Black Eyes). The government has never retracted the award.
Apparently, no one then was aware of the origins of the farewell song, composed by the poet Robert Burns from a traditional Scottish melody, with a 1799 copyright held by Preston & Son.
The Black Eyes song in Sundanese originated from Dark Eyes, the Russian song introduced here by Russian musicians who helped set up the Music Academy in Yogyakarta. Its arrangement was by Harry Horlick and Gregory Stone, and its 1926 copyright is on behalf of Carl Fischer Inc.
The continued confusion regarding other songs has indeed characterized both folk songs and regional songs, most of which has not led to much fuss.
Who cares that a Minahasa song, Inani Keke, is similar to Timor's Bolelebo, both originating from a Portuguese hymn, Haja Luz? The song is even similar to the song commemorating our heroine for women's rights, Ibu Kartini, by W.R. Supratman.
History has also revealed that Sing Sing So, widely accepted as a Batak song, was first sung among a small tribe in mainland China 200 years ago.