Sasando: Indonesia musical instrument

The sasando is a harp-like traditional string musical instrument that is from Rote Island of East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia. The name of the instrument is derived from the Rote dialect word sasandu, meaning ‘vibration’ or ‘sounded instrument’. It is said that the musical instrument had already been known as the Rote people since the 7^th century.

source of picture: pholoroid.blogspot.com

The main part of the musical instrument is a bamboo tube that functions as the frame of the musical instrument. The tube is surrounded by many wooden pieces that are serving as wedges where the strings of the instrument are stretched from the top to the bottom. The work of the wedges is to hold the strings of the instrument higher than the tube surface and to manufacture different length of strings to construct musical notations. The stringed bamboo tube is surrounded by a fan of dried lontar or Palmyra leafs that is like a bag, which works as the resonator of the musical instrument. The musical instrument is played with the both hands reaching into the strings of the bamboo tube through opening on the front. The fingers of the player then pluck the strings in a manner analogous to playing a harp or kacapi.

The sasando has about 28 or 56 strings. The version of the musical instrument that has 28 strings is known as sasando engkel and the version of the instrument that has 56 strings are called double strings.

According to the local tradition, the origin of the musical instrument is associated to the folktale of the people of Rote about Sangguana. The story says that there was once a boy called Sangguana who lived on the Rote Island. One day, as the boy tended to savannah, he felt weak and fell asleep under a Palmyra tree.  The boy while sleeping dreamt of where he played a beautiful music with a unique musical instrument that has an enchanting sound and melody. When he woke up, to his greatest surprise, he could still remember the tones that he played in the dream. Having the desire to hear the sound more and more again, he fell asleep again. He again had the same dream of the same melody and the same musical instrument. The boy was enjoying his dream, but eventually he had waked up. Not wanting to lose the beautiful sound he had in his dream, the boy tried to recreate the sounds and quickly produced a musical instrument from the Palmyra leaves with the strings in the middle, based on his memory from the dream that became the basis of the musical instrument.