Music and Regional Identity in Indonesia: Tembang Sunda of West Java Open Access
Balasubramanian, Anita (2010)
Published
Abstract
Abstract
Music and Regional Identity in Indonesia: Tembang Sunda of West Java
By Anita Balasubramanian
Tembang sunda is an aristocratic vocal genre that developed in the Western third of Java, Indonesia, a region also known as Sunda. This classical form originated in the 1840's in Cianjur (a town between Bandung and Jakarta) during the Dutch colonial period. In the 1960's, its practice expanded throughout West Java, and relocated to the region's prevailing cultural center--metropolitan Bandung.
Despite the institutionalization of music education in contemporary Bandung, the oral-aural transmission of musical knowledge between teacher and student is still the primary mode of teaching tembang sunda. Many traditional genres of West Java, such as gamelan degung, have experienced change and innovation in theorizing musical processes, thereby becoming modernized in their pedagogy. Yet, tembang sunda has continued to maintain the oral tradition as a central and inherent component of its learning processes. This is due to the different performance contexts that characterize tembang sunda, each of which requires adaptability and knowledge on the performer's part. Based on my learning and performance experiences in Bandung, I have learned that there are also different aesthetics and expectations associated with each performance context. Each context is important in maintaining the social organization distinctly framed by tembang sunda, and informed by the history of both the Sundanese region as well as the entire island of Java; hence, it is important to perform according to context.
A student learning tembang sunda is made aware of these differences by employing the oral approach in their training, through maintaining close interaction with the teacher, and participating in relevant musical and extra-musical activities. The learning process subtly prepares a student or performer to adapt to each of these different contexts. Therefore, by means of effective teaching methods, the student is acquainted with the analogies and dissemblances between performance contexts, and thus, the significance of tembang sunda.
Table of Contents
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
.........................................................................................viii
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
.......................................................................................x
INTRODUCTION: An Ethnomusicological Study of Tembang
Sunda...............................1
PART I. MUSIC AND PERSPECTIVES OF THE SUNDANESE REGION, CULTURE AND
SOCIETY
Chapter
1. The Impact of Social Hierarchy and Division in Java on
Tembang Sunda....................14
2. Tembang Sunda and Other Sundanese Musical
Genres...........................................25
PART II. THE MUSICAL DEVELOPMENT OF TEMBANG SUNDA
3. Music, Structure and Subject Matter of the Tembang Sunda
Repertory......................33
PART III. CONTEMPORARY TEMBANG SUNDA PRACTICES
4. Learning Processes in Tembang
Sunda.................................................................46
5. Performance Parameters in Tembang
Sunda.........................................................65
CONCLUSION: Tembang Sunda as an Affirmation of Sundanese
Identity.......................81
GLOSSARY
..........................................................................................................87
REFERENCES CITED
.............................................................................................100
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