The history of bamboo musical instruments in Indonesia

The history of bamboo musical instruments in Indonesia

By Endo Suanda

BANDUNG (JP): Bamboo used for musical instruments is as old as
bamboo in cultural artifacts. This is due to the nature of bamboo
as a source of sound. The plant's hollow trunk and straight,
strong and flexible grain enable interesting and different sounds
to be produced.

A large variety of instruments can be made from bamboo with
very simple tools. From the delicate and complicated Jew's harp
to the bulk and simplicity of a stamping drum; from using the
hollow trunk as an air column of a flute to using its strong,
flexible length as a bow to stretch a cord; from the thin
clarinet reed to the easy to make xylophone key; from the
paramusical instrument of a wind whistle attached to a pigeon's
tail to a large ensemble of Balinese jegog, bamboo can be used to
build most instruments. In fact, bamboo can be made into all four
of Sach-Hornbostel's categories of musical instruments:
idiophones, aerophones, chordophones and membranophones.

Bamboo idiophonic instruments, in which the entire body of the
instrument is the vibrating element or the sound source, are
stamping tubes, slit drums, angklung, calung and the bamboo fork.

Stamping tubes, or stamping drums, are among the simplest
instruments, some of which are not intended to create musical
tones and are used as a container to carry water or sugar palm
juice and wine. The tube is hollow at one end and closed at the
other. It is held vertically, with the closed end at the bottom,
and struck on a hard surface such as a rock. The longer and wider
the tube, the lower the pitch.

Such instruments used to be found all over the archipelago and
are common in all bamboo cultures. Today, they are still used
occasionally in sintren performances in the areas of Indramayu
and Cirebon in West Java. The small ones, between 30 and 40 cm
long, are the ketuk (rhythm) and the big ones, 1.5 meters long,
act as the gong.

In North Sumatra, stamping drums are used to scare birds and
animals from rice fields. The drum is placed on an axle between
two poles. When the top of the tube is filled with water, the
drum turns upside-down. When empty again, the tube swings back to
its original position, striking the bottom on a rock and making a
sharp, loud sound.

The slit drum is another common idiophone found all over
Indonesia. Even though it is used in an ensemble of four or more
players, it is generally used as an alarm, or even to call
animals on the farm.

Angklung

The most well-known and unique type of bamboo idiophone is the
angklung or calung. The Sundanese calung rantay, a xylophone with
half of the key left full while the other half is cut away, is
similar to angklung tubes found in other places in Asia. In
Sunda, West Java, one end of the smaller keys is attached to a
tree or pole while the other side is held by a sitting player's
toe or tied to a standing player's waist, making the instrument
hang vertically. Acoustically, the angklung of Banyuwangi in East
Java, the gamelan bumbung and the instruments of jegog in Bali,
and some instruments of the modern Sundanese arumba operate on
the same principle, except that both ends of are attached to a
rack. The Cambodian and Siamese roneat may have evolved from this
type of instrument.

The Sundanese traditional calung rantay, a solo instrument
usually played in a hut in a rice field, is almost extinct. A few
remained in the Baduy area of Banten in the 1970s. Still
performed on occasions is the modern calung gantung, played by
four or five comedians who sing and dance on stage as amateur
performers. The largest and most spectacular is the Balinese
jegog ensemble, in which the musicians not only play quick,
elaborate, and intricate rhythms, but also show impressive
physical stamina in beating the gigantic instruments with heavy
mallets for long periods. The instruments, like the bronze
gambelan of Bali, are tuned in pairs, one set with a slightly
different frequency than the other. When they are played together
they create a shimmering "wow wow" sound.

The other type popular idiophone that is indigenous to Java
and Bali is the angklung. The tubes, up to four of them, hang
from a rack and rattle back and forth in their slots when shaken.
Today, the traditional angklung is mainly found in villages from
the mountains of Baduy to the coastal village of Bungko in
Cirebon in West Java. The modern angklung is found in the city of
Bandung. Most angklung are played in an ensemble with drums,
gongs and shawm.

In some ensembles, one musician plays a set of angklung, but
in others, several people play one or two sets of angklung while
singing and dancing. Interestingly, in Bali there is a type of
gambelan called gambelan angklung even though the angklung
instrument itself is no longer used. This signifies that the
angklung was at one time a very important instrument. Even though
most traditional angklung, like Balinese gambelan angklung, are
tuned to salendro (equidistant pentatonic), pelog (non-
equidistant) tuned angklung ensembles can be found in Ciamis,
West Java. The diatonically-tuned modern angklung, however, can
be played by 10 to a 1,000 people, monophonically or
polyphonically. They can play any song -- from Halo-Halo Bandung
to My Darling Clementine.

