Local folk songs strive to survive

Over four months of this, the Year of Art and Culture, have passed. But one aspect of Indonesian culture, folk songs, has received little attention. To help redress the balance, The Jakarta Post reporters Ida Indawati Khouw, Johannes Simbolon, Sugianto Tandra, Sylvia Gratia M. Nirang, Yogita Tahil Ramani, wrote the following stories. Pictures were taken by photographer IGGP Bayu Ismoyo. Music expert Remy Sylado contributed the article which discusses confusion surrounding the term folk song.

JAKARTA (JP): From a bus stop in the Benhil area of Central Jakarta, a three-man street band jumped into an air-conditioned city bus to try their luck.

Equipped with a ukelele, a hand-made tambourine and a jumbo size Aqua bottle to keep rhythm, the minstrels creatively entertained their audience with three songs.

It was a fine afternoon, and so was their performance judging from the sound of coins dropping into the small plastic bag offered in turn to each passenger.

One song in their repertoire was an old and popular Ambonese folk song called Buka Pintu (Open the Door). The lyrics are as follows: Open the door, open the door/I mean to get in/Come on, girl, I'm in front of your house/I call but you don't answer/I want to get in.

The song is one of many composed by Ambonese soldiers to ease homesickness suffered when they were sent by the Dutch to fight the Acehnese in the far north of the island of Sumatra late last century, music scholar Remy Sylado said.

The Dutch-trained Ambonese soldiers were referred to as marsose, from the Dutch marechausse, meaning soldiers assigned to police duties.

Buka Pintu and other popular lagu daerah (regional songs) such as Butet, a song named after the nickname given to Batak girls in North Sumatra, have survived the test of time. These songs have been handed down the generations, right through to the young minstrels who hopped on the bus at Benhil.

Occasionally, less popular folk songs are reintroduced through intensive media promotion. Bengawan Solo, a song written by Gesang about a river in Surakarta, Central Java, is one such example. But most commonly, folk songs have just survived in relatively small communities.

The country's first state-owned recording company, Lokananta, promoted Indonesian folk songs throughout the late 1950s.

Lokananta, established by president Soekarno, was set up to promote Indonesia's own music, including traditional songs from the provinces.

Many were made popular through broadcasts on state-run Radio Republik Indonesia.

The era produced an abundance of folk songs which remain in the hearts of many old people. Popular songs from that time include Ayam Den Lapeh (My Chick Has Run Away) from West Sumatra, Ondel-Ondel (Giant Puppets) from Jakarta, and Bubuy Bulan (Sweet Moon) from West Java. In many cases, the memory of the song has outlived the memory of the composer.

Dominant composers at the time included Ki Nartosabdo from Central Java and Nahum Situmorang from North Sumatra.

In comparison to that heyday for folk music, we have a very limited exposure in our busy modern era. There are hardly any new songs which have the potential to enter the lore of folk music, and musicians which show a public leaning toward folk music such as Leo Kristi are declining in popularity.

Are we watching the demise of Indonesian folk music?

"Folk music is not dead, its format has simply changed," music scholar Ben Pasaribu, dean of North Sumatra's HKBP Nommensen University faculty of arts, said.

Ben pointed out that many people can still sing Naik Naik Ke Puncak Gunung (Climb to the Top of the Mountain), a children's song from Ambon which extols the virtues of hiking.

Potential

Ben said many contemporary Indonesian songs have the potential to become folk songs, an honor which results when at least seven people in every 10 can sing the words, according to Remy, but that opportunities to realize this potential were lacking.

In the past, regional songs had a better chance of becoming popular. That was because fewer songs were composed and those that were consequently received greater attention from the public, Ben said.

"We live in an industrial society nowadays, and the chance of regional songs succeeding is very small," he added.

"Many songs are produced, all of which compete for frequent media exposure. A song can barely be remembered before a new one comes along," Ben remarked.

But despite this, he added, songs like Kemesraan (Intimacy) written by Iwan Fals can now be regarded as folk songs.

The country's living music legend, singer Titiek Puspa, 60, agrees that Indonesian folk music still survives. She said, "Folk songs never disappear, its just that seasons change in music."

Like Ben, she believes that "our music arena is commercial. It takes time for a regional song to become popular."

Titiek said it was difficult to tell if a song had the potential to become popular enough to be classed as a folk song.

"It could be that people find such songs catchy, but most of the time it's just a coincidence when a song becomes an all time favorite," Titiek said.

Titiek pointed out that dangdut songs have been embraced by many people.

"I sometimes wonder if some of these could become folk songs," the singer, who is renowned for her versatility, said.

However, another musician, Franki Raden, believes the opposite.

"Indonesian folk songs have long gone, they are only played on TVRIs Lagu-lagu Daerah program," Franki said.

Franki said Indonesian folk songs enjoyed strong support from radio in the 1950s, but such patronage died out in the 1960s when western music became popular.

Exposure revived in 1970s when many bands and musicians, including Leo Kristi and Franky Sahilatua, two of the country's most renowned folk singers, returned to folk roots in their work.

"But since then, folk songs have been forgotten again," Franki said.

Songs that survive and become immortal usually have strong associations with an historic moment or reflect the character of the communities out of which they were born, Franki said. The songs then become a tie that helps to bind the community, he explained.

"But the mass media plays the central role in popularizing songs. Without country-wide media exposure, folk songs would remain within the community which created them," he said.

Ben and Franki separately agree that something should be done to promote folk songs.

Ben suggested they should be promoted more intensively and given a higher profile in cultural delegations sent outside the country.

Franki said the government should pay more serious attention to the promotion and preservation of folk songs, "because the songs are representative of social reality."

It is ironic, he said, that Bengawan Solo became popular only after numerous requests for a recording were made by former Japanese soldiers stationed in Indonesia during the Japanese rule between 1942 to 1945. The song, they said, reminded them of their younger days far from home.