INDONESIAN MUSIC-CULTURE AS A PERSONAL AND RESEARCH EXPERIENCE
Keywords:
ethnomusicology, music anthropology, Indonesian music, Christian music, musical meaning, intonation, reflexivity, experience of music, identity and musicAbstract
In this article, I address music – that is, humanly and purposefully organized sound (Blacking 1973; Shelemay 2001) – as a personal, cultural and research experience. Drawing on my experience of learning, researching and performing Indonesian music, I discuss several issues that are pertinent to the ethnomusicological/anthropological study of non-native music-cultures. I examine the concept of bi-musicality, its challenges and limitations; the role of a phenomenological perspective and hermeneutics in conceptualizing the complexities of music experience and meaning in music; and the role of music in shaping identity, especially at the community level.
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References
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A r a g o n L. V. 2000. Fields of the Lord: Animism, Christian Minorities, and State Development in Indonesia.
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B e r g e r H. M. 2015. Phenomenological Approaches in the History of Ethnomusicology. Oxford Handbooks
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B e r g e r H. M. 2008. Phenomenology and the Ethnography of Popular Music: Ethnomusicology at
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Field, Second Edition. New York: Oxford University Press, 62–75.
B l a c k i n g J. 1973. How Musical is Man? Seattle: University of Washington Press.
B r i n n e r B. 1995. Knowing Music, Making Music: Javanese Gamelan and the Theory of Musical Competence
and Interaction, University of Chicago Press.
C o o l e y T. J., B a r z G. (eds.). 2008. Shadows in the Field: New Perspectives for Fieldwork in Ethnomusicology,
Second Edition. New York: Oxford University Press.
C o o l e y T. J. and B a r z G. 2008. Casting Shadows: Fieldwork Is Dead! Long Live Fieldwork! – Introduction.
In T. Cooley & G. Barz (eds.), Shadows in the Field, Second Edition. New York: Oxford
University Press, 3–24.
C o t t r e l l S. 2007. Local bimusicality among London’s freelance musicians. Ethnomusicology, 51(1),
85–105.
Dí a z -A n d r e a u M. 2005. The Archeology of Identity: Approaches to Gender, Age, Status, Ethnicity and
Religion. London, New York: Routledge.
Do m i n g u e z V. R., Wu D. Y. H. (eds.). 1998. From Beijing to Port Moresby: The Politics of National
Identity in Cultural Politics. Amsterdam: Gordon and Breach Publishers.
Du e c k J. 2016. The Oxford Handbook of Music and World Christianities, Oxford University Press.
F r i t h S. 1996. Music and identity. In S. Hall, P. Du Gay (eds.), Questions of Cultural Identity. Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc., 108–127.
G e e r t z C. 1960. Religion of Java. University of Chicago Press.
G i u r i a t i G. 2001. Ki Mantle Hood. In Grove Music Online, L. Macy (ed.). Oxford University
Press.
He r n d o n M. 1993. Insiders, outsiders: knowing our limits, limiting our knowing. The World of Music
35(1), 63–80.
Ho d g e s W. R. 2009. Ganti Andung, Gabe Ende (Replacing Laments, Becoming Hymns): The Changing
Voice of Grief in the Pre-funeral Wakes of Protestant Toba Batak (North Sumatra, Indonesia).
Ph.D. dissertation, University of California Santa Barbara.
Ho o d M. 1960. The Challenge of Bi Musicality. Ethnomusicology 4(2), 55–59.
Ke a n e W. 2007. Christian Moderns: Freedom and Fetish in the Mission Encounter. Berkeley and
Los`Angeles: University of California Press.
K i m J. K. 2004. Mission Strategy for the Javanese Church of Tomorrow in the Province of Yogyakarta.
Ph.D. dissertation, Biola University.
K u n s t J. 1942. Music in Flores. A Study of the Vocal and Instrumental Music among the Tribes Living in
Flores. Leiden: E. J. Brill.
K u n s t J. 1994 [1946] Indigenous Music and the Christian Mission. In Indonesian Music and Dance:
Traditional Music and its Interaction with the West. Amsterdam: Royal Tropical Institute, 57–87.
L u c y S. 2005. Ethnic and cultural identities. In M. Diaz-Andreu, L. Sam, S. Babić, D. N. Edwards
(eds.), Archaeology of Identity. London: Routledge, 86–109.
Ma n h a r t T. M. 2004. A Song for Lowalangi – The Interculturation of Catholic Mission and Nias
Traditional
Arts with Special Respect to Music. Ph.D. dissertation, National University of
Singapore.
Me k a V. A. G. 2012. Katolicka kultura muzyczno-liturgiczna w regionie Manggarai na wyspie Flores
(Indonezja). Ph.D. dissertation, Katolicki Uniwersytet Lubelski.
