Traces of tradition cultures in Jakperc '97 performances

Traces of tradition cultures in Jakperc '97 performances

By Helly Minarti

JAKARTA (JP): Traditional cultures are a bottomless source of
inspiration for musicians. Their traces vibrate through
contemporary music performances as essential elements remain
distinct.

Three groups, all from disparate musical backgrounds,
displayed their borrowing from a veritable ethnomusicology in the
Jakarta Percussion Festival '97 (Jakperc '97) at Jakarta
Fairgrounds in Kemayoran, Central Jakarta, last week.

They were Tokakros, a percussion music group from Sydney,
Australia, the Jakarta Percussion Orchestra (JPO) and a Gondang
musical group from the Batak people of North Sumatra.

Tokakros' vocals were in English, yet the music was a mix of
India's tabla, African djimba and Arabian darkaba, with the sound
of a snare drum occasionally rising above it all. The chorus line
swung in a crescendo, while the pulses of the drum searched for a
middle ground of Eastern and Western rhythms. The constant was
that both elements shared equal status, with neither vocals or
music drowning the other out.

The group was founded three years ago by Peter Slattery, Gemma
Turner, Linda Marr and Jess Ciampa. The four had previously
played in other bands and met up occasionally for recordings.
They gradually realized they shared a creative chemistry.

Peter's fascination with India's tabla lead him on several
trips to the country. Jess started mastering Brazil's throbbing
congas. Gemma and Linda have funneled their endless interest
into traditional harmonious music, particularly from the Middle
East and Eastern Europe. That also includes singing in more than
25 languages, Arabic, India and Polynesian among them.

"I used to be a member of a rock group when I was a teenager,"
said Gemma. "Then I heard a Macedonian singing and was so
astonished.

"Sometimes I did it all, the rhythm, the melody and the words.
Other times, Peter came up with something and we worked together
based on that." She composed the bittersweet You Always Come
Back, which she performed on both nights.

Mind the Gap also married vocals and instrumentals. The group
carried the night through with Palau, with a David Bradie poem as
the lyrics, the lively Boys & Girls and a Brazilian rhythm
section fueled by Brazil's maracatu and Spain's merengue
fanfaring beats.

Tokakros' songs resounded like ancient tunes. "We don't want
to be esoteric, although our music has some elements of this,"
Gemma said.

After 20 years' studying Indian music, Peter knows that the
10-beat cycle tabla is odd for Westerners used to uneven beats.
"It just sounds awkward and incomplete," he said. "But if you
play that seven beats with every beat, so somebody can move to
that pulse while you can do those things as well. By doing that
you satisfy the esoteric part yet everybody stills has fun."

Tokakros will record their first CD in this month for release
next autumn.

Batak

The Batak Toba, a subgroup of the Batak living around Lake
Toba, is particularly famous for gondang, literally translated as
drums. Ethnomusicologist Ben Pasaribu focused on the set of
taganing (10 smaller drums), and other types like gordang and
ogung.

"Taganing is one of the only traditional drums which can play
melodious tunes, the other two are from Myanmar and Uganda," said
Ben Pasaribu. "They only have limited scale up to five. It sounds
close to modern scale."

The music was originally performed at religious or customary
events, or simply for entertainment.

The 30-minute performance in Jakperc '97 was titled Bona
Pasogit (The Hometown) and was inspired by the Cawan rites of
village purification.

Opened by the crystal clear sound of Ben's improvisation of
four pipes, it climaxed with the melodious taganing which was
pounded in change of fanfaring and gently thumps. The interesting
part surfaced when two men played saxophone and trumpet.

"Both are not novelties for Batak' people. We adapted them as
part of our traditional music," explained Ben. Close to the end,
the heart-rending sarunei traditional instrument played

"I use the traditional sound structure and rhythm yet the
composition is a modern piece," said this dean at Nomensen
University in Medan. "Batak people who hear it will say, 'this is
still my music'."

Ben's gondang ensemble's group consists of his teaching
colleagues and musicians, who play both classical and traditional
music. "We are a bunch of 'crazy men' who earn some money from
our formal job while grow our musical appreciation in our spare
time," said Ben who teaches composition in the university. They
have performed many times in plentiful festivals -- in Indonesia
and overseas.

Ben himself started his music education by playing range of
modern percussions such as timphany and marimba. "My basic is
actually the western classic. But since I've learned the
ethnomusicology I always ended up in something traditional."

Jakarta Percussion Orchestra was also rich with tradition.

Their dynamic rebana blended with smaller cymbal-like ceng-
ceng. They astonished the audience as well as other musicians,
including Alex Grillo, the notable French musician who jammed
with them.

"I came only one day before performance and have no idea at
all of what kind of music they're playing. What I found is truly
great," said Grillo, who played his vibraphone.

Franki set up the JPO about a year ago at the request of the
city tourism agency, who wanted a group with the Betawi (native
Jakarta) traditional music. "It was such a coincidence since I've
been researching Betawi music for the last two decades," said
Franki, the chairman of Jakperc '97.

Franki contacted traditional musicians still living in
Jakarta. "My musicians range from youngsters up to more than 70
years of age, people who have known the music and its tradition
their entire lifetime."

He first listened to them play their own music. "I translated
into modern music notation and based my composition from that
paper work," he said. "It wasn't easy to persuade them to play
according to what I composed because I was taking them away from
their roots. In the end, they enjoyed themselves because they
knew another way to play."

Like Tokakros and Ben Pasaribu, Franki applied the unique
musical features to enrich his contemporary compositions. "That's
the underlying message from Jackperc '97, to show and introduce
the richness of our traditional percussion music."