Angklung: Indonisia musical instrument

The angklung is a musical instrument that is made up of two bamboo tubes affixed to a bamboo frame. The tubes of the instrument are carved to have a resonant pitch when they are struck and are tuned to octaves. The base of the frame is held in one hand of the player, at the same time as the other hand of the player strikes the musical instrument. Each of the three or more players in an angklung group play just one note or more on the instrument, but altogether complete music is manufactured. The musical instrument is prominent all through the southeastern Asia, but has its origin in the today’s Indonesia, and the musical instrument has been performed by the Sundanese for many years.

The name of the instrument originated from the Sundanese "angkleung-angkleungan", which means that the movement of the angklung player and the sound’klung’, which comes from the musical instrument.

source of picture: technorati.com

Another theory suggests that the name of the musical instrument was formed from two Balinese words, which are ‘angka and lun’. Angka means tone, while lung means broken or lost. As such, angklung means an incomplete tone.

According to Dr. Groneman, the musical instrument had already been a favorite instrument of the whole archipelago even before the Hindu era. According to Jaap Hunst in his Music in java, apart from the West java, the musical instrument also exists in the south Sumatra and Kalimantan. Lampung, the east and central java are also analogous to this musical instrument.

In the Hindu period and also the time of Kingdom of Sunda, this musical instrument performed a major function in ceremonies. The instrument was performed to honor Dewi Sri, the goddess of fertility, so that she would bless their lives and land. The musical instrument also signaled the moment for prayers. The angklung was said to have been played since the 7^th century in the Kingdom of Sunda. The musical instrument provided martial music during the Battle of Bubat in the kingdom of Sunda, as told by Kidung Sunda.

The oldest surviving version of the musical instrument is 400 years old. Angklung Gubrag was manufactured in the 17^th century in jasinga, Bogor. Other antique versions of the musical instrument are stored in the Sri Baduga Museum, Bandung. The oldest version of the musical instrument is known as ‘Angklung Buhun’ from Lebak Regency, Benten. This version of the instrument is the ancient kind of angklung that was played by the people of inland Banten region during the harvest ceremony of Seren Taun.

Daeng Soetigna from Bandung, in 1938, manufactured a version of the musical instrument that is based on the diatonic scale rather than that of the traditional pélog or sléndro scales. Ever since then, the musical instrument has gone back to its popularity and is used for entertainment and education purposes, and may be used as an accompaniment musical instrument to the western instruments in an orchestra.

UNESCO permitted the musical instrument a masterpiece of oral and imperceptible heritage of humanity on 18^th November 2010.

The angklung was first fabricated in West Java, Indonesia; with the probability of cultural transmittance of different other places like Malaysia and Philippines over the course of many years. In the early part of the 20^th century, during the time of Dutch East Indies, the musical instrument was adopted in Thailand, where it is known as ‘angkalung’. It was noted that the musical instrument was brought to Siam in the year 1908 by Luang Pradit Pairoh, royal music player in the entourage of HRH Field Marshal Prince Bhanurangsi Savangwongse of Siam that paid a royal visit to Java that year. The Thai version of the musical instrument are tuned typically in the Thai tuning system of seven equidistant steps per octave, and each of the instruments has three bamboo tubes tuned in three separate octaves instead of two that is found in the Indonesian version of the instrument.

There was a grand ceremony in the Thai cultural music circle; this was to mark the 100^th anniversary of the introduction of the musical instrument to Thailand in the year 2008. The celebration was supported by both the Thai and Indonesian governments.

The musical instrument has also been adopted by its Austronesian-speaking neighbors, especially by Malaysia and Philippines, where they musical instruments are played as part of bamboo xylophone orchestras.  The musical instrument found immediate popularity in Malaysia after being formally introduced into the country after the end of the Confrontation. They instruments are commonly played using a pentatonic scale analogous to that Indonesian Slendro, but in the Philippines, sets as well come in the diatonic and minor scales that are used to play different Spanish-influenced folk music in addition to traditional music in pentatonic.

At least a Sundanese Angklung Buncis ensemble can be found in the United States. Angklung Buncis Sukahejo is an ensemble that is found at The Evergreen State College and includes 18 double rattles and four dog-dog drums.

About 5, 182 people from several countries performed the musical instrument together in Washington DC on July, 2011. This was listed in the Guinness Book of Records to be the largest Angklung ensemble to have been seen.