Me n d i e t a E. 2003. Afterword: Identities: Postcolonial and Global. In L. M. Alcoff, E. Mendieta
(eds.), Identities: Race, Class, Gender, and Nationality. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub.
Me r r i a m A. 1960. Ethnomusicology, Discussion, and Definition of the Field. Ethnomusicology 14,
107–14.
Me r r i a m A. 1964. The Anthropology of Music. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
Me r r i a m A. 1977. Definitions of ‘Comparative Musicology’ and ‘Ethnomusicology’: a historical
theoretical perspective. Ethnomusicology 21(2), 189–204.
Mu h a m m a d M. et al. 2015. Reflections on researcher identity and power: the impact of positionality
on community based participatory research (CBPR) processes and outcomes. Critical Sociology
41(7–8), 1045–1063.
Ne t t l B. 2005. The Study of Ethnomusicology: Thirty-one Issues and Concepts. New Edition. Urbana:
University of Illinois Press.
No t o s u d i r d j o F. S. 2001. Music, Politics, and the Problems of National Identity in Indonesia.
Ph.D. dissertation, University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Ok a z a k i Y. 1994. Music, Identity, and Religious Change among the Toba Batak People of North Sumatra.
Ph.D. dissertation, University of California.
P e r lma n M. 1994. American Gamelan in the Garden of Eden: Intonation in a Cross-Cultural Encounter.
The Musical Quarterly, 78(3), 510–555.
P o p l a w s k a M. 2004. Wayang Wahyu as an example of Christian forms of shadow theatre. Asian
Theatre Journal 21(2), 194–202.
P o p l a w s k a M. 2011. Christianity and inculturated music in Indonesia. Southeast Review of Asian
Studies 33, 186–198.
P o p l a w s k a M. 2016. New Christian music in Indonesia: inculturation in transition. In P. Bohlman,
J. Engelhardt (eds.), Resounding Transcendence: Transitions in Music, Religion, and Ritual. New
York: Oxford University Press, 111–125.
P o p l a w s k a M. 2018. Inculturation, institutions, and creation of localized Congregational repertoire
in Indonesia. In M. Ingalls, M. Swijghuisen Reigersberg, Z. Sherinian (eds.), Locating Christian
Congregational Music: Indigeneity, Cosmopolitanism, and Diversity. Abingdon, New York: Routledge,
133–158.
Po p l a w s k a M. 2020. Performing Faith: Christian Music, Identity and Inculturation in Indonesia.
Abingdon, New York: Routledge.
R a p p o p o r t D. 2004. Ritual music and Christianization in the Toraja Highlands, Sulawesi. Ethnomusicology
48(3), 378–404.
R a s m u s s e n A. K. 2004. Bilateral negotiations in bimusicality: insiders, outsiders, and the “real
version” in Middle Eastern music performance. In T. Solís (ed.), Performing Ethnomusicology.
Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 215–228.
R i c e T. 2008. Toward a mediation of field methods and field experience in ethnomusicology.
In T. Cooley and G. Barz (eds.), Shadows in the Field, Second Edition. New York: Oxford University
Press, 42–61.
R i c e T. 2007. Reflections on music and identity in ethnomusicology, Muzikologija 7, 17–38.
S h e l ema y K a u fma n , K. 2008. The ethnomusicologist, ethnographic method, and the transmission
of tradition. In T. Cooley & G. Barz (eds.), Shadows in the Field. New York: Oxford University
Press.
S h e l e m a y K a u f m a n K. 2001. Soundscapes: Exploring Music in a Changing World. New York and
London: W. W. Norton & Company.
S l o b i n M. 1994. Music in diaspora: the view from Euro-America. Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational
Studies 3(3), 243–251.
Smi t h L. T. 2012. Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples, Second edition. London:
Zed Books.
S o l í s T. (ed.). 2004. Performing Ethnomusicology: Teaching and Representation in World Music Ensembles.
Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
S o l í s T. 2004. Introduction. Teaching what cannot be taught: an optimistic overview. In T. Solís (ed.),
Performing Ethnomusicology. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
S t e e n b r i n k K. 2015. Catholics in Independent Indonesia: 1945–2010. Brill.
S t o k e s M. (ed.). 1994. Ethnicity, Identity and Music: The Musical Construction of Place. Oxford/Providence,
USA: Berg Publishers.
S u n q u i s t S. W., W. B. Eerdmans (eds.). 2001. A Dictionary of Asian Christianity, Michigan: Publishing
Company.
Ti t o n J. T. 2008. Knowing fieldwork. In T. Cooley & G. Barz (eds.), Shadows in the Field, Second
Edition. New York: Oxford University Press, 25–41.
Tu r i n o T. 2008. Music as Social Life: