Traditional Indonesian Music

The traditional music of Indonesia is said to have originated as early as the third century. For some interesting info about traditional Indonesian music, keep reading this article...

Indonesia is a land of varied cultures and traditions. Since Indonesia is central to the Far East and Middle East, its culture is an amalgamation of many foreign countries. And the culture of Indonesia is incomplete without discussing its traditional music. Many of the islands like Java, Bali, and Sumatra have their own traditional music, which are recorded and popularized in different parts of the world.

Traditional Music of Indonesia

The traditional Indonesian music represents some sort of uniqueness, mainly because of the varied instruments used for the purpose. While performing an orchestra, as many as 40 different types of musical instruments are played. The following is a brief explanation about some traditional music types of Indonesia.

Gamelan
Gamelan represents one of the most popular and oldest form of Indonesian music. It is believed that gamelan was created by a Javanese king in the third century and was played in the royal courts. Various types of musical instruments are used, while performing gamelan music. Thus, this ancient music is commonly known as an Indonesian orchestra. Some of the instruments include metallophone (forms the central melody), drum, and gongs (flat metal discs played with hammers), such as ketuk, kenong, and kempu.

The gong ageng, which is also the largest gong, is considered to be the soul of gamelan music. In a gamelan musical performance, the metallophone is played from the front section; whereas, the gongs are performed from the back of the orchestration. All dances and dramas are accompanied with gamelan orchestra. There are several types of gamelan, depending upon their origin. For example, gamelan music played in Central Java and West Java are different. Some gamelan music of West Java do not make use of gongs.




Tembang Sunda
Tembang sunda, a sung poetry and classical vocal music, originated in Cianjur (West Java) in the Dutch colonial era. In those times, it was played for entertaining the aristocrats. One of the renowned composers of tembang sunda is R.A.A. Kusumahningrat, the ruler of Cianjur in the mid-nineteenth century. The instruments that are played for this traditional Indonesian music are suling (bamboo flute), rebab (violin type), and kacapi (zither). Tembang sunda is also known as cianjurian.

Kacapi Suling
Kacapi suling is a type of instrumental music that originated in West Java. It is more or less similar to tembang sunda, except for absence of vocal sounds. To be more precise, tembang sunda without vocals is kacapi suling. While playing this, two types of kacapi (one of higher pitched called 'rincik' and another of lower pitched called 'indung') and suling (bamboo flute) are used. This instrumental music of Indonesia is very popular in other countries, like China and Malaysia.

Kroncong
Kroncong is a folk music that can be traced back to as early as 16^th century, when the Portuguese sailors brought music and European instruments to Indonesia. This music is named after 'kroncong', a guitar type musical instrument played for performing kroncong music. In the 1960s, a modern version of kroncong was played with the addition of instruments, such as keyboards, drums, and electric guitars. Bengawan Solo, is a famous song sung in kroncong music.

Angklung
Angklung is another popular traditional music of Indonesia, which is played with the help of instruments made from bamboo. The instruments used in performing angklung music is made up of two bamboo sticks of varying lengths, fixed to a base frame. They are shaken down to generate sounds of varied tones. Or in other words, musical sounds are produced as the bamboo tubes touch each other. Like the gamelan music, angklung is performed in orchestration. Today, this Indonesian music is popular in many parts of Asia.

These were some of the traditional Indonesian music that a connoisseur of music would love to listen. Another typical Indonesian music is Calung, and the uniqueness of this music lies in the instruments. Yes, they are exclusively from bamboo. Likewise, dangdut (dance music), osinger (wedding music), and gambus (orchestra music) are other types of traditional music of Indonesia.