AWI: Angklung Web Institute - Buku Daeng Sutigna

Once, a foreign tourist who visited many placed and observed the life of ordinary people in the interior, expressed his amazement in remarking: “These Indonesians are a strange people. The build their houses of bamboo, even the floors and walls. Also furniture and kitchen utensils are often made of bamboo. They even sleep on beds made of same material. Bamboo is also eaten; young bamboo shoots, in Indonesian called “rebung”, constitute an essential ingrediant in many delicious dishes. And when Indonesians die, their mortal remains are carried forth in bamboo contraptions and burried in bamboo groves.”

These remarks, funny though they may sound, comprise a great deal of truth. Something else, though, need be added. For it cannot...Indonesians are also good in making music, using...bamboo.

Various musical instruments are made of bamboo, such as the suling, gambang, calung, angklung, karinding, guntang, etc.

Long ago when our culture was free from external influences, these bamboo instruments played an important role in musical life of our people. In West Java for instance- even up to the time when I was a child-whenever there was a festive occasion, such as a wedding or circumcision ceremony, music was played on bamboo instruments.

Especially during communal celebrations, such as a harvest festival, when the whole community was in a gay mood, the whole village would throng together to carry the rice from the paddy-fields to the village, while singing and dancing to the accompaniment of music played on instruments as I have mentioned before.

Act 1

Ladies and Gentlemen:

What you have just seen and heard is an illustration of our musical life in ancient time, long before we came to know of the existence of better and more perfect instruments, certainly long before we became acquainted with the gamelan orchestra, the latter having been introduced in our country trough the arrival of Hindu culture.

It should be noted that the instruments used in this type of orchestra were very simple. With the exeption of the flute and the blowing gong, they were all percusion instruments.

Among the instruments I mentioned earlier the angklung occupied a very unique position: It is the only Instrument that can produce only one note.

When Western type musical instruments, looking beautiful and shiny, started pouring in from Europe at a later time, gradually the interest in our native bamboo instruments decreased. Most of them were soon forgotten, and some of them even disappeared altogether e.g. rengkong, rinding, and guntang.

At one time the angklung underwent the same fate; people’s interest in it started waning and it almost sank into oblivion. Around 1920, only the miserable remnants could be observed, namely in the form of a small orchestra, far from complete, in wich usually only children played.

Act 2

This, ladies and gentlemen, was what was done with the angklung when I became familiar with it almost half a century ago.

Compared with its previous position it had obviously gone down in the world of music, originally popular even with grown-ups, it had degenerated, and having fallen into the hands of children, it was no longer considers a musical instrument, it had become a toy merely.

I am sure most of you have observed that the tone range used by the children comprised only four note, and did not even cover an octave. What is also worth noting is that those cildren did not play to be listened to or to be enjoyed by an audience, but purely because they liked it, because they thought is was great fun.

Later, when I was an adult, the fate of the angklung reached its acme of misery. It was very saddening because it lost favour with children, and...reappeared as an instrument of beggers, wandering from door to door in trying to extract alms from the charitable.

Act 3

After having occupied the honourable position of a musical instrument that symbolised the greatness of the nation, the angklung had become the symbol of poverty and distress, no more than a tool used to invoke the compassion of passers-by. Thus ended the history of the angklung as a dignified musical instrument.

In 1938, however, I became interested again in the angklung. At that time I was a school-teacher in Kuningan, a small town at the foot of Mount Ceremay in the interior of Cirebon. I remembered how popular the angklung was with children, and so I set out to find some angklungs with the intention to give them to my students afterwards.

It turned out however to be much harder than I thought it would be. Nowhere in and around the town of Kuningan could I found any, and on the whole only its name was known.

Therefore I was compelled to try to make them myself, and thanks to the instructions of an old man, by the name of BAPAK JAYA, who had become deaf with age, I manage to make a set of angklungs the notes of wich I adapted to the Western scale.

A few weeks after the set was finished the old man died.

I first tried out the new angklungs with boy-scouts of whom I was a leader, since I saw in the methode of using them in an orchestra some characteristics that fitted in well with the scout game: skill, accuracy, quickness of response, teamwork and dicipline, all of these essential in an angklung orchestra.

In the scout movement the angklung came to life again. The boys appeared to be very keen. It become known as one of their favourite pastimes, especially after games for relaxation purposes, or when it rained and we had to stay indoors. The angklung ultimately become an indispensable part of their camping equipment.

