Kroncong: Indonesia musical instrument

The kroncong is the name given to a musical instrument that is like the ukulele. It is also a name of an Indonesian musical style that typically makes use of the musical instrument, the band or combo or ensemble, made up of a flute, a melody guitar, a violin, a cello in pizzicato style, string bass in pizzicato as well a female or male singer.

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The name of the musical instrument may be derived from the jingling sound that is produced by the kerincing rebana, as heard in the rhythmic background of the music produced by the interlocking of musical instruments performing on or off beat. This background rhythm runs faster than the usual slow vocals or melody, and is constructed, typically, by two ukuleles, a cello, a bass and a guitar. These musical instruments, specifically the pair of ukuleles, interlock as do the musical instrument in a gamelan orchestra and it is clear that the musical traditions of the Indonesians have been applied to an orchestra of the European musical instruments. Previously, they also used the Portuguese musical instrument known as cavaquinho, which is a four steel stringed musical instrument that look similar to the guitar; meanwhile, the cavaquinho was then reformed into a prounga, a three nylon stringed musical instrument with low pitch and a macina, a four nylon stringed musical instrument with high pitch.

One ukulele known as cak, may be steel-stringed. The player of the musical instrument strums chord with about eight strums per beat in 4/4 rhythm. The off-beat strums are usually stressed. The other version of ukulele known as cuk is bigger and has three gut or nylon strings. The player of the musical instrument may pluck arpeggios and tremolos with the use of plectrum and the on-beat is emphasized. As a set, the cuk and the cak form an interlocking pair that mostly gives krocong its distinctive kroon and chong.

The cello could have three gut or nylon strings and the chords of the instrument can be plucked rapidly, usually with a distinct skipped-beat with the use of the thumb and one finger of the hand. This musical instrument then adds both rhythm and tone. The guitar may perform analogously to either cuk or cak, though performs often extended scalar runs that give a rippling background to a chord or bridge chord variations. The bass is usually played in a minimalist pattern significant of the large gongs in a gamelan.

On the top of this rhythmic layer, the melody and the elaborate decoration are carried by a voice, flute or a violin. The violin or flute is used to perform introductory passages that are normally elaborate. The fills and the scalar runs are both quicker and more elaborate than the guitar’s. The singer sings the melody that is slow with constant notes in traditional kroncong.

The repertoire largely uses the western major key with some engagements in the minor. One departure from this takes place when the kroncong orchestra plays Javanese music. The Javanese songs ordinarily use scales and intervals that do not occur in the western songs. Kroncong jawa upholds western intervals but adopts a 5-tone scale that estimates one of the leading Javanese septatonic scales. When performing this style, cuk and cak leave their distinctive interplay and both play arpeggios to estimate the sound and style of the Javanese musical instrument called sitar, a kind of zither. The cello assumes a separate rhythmic pattern also.

The kroncong music started in the 16^th century when sailors from the Portuguese empire brought Portuguese musical instruments and music to Indonesia. Lower-class citizens and gangs, generally known as buaya adopted the new musical patterns. Eventually, they were assimilated by the upper-class citizens of the country.

The small kroncong guitar also the name of music is derived from the Portuguese musical instrument called ‘braguinha’, sharing its roots with the Hawaiian ukulele. The music of kroncong is said to have originated in the communities of freed Portuguese slaves in the 16^th century. European influence from this time can also be heard in the music of the Batak people of the northern Sumatra. From the end of the 19^th century, the beginnings of guitar accompaniment combined within a definitely Indonesian idiom in music from Sumatra, southern Sulawesi and some other places.

The musical instrument and music is now seen as the old-fashioned folk musical instrument and music by most Indonesian youths, butt efforts have been made since the 1960s to reform the genre of music by adding electric guitars, keyboards and drums, notably in the pop keroncong sung by Hetty Koes Endang.

From the time when the Portuguese sailors stepped into Malacca in the 1552 and the Portuguese slaves were freed in Kampung Tugu in the year 1661, the genre of music that was to become known as kroncong had begun to take shape. The modern kroncong came into being after 1880, when the chief musical instrument, the ukulele was fabricated in Hawaii. The long evolution of the 1552 to 1879 was a preliminary stage of development that led to the modern form of the music and the musical instrument. Since the 1880s, the kroncong has been at the stage called short evolution.

Kroncong continued to develop in the Surakarta and some kroncong music players moved to other part of the country, such as Yogyakarta and Jakarta.

Gamelan and other Javanese music also influenced this music. The feature of the Javanese music are; melodies using the pelog and slendro modes, the use of a sitar, a kendang, a kempul, metal and wooden marimbas, gongs and a unique pattern of the javanes singing. The melodies still follow the binary form that is used in the pop music: A-A-B-A or A-B-C-D, with 32 bars. In 1958, Anjar Any, a composer, composed the popular song Yen Ing Tawang Ana Lintang and played it with Waljinah, the winner of the local radio singing contest in Surakarta.

Rudy Pirngadie and his Jakarta-based ensemble, in 1959, used the musical instrument’s beat for accompanying different songs, local and foreign music. He introduced the kroncong music to global audience at the 1964 New York World's Fair. Idris Sardi, an Indonesian violin virtuoso, presented the record ‘I Left My Heart in San Francisco’ with a kroncong beat, though he was fined by the United States music Authority for copyright violation.

In 1968 at Gunung Kidul, an area near Yogyakarta, a local player of music called Manthous presented Campursari, a combination of gamelan music and kroncong. Today, it is emergent in the vicinity of Surakarta, Sragen and Ngawi.

A rock-pop group from Surakata, Koes plus, introduced kroncong music in a rock music pattern in 1974 and has manufactured kroncong-style albums.

The music of kroncong has continued to the modern day. The pope music industry has not yet manufactured popular kroncong, but some groups have been experimenting with the musical instrument. The Bandung-based group Keroncong Merah Putih has experimented with elements of rap combined with the music of kroncong in background. Bondan Prakoso has used kroncong and the hip-hop with his own group, Bondan Prakoso & Fade 2 Black. At the solo international kroncong festival in the year 2008, the Harmony Chinese Music group added Chinese musical instrument to the music of kroncong, producing a distinctive atmosphere. They called the pattern, ‘Indonesian Chinese kroncong’.