Musical Instruments

The Colorful World of Indonesian Musical Instruments: From Bamboo Flutes to Gamelan Ensembles

Indonesian musical identity began to take shape when the Bronze Age culture migrated to the archipelago in the third and second centuries BC. Indonesian traditional tribal music generally uses percussion instruments, especially drums and gongs. Some developed into complex and diverse music, such as the sasando string instrument from Rote Island, the angklung from West Java, and complex gamelan orchestral music from Java and Bali.

1. Angklung

Angklung is a multitone musical instrument that developed among the Sundanese people. This musical instrument is made of bamboo. It is sounded by shaking it (the sound is caused by the impact of the body of the bamboo pipe) so that it produces a vibrating sound in the order of 2 to 4 tones in each size, both large and small.

Read Also: Angklung Legend 

The gentle rhythm of the angklung carries a harmony of culture and unity—bright, vibrant, and timeless.

2. Gamelan

Gamelan is a traditional Javanese, Sundanese, and Balinese music ensemble in Indonesia that uses pentatonic scales in the slendro and pelog scale systems. This music is played by several people along with percussion instruments, such as metallophones, gongs, and fiddles, along with bamboo flutes.

Read also: Gamelan Legend: The Sacred Call of Sang Hyang Guru

Gamelan

3. Kacapi suling

Kacapi suling is a type of instrumental music that relies on improvisation and is popular in the Sundanese province of West Java. It uses two musical instruments, the kacapi and the suling, or flute.

Kacapi suling

4. Kolintang

Kolintang is a traditional Minahasa percussion instrument from North Sulawesi, Indonesia, consisting of wooden blades arranged in a row and mounted on a wooden tub. Kolintang is usually played in an ensemble. Kolintang in Minahasa society is used to accompany traditional ceremonies through dance, singing, and making music.

Kolintang

5. Sasandu

Sasandu (Rote language) or Sasando (Kupang language) is a stringed instrument that is played by plucking using the fingers. Sasando is a traditional musical instrument from the Rote culture. The Sasando musical instrument has a simple shape; the main part is in the form of a long tube made of bamboo, and the middle part is circular from top to bottom with a support (Rote language: senda) where the strings are stretched on a bamboo tube from top to bottom, resting.

Sasando

6. Keluri

Keluri, also known as keledi or enkulurai (Iban language), is a traditional wind instrument made of bamboo and pumpkin. Keluri is often played by Orang Ulu (Uru people), who come from Sarawak, Malaysia, the area to the northwest of the island of Borneo.

Keluri consists of six bamboo pipes tied together and connected with dried pumpkin skin as the base. A hollowed-out pumpkin shell will also be inserted into one of the pipes and used as a windcatcher. The length of each pipe varies, but each pipe must have a vent that functions to produce sound when the musical instrument is blown.

The average keluri musical instrument is two feet long, but some Iban keluri can reach a length of six feet.

Keluri

 7. Sapeh

The sapeh (sape', sampek, sambe', sapek) is a traditional artistic musical instrument for the Dayak Kayaan people in the Kapuas Hulu river area that is used as a means of entertainment for the Dayak community. Sape is a stringed musical instrument that has a wide body, a small stem (about one meter in length), and two strings made of plastic. The sape of this type has four scales.

Sapeh