Music Makes My Heart Happy
In the field of ethnomusicology, interviews are a critical part of researching a new musical culture. It allows for the “outsider” to understand (or try to understand) the “insider’s” perspective of his or her own musical culture. This poses some problems when the “outsider” is not proficient enough in the appropriate language. While my three-month intensive language study of Bahasa Indonesia was enormously important and helpful in my current research, I have faced a few dilemmas in working with children. Conducting informal interviews with adults is also still a challenge, and I am not quite fluent enough to record and transcribe word-for-word, but I am able to take down comprehensive notes and some short quotations from conversations I have had. The Indonesian adults I have spoken to are also very sympathetic to my lack of fluency, and are very helpful in trying to explain what they mean, answering vocabulary questions, or even trying to stretch back to their own English lessons from high school.
When I began my research at SDKE Mangunan, I wanted to have discussions with the children and maybe even conduct short interviews with them about their music, Indonesia’s music, Javanese culture, and all things related. However, there are many moments when I simply do not understand what the children are saying to me. It is no fault of their own, and I do not think them inarticulate, but they truly speak a different Bahasa Indonesia, one that is more informal, more innate, and sometimes sprinkled with Javanese. But the outsider endures and must always find a solution! So I decided to conduct a series of surveys and discussions in which the children would write down their responses. This would allow me to later look up words I did not know off the top of my head and translate at my own pace. [Readers, I should warn you this is a data-heavy blog entry.]
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Musik Anak-Anak Mangunan
My time spent with the students of SDKE Mangunan has been quite informative and insightful. Having started in February, every Tuesday I meet with Kelompok Besar (the big group, grades four, five, and six), Friday with Kelompok Kecil (the small group, grades one, two, and three), and Saturday I observe Pak Ndaru’s three music classes. The grades switch off each Saturday, so grades one, two, and three will have music class the first week, while grades four, five, and six have drama class; the following week classes alternate. With this schedule, the students are only able to have music class once every other week; I am so glad that the school, Pak Ponijan, and Pak Ndaru have been so supportive of my program, allowing me and the children to use the school’s space and instruments to give those participating an opportunity to play music after school every week.
Those participating are mostly children who live within the school’s neighborhood, so as not to obligate parents to sacrifice time in their work schedule taking their children back and forth from school. There are between twenty-four and thirty-five children that attend (mostly boys), depending on the week. At the beginning of the program I assured the children that I was not their teacher (rather, that they are mine!), that there would be no homework, and that if they could not or did not want to come every week that was their prerogative. This sifted out a few students, and with Java’s jam karet (rubber time), two or three students will always stroll in late.
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Yogya and Japan’s Musical Community
While my project is progressing at SDK Mangunan, I thought I would take this chance to express my deepest sympathies to the people of Japan and all those affected by the disaster. I know we are all reading the news and seeing photographs with gaping mouths and broken hearts. The city of Yogya and my hometown in Maine are both distraught and very much connected to communities suffering.
Namioka, a town in Aomori, is the sister city of Cumberland, the town I grew up in. When I was twelve, I took part in an inter-school exchange and spent about two weeks in Japan. With a dozen other students from my school, we toured Tokyo for two days and continued on to Namioko, where we each did a homestay. I remember I was one of the lucky American children who was placed with a family that spoke a little bit of English. We ate rice balls with pine nuts for lunch, visited a volcanic lake, walked through Zen gardens, and watched baseball games on TV. While I cannot say at age twelve I was struck with the wanderlust I suffer from now, the experience no doubt instilled in me the sense of being a global citizen.
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A Brief Musical Introduction To SDK Mangunan
As I walked down the narrow, uneven street towards SDK Mangunan, I caught the eye of three young children. Two girls shook my hand and brought it to their foreheads; the third child, a small boy in an orange shirt, repeated the ritual but continued to hold my hand with authority. “I’m looking for Pak Ndaru,” I told him in Bahasa. He cheerfully guided me to the school to a set of stairs, took off his shoes and waited for me to slip mine off. We ascended to a second-floor classroom that felt more like a tree-house. Children were chatting and gathered around one with a guitar. I asked the little boy if his music teacher was coming, and he answered he had not arrived yet. He patiently looked at me like a good host wanting to help. It was an almost unexplainable feeling, this boy, probably six or seven, guiding me as though he was my very wise guru and porter through the school. I anticipate the children of SDK Mangunan reprising similar interactions that will inform me of their youth culture.
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First Impressions And Final Lessons
This week marks the end of my language program. As I mentioned in the previous post, I switched from a language school to a tutorial with two private teachers, Ari and Ria. My first lesson with Ria began with her arriving at my house with a guitar (her daughter’s that had been collecting dust as of late); she explained I could borrow it until I had a chance to buy one myself. She went on to show me a list of vocabulary that included parts of the guitar and basic music theory terms. The following months’ lessons were not as intensively based around music, but Ria and Ari both thought it was important for me to practice the art of chatting. Javanese people are as friendly as can be, and often like to start up conversations (which include without fail three questions: how long have you been here; what are you researching; and are you married). In addition to basic grammar and vocabulary lessons and quizzes, Ari and Ria were more than happy to discuss all sorts of parts of Indonesian culture; over coffee and the best spring rolls I’ve ever tasted, we talked about women’s rights, religion, the education system, colonial history, and my house’s cockroach infestation.
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