Musical Nationalism In Indonesia

This book charts the growth of the Indonesian nationalistic musical genre of lagu seriosa in relation to the archipelago's history in the 1950s and 1960s, examining how folk songs were implemented as a valuable tool for promoting government propaganda. The author reveals how the genre was shaped to fit state ideologies and agendas in the Sukarno and Soeharto eras. It also reveals the very significant role played by Radio Republik Indonesia in the genre’s development and dissemination. Little research has been done to investigate how Indonesian music contributed to nation-building during Indonesia’s immediate post-colonial period. Emulating the European art song, the genre was adapted to compose songs with the purpose of promoting a strengthened collective Indonesian identity, fostered by a group of musicians who functioned as gatekeepers, monitoring and devising various mechanisms for songs to conform to the propagandistic needs of the Indonesian government at the time. The result was the development of classical style of singing and the cultivation of a patriotic collection of music during the Guided Democracy period (1959–1965), which peaked at the height of the Konfrontasi (1963–1966). Lagu seriosa lost popularity as popular music infiltrated Indonesia in the 1970s, but it remains an iconic yet understudied aspect of the nationalistic agenda in Indonesia. The case studies of selected songs reflected continuity and change in musical style and over time. This book is of interest to scholars studying the intersection between history, politics, identity, arts and cultural studies in Indonesia. It is also of interest to researchers investigating the role of music in identity formation and nation-building more widely.

Over time Dutch and Indonesian musicians have inspired each other and they continue to do so. Recollecting Resonances offers a way of studying these musical encounters and a mutual heritage one today still can listen to.

What happens to “local” sound when globalization exposes musicians and audiences to cultural influences from around the world? Jeremy Wallach explores this question as it plays out in the eclectic, evolving world of Indonesian music after the fall of the repressive Soeharto regime. Against the backdrop of Indonesia’s chaotic and momentous transition to democracy, Wallach takes us to recording studios, music stores, concert venues, university campuses, video shoots, and urban neighborhoods. Integrating ground-level ethnographic research with insights drawn from contemporary cultural theory, he shows that access to globally circulating music and technologies has neither extinguished nor homogenized local music-making in Indonesia. Instead, it has provided young Indonesians with creative possibilities for exploring their identity in a diverse nation undergoing dramatic changes in an increasingly interconnected world. Ultimately, he finds, the unofficial, multicultural nationalism of Indonesian popular music provides a viable alternative to the religious, ethnic, regional, and class-based extremism that continues to threaten unity and democracy in that country.

The 1st NICCT (International Conference on Creativity & Technology) 2019 was held in Universitas HKBP Nommensen Medan (UHN Medan), Indonesia on September 20-21, 2019. This conference was organized by Department of Music, Faculty of Language and Arts, UHN and the theme of this year conference was Empowering Culture, Nature and Technology for Social Well Being. This conference has facilitated a mutual exchange of ideas and information from various backgrounds of stakeholder (either domestic or international) related to the utilization of recent technologies. High enthusiasm coming from the participants of this conference was reflected by high number of good quality papers received. Our committees are delighted to present this proceeding as a compilation of carefully selected papers representing each scope provided by the conference, such as Creative Application, Arts & Culture, Economics, Psychology, Education, Law, Politics, Social Studies, Management, New Media & Technology, Mobile Application, Projection Mapping, Sound Technology, Graphical User Interface and Information Technology. We would like to express our gratitude to all parties who have sincerely supported and contributed to the success of the 1st NICCT 2019, either during the conference and the post-conference publication. We also would like to highly acknowledge the hard work and precious support from the organizing committee during the preparation until this conference has been fully finished. We sincerely hope that this conference can be considered as a forum providing high quality discussion among researchers and other related sectors. We belief that this proceeding may serve as an useful source of references for further studies.

