Kacapi: Indonesia musical instrument

The kacapi is a zither-like musical instrument that is used by the Sudanese. The musical instrument is played as an accompanying musical instrument in the Tembang Sunda or Mamaos Cianjuran, kacapi suling genre, pantum stories recitation or a supplementary musical instrument in the Gamelan Degung performance.

source of picture: en.wikipedia.org

The name of the instrument in Sudanese also means santol tree, from which initially the wood is said to be used for the construction of the zither musical instrument.

According to the physical appearance of this musical instrument, there are two versions of the kacapi.

The Kacapi parahu is a resonance box that has an uncovered underside to permit the sound of the instrument out. The sides of this version of the instrument are tapered inward from the top of the instrument to the bottom of the instrument, which gives the kacapi a boat-like shape. In the olden days, the instrument was produced directly from solid wood by perforating the wood.

The Kacapi siter is a plan-parallel resonance box. Analogous to the first version of the instrument, the hole is situated at the bottom of the instrument. The top and bottom sides of the instrument form a trapezium-like shape.

For the two versions of the musical instrument, each string is attached to a small screw or peg on the upper right hand side of the box. The strings of the instruments can be tuned in various systems: pelog, sorog/madenda, or slendro.

In the contemporary days, the resonance box of the musical instrument is produced by gumming six wood-plates smoothly.

The kacapi is traditionally performed by sitting cross-legged on the floor. Thus the strings of the instrument are approximately 25 cm above the floor. Currently, the musical instrument is sometimes played on a wooden frame so that the player of the instrument can sit on a chair. If the kacapi indung is performed while sitting on the floor, normally a pillow or some other smaller object is place under the left hand side of the instrument, as seen from the player of the instrument so that the sound of the instrument can freely escape through the resonance hole in the bottom of the instrument’s sound box. Some versions of the instrument are fitted with small feet, so that it will not be necessary to lift the instruments in this way.

According to the function of this musical instrument in a musical accompaniment, the mus8cal instrument is performed as Kacapi indung and Kacapi anak

The kacapi indung leads the accompaniment by supplying intros, bridges and interludes and determining the tempo of the music. For this function, big versions of the musical instrument with 18 to 20 strings are used.

The kacapi anak enriches the accompaniment instrument by filling in inter-note spaces with higher frequencies, specifically in fixed metered melodies as in the kacapi suling or sekar panambih. For this function, smaller versions of the instrument with about 15 strings are used.

The musical instrument is tuned to match the 60 cm length suling tones.