Gradually other advantages of this simple instrument emerged, advantages in the realm of education. It stimulated the musical growth of the children concerned. Their interest in music increased and their sense of rhythm, melody and harmony developed. I no longer doubted that, besides being a children’s toy it could be made useful as a teaching aid in the field of music and singing.

That was the beginning of a new page in the history of the angklung, namely the beginning of the utilization of the angklung as a teaching aid in music and singing.

Ladies and Gentlemen:

You are now going to see and hear a demonstration given by students of the Goverment S.M.P. IX. Two pieces are to be played, one arranged polyphonically and the other in an ordinary arrangement. This orchestra will be conducted by one of the students...NANI KRIOLINAH.

Act 4

Ladies and Gentlemen:

There are five reasons wich made me ultimately decide to build up and fight for the honour of the angklung as an educational instrument. In the bahasa Indonesia I have called the five reasons   l i m a M (five M’s).

Firstly, it is mudah – easy

Compared eith other instruments the angklung belongs to the easiest one. It does not involve difficult finger manipulations, subsequently no technical exercises are needed. Anybody can play it even persons who are not musically gifted.

Secondly, it is murah – cheap.

It need not to be bought at a high price, as everybody can make it of a material that is to be found everywhere in this tropical country.

Thirdly, it is menarik – It means it appeals to everybody. All people here, especially children, are fond of it. When I was a child, I once fought for an angklung, actually fought in order to obtain one to play with, while later as a teacher, I sometimes had to use my authority to seperate my students fighting for an angklung.

Fourthly, is is mendidik – eduactional. Everybody knows that musical instruments educate those who play them, but the angklung is in this respect unique. Since it produces just one note, it requiers a tremendous amount of cooperation and will in-still in the children the importance of our traditional kind of cooperation, or ‘gotong-royong’ and strengthen their sence of responsibility towards the group. In an angklung orchestra there is no place for individuals who want to excel at the cost of others.

Fiftly, it is massaal, meaning it is suitable for masses. The number of participants is not limited. Everybody can join in, disregarding the musical talent of the individual participants. As an illustration I should like to inform you that on the occasion of the opening ceremony of the 5th National Sportweek in Bandung in 1961 I conducted an angklung orchestra played by 1,000 children.

Ladies and Gentlemen:

Sister VURGINI and her students are at the present moment waiting behind the curtain, ready to present a church-hym.

Act 5

The funny thing about the angklung is that each individual player produces only one note. Consequently each member of the orchestra must know the whole composition by heart and must be attentive to his cues. The principal idea of the angklung is to entertain and at the same time educate the players themselves rather than to provide musical entertaiment for an audience.

Ladies and Gentlemen:

As the last item of the program, we are now going to present a group consisting of university students whom I have brought with me from Bandung. The name of the group is GURIANG. It has a membership of forty I myself being their leader. Very soon we hope to leave for the U.S. in order to give performance there from coast to coast. The GURIANG ensemble will play three pieces for you:

1.    A march by J.Gilbert SPIRIT OF.............
2.    A Specific Jakarto song JALI-JALI
3.    A Sulawesi folksong ATI RAJA.

The orchestra will be conducted by a young musician from Bandung...SANU’I.

Act 6

Ladies and Gentlemen:

It is my intention to introduce through this explanation and this concert the angklung to as many people as possible, so that it will eventually become known everywhere. It cannot be denied that the angklung which was originally found only in few regions in West Java, namely in Banten, Tasikmalaya, and Garut, has now become popular throughout the Indonesian archipelago. Its fame has in addition spread abroad; to Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, the Phillipines, Australia, New Zealand and other countries.

Its popularity is growing, also in the United States, where it is known for instance in New York, thanks to the American musician OWEN ENGEL, and also known at MISS MASON’S SCHOOL in Princeton, New Jersey, and at the STATE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI, in St. Louis.

Considering the fact that this instrument of humble origin seems to appeal to all, i should like to close my talk with the following:

Today I wish to dedicate the angklung via the Minister of Education to U.N.E.S.C.O in the belief that music is a universal languange, and that it is a popular art throughout the world. Ladies and gentlemen, it is in this context that I do hope that the angklung WILL HELP PROMOTE WORLD PEACE WHICH WE ALL LOVE AND LONG FOR.

Thank you so much for your kind attention.