The rengkong in the Sunda region of West Java is another
unique musical instrument. Although it doesn't look like a
musical instrument, the idea behind it is clear: to create sound
while carrying rice home from the field. The pikulan (a bar laid
across the man's shoulders) is made out of a dry, resonant length
of bamboo, while the bundles of paddy are attached at either end
by bamboo or palm-fiber ropes. When the carrier sways from side
to side while walking, the friction between the rope and the
pikulan creates a sound.

In the past, as recorded by J. Kunst, the rengkong carrier
also played another instrument, the panpipe. Today, the rengkong
(without panpipes) is only found in a few villages of Sumedang
regency, West Java.

The bamboo fork is classified as a lamellaphone, and,
according to the literature available, is only found in Sulawesi,
Nias, and some parts of the Philippines. It is a fork-shaped
piece of bamboo, in which the two prongs vibrate when one of them
is hit against a soft surface, like the player's palm or thigh.
The sound, however, doesn't come from the prong itself, but from
a slit running from the bottom of the tongue to the node. When
the prongs vibrate, the walls of the slits hit each other. The
pitch of the instrument therefore doesn't depend on the length of
the prong, but on the depth of the air chamber from the bottom of
the prong to the node of the bamboo. Some of them have tuning
holes somewhere in the middle of this air chamber, so one
instrument can produce several tones. W. Kaudern's Musical
Instruments in Celebes: Ethnographical Studies in Celebes, shows
various types of this instrument in Sulawesi, called rere, some
of them elaboratly carved.

Kowangan

The other lamellaphone proper, which is rare in Indonesia and
may have disappeared entirely, is the kowangan (Java) or chaping
buyuk (West Java). This instrument is described by Kunst,
complete with photographs. It looks like a big bamboo hat, but is
held by hand or laid against the head and shoulders of the
wearer. Inside bamboo frames are weaved with fiber strings.
Several thin bamboo rods are pinched in with unequal lengths
sticking out freely. The strings play the melody, this
lamellaphone plays a drum-like rhythm, and the hood functions as
the sound board.

The aerophones, and flutes in particular, in which the
vibrating air in the air column is the source of sound, are
perhaps the most typical bamboo instruments. Other aerophones,
the whistle, ocarina, clarinet, shawm and trumpet, are also made
of clay, wood, bone, horn and metal. The saluang or the surdam of
West Sumatra are the simplest flutes to make, but the most
difficult to play.

They are end-blown flutes, but don't have a wind-way or duct
as found in the recorder and Javanese suling, just a hole in the
inner wall of the cylinder. The outer wall is cut diagonally, so
the instrument has a somewhat sharp rim. The player carefully
directs his lips and blows air to a spot on this sharp rim
without pause, using the circular breathing technique. Unlike the
Japanese shakuhachi, which has a similar acoustical system, but
which is blown in a vertical position, the saluang is played
diagonally, precisely like the Persian ney.

Flute

The most common flute found in Indonesia, however, is the end-
blown duct-flute and the side-blown flute. The duct is the
mouthpiece where air is directed to the sharp edge of the sound
hole. This air duct may be made externally, by cutting a grove
from the outer wall of the cylinder and covering it with a loop
of palm leaves, bamboo, rattan or thin sheet of metal.

Internal air-ducts are another type and run between the inner
wall of the cylinder and the block that closes its end. The
length of flutes vary from about 10 cm, like the elet of the
Baduy, to over a meter, like the suling gambuh in Bali. The
number of tone holes vary from two to eight, though the most
common are those with four and six holes. Double flutes are now
known in Java, but originate in the outer islands of Flores and
Sulawesi.

Side-blown flutes are not as common as the end-blown ones,
especially in Java. But, there are two kinds of side-blown flutes
in Baduy. One is long, about 75 cm, and is called kumbang. It has
only two tone holes but, with the over-tones, it can play five
salendro tones. The other one is shorter and is called taleot.
It also has two tone-holes but can play five pelog tunes.

Bamboo is also used to make reed instruments. The single-reed
clarinet is found throughout Indonesia, from the child's
temporary rice-stalk to the professional sarune. Most of the
oboes (double, quadruple, and hexaduple reeds) are made of wood,
with the bell at the bottom made from carved wood, coconut shell,
wound-up palm leaves or metal. The similar names used for the
idioglottal clarinets (where the reed and the pipe are one piece)
and the multiple reed-oboe -- pupuik in Minang, West Sumatra, pu
pai and puwi-puwi in Sulawesi, and puwi-puwi in the kraton of
Yogyakarta -- suggests that the instruments may have originated
from the same place. Because the reed instruments are generally
loud and piercing, they are played outdoors, and are combined
with other loud instruments such as drums. This combination of
reed instruments and drums is found throughout Asia. The
Indonesian names of serunal, sarune and sruni may have been
derived from West and South Asian zurna and suma.

The other type of aerophone is the trumpet. This kind of
instrument does not have a reed, the player's lips function as
the reed, just as with western trumpets, trombones, horns and
Australian aborigine's didgeridoo. Although there are not many
bamboo trumpets found, as they are generally made of conch shells
or horns, there is a unique one made from a smaller bamboo pipe
blown into a bigger one. By adjusting the depth of the small pipe
in the bigger tube, and of course adjusting the air force and lip
tension, the pitch can be raised or lowered. In Sulawesi and
Ambon it is called bonto, and in Sunda it is called goong tiup
(blown gong) or goong awi (bamboo gong) as it is used to imitate
the sound of small and big gongs.

Bamboo chordophones, in which the stretched cord is the sound
source, are also found throughout Indonesia. Due to the nature of
the material, the variety is rather limited. The most common is
the idiochord, in which the string is also bamboo, dug out from
the resonator. Some instruments have only one string, others have
two, three or many more. The famous sasando in East Nusa Tenggara
has the strings all around the tube, as it is mounted on the
second, larger resonator, made of palm leaves. The sasando now
uses metal strings, as the function of the instrument is to play
melody by means of plucking them.

Mallet

In other places, like Bali, Java, Sumatra and Sulawesi, the
bamboo cords are the perfect material, as the instrument is used
to play a drum-like rhythm with a small mallet. To lower the
pitch, a small tongue-shaped piece of bamboo is clipped to the
string. The vibration of this tongue makes the air chamber of the
tube resonate more effectively. To vary the tone of this air
chamber, or to create a vibratto like a gong beat, a small hole
is added at one of the nodes so the player can manipulate it by
closing and opening it with his palm. Even though the names for
the instruments vary from place to place -- keteng-keteng in
Karo, North Sumatra, celempung in Sunda, and guntang in Bali --
most of them are onomatopoeic.

The other, less common type of bamboo instrument is the
membranophone, in which a membrane stretched over a frame is the
sound source, like bamboo tubes used as frames for drums. The
shapes and sizes, therefore, are limited only by the length of
the resonator and the way the membrane is attached. Bamboo drums
generally have only one head, though their lengths vary from
about 10 cm to 1.5 meters. In northern and southern Sunda, the
long drums, called dogdog lojor, are commonly played in an
ensemble with other bamboo instruments, such as angklung.

Bamboo's extensive use for musical instruments is not only due
to the physical nature of the bamboo plant, but also its
familiarity and availability. People are attracted to its
versatility. The thick and flexible bamboo tali is suitable for
rope, the thin and brittle bamboo tutul is used to make
containers and musical resonators, the thin, long tamiang is used
to make flutes and blowguns, and the hefty bambu betung is used
for building. Bamboo has also been used for tools and weaponry,
from the knife that cuts the umbilical cord to the lethal bow and
arrow.

Bamboo is also easy to grow and propagate in most parts of
Indonesia. It grows fatter than wood, takes up less space, and
dries more quickly. But above all, bamboo is almost identical to
village life. It is inseparable from rice farming and rituals;
the scarecrows, huts, ropes, carriers, baskets, fences, rice
houses and kitchenware are all made of bamboo.

Not a day passes without bamboo being used. In modern-day
Indonesia, bamboo is therefore associated with "village",
"rustic" or "low" culture. Wooden and cement houses, for example,
are considered to be of higher value and more prestigious than
bamboo houses. Similarly, this value system is applied when
comparing wooden drums to bamboo drums, wooden xylophones to
bamboo ones, bronze gongs to bamboo ones.

These values reflect a perspective of modern culture and
philosophy borrowed from Europe, where no bamboo grows. If this
value system is applied to Indonesia, truly understanding the
village philosophy and culture, the bamboo culture of Indonesia,
will be difficult.

Endo Suanda, a dancer, gamelan musician, and ethnomusicologist
was born and raised in West Java. A Ph.D. candidate from the
University of Washington, Endo is currently finishing his
dissertation on Cirebonese wayang kulit.