"Rasmussen has written a classic study of the world of Islamic soundscapes, performances and forms of musical piety in that most complex of societies, Indonesia. With great sensitivity, an alert musical response to players, reciters and audiences, a keen practitioner's ear and eye for subtlety as well as for the complexities of 'noise', she changes common assumptions about Muslim music and, not least, gender in changing Islamic ritual cultures. Her own political awareness and her professional as well as personal relations with women Qu'ran reciters contribute to an exciting an original volume that I recommend to any one exploring the riches of Islamic performances and debates in the contemporary world."—Michael Gilsenan, author of Lords of the Lebanese Marches: Violence and Narrative in an Arab Society

Indonesia, with its mix of ethnic cultures, cosmopolitan ethos, and strong national ideology, offers a useful lens for examining the intertwining of tradition and modernity in globalized Asia. In Inventing the Performing Arts, Matthew Isaac Cohen explores the profound change in diverse arts practices from the nineteenth century until 1949. He demonstrates that modern modes of transportation and communication not only brought the Dutch colony of Indonesia into the world economy, but also stimulated the emergence of new art forms and modern attitudes to art, disembedded and remoored traditions, and hybridized foreign and local. In the nineteenth century, access to novel forms of entertainment, such as the circus, and newspapers, which offered a new language of representation and criticism, wrought fundamental changes in theatrical, musical, and choreographic practices. Musical drama disseminated print literature to largely illiterate audiences starting in the 1870s, and spoken drama in the 1920s became a vehicle for exploring social issues. Twentieth-century institutions—including night fairs, the recording industry, schools, itinerant theatre, churches, cabarets, round-the-world cruises, and amusement parks—generated new ways of making, consuming, and comprehending the performing arts. Concerned over the loss of tradition and "Eastern" values, elites codified folk arts, established cultural preservation associations, and experimented in modern stagings of ancient stories. Urban nationalists excavated the past and amalgamated ethnic cultures in dramatic productions that imagined the Indonesian nation. The Japanese occupation (1942–1945) was brief but significant in cultural impact: plays, songs, and dances promoting anti-imperialism, Asian values, and war-time austerity measures were created by Indonesian intellectuals and artists in collaboration with Japanese and Korean civilian and military personnel. Artists were registered, playscripts censored, training programs developed, and a Cultural Center established. Based on more than two decades of archival study in Indonesia, Europe, and the United States, this richly detailed, meticulously researched book demonstrates that traditional and modern artistic forms were created and conceived, that is "invented," in tandem. Intended as a general historical introduction to the performing arts in Indonesia, it will be of great interest to students and scholars of Indonesian performance, Asian traditions and modernities, global arts and culture, and local heritage.

Musicologist Judith Becker contends that sociopolitical changes in Javanese society since the 1940s are reflected in changes in the structure of gamelan music, which is one of the traditional musics of Java. She sees gamelan music as a musical system in a state of crisis, unsure of its proper function and direction. While traditional gamelan musical structures supported old Hindu-Javanese concepts of cosmology and kingship, modern innovations reflect Indonesian nationalism and a desire to become a "twentieth century nation." In particular, the introduction of Western musical notation, which Becker describes as "the most pervasive, penetrating, and ultimately the most insidious type of Western influence," is changing gamelan from an aural to a written tradition. Becker examines the works of contemporary composers Ki Wasitodipuro and Ki Nartosabdho to illustrate modern innovations in gamelan compositions and the attitudes of composers to their music, as they attempt to compromise between the ethos and structure of traditional gamelan music and the changing tastes and attitudes of the modern Indonesian nation. In addition to her interpretation of the political influence on gamelan music, Becker includes four appendices that ethnomusicologists will find valuable. Appendix I articulates her theory of the derivation of central Javanese gamelan gongan, the basic temporal/melodic repeated unit of gamelan music. Appendix II gives biographical sketches of Ki Wasitodipuro and Ki Nartosabdho and lists their compositions referred to in the text. Appendices II and IV deal with various aspects of pathet, a Javanese system of classifying gamelan pieces. A fifth appendix, by Alan R. Templeton, gives an informational analysis of pathet.

Sonic Modernities analyses the interplay between the production of popular music, shifting ideas of the modern and, in its aftermath, processes of social differentiation in twentieth-century Southeast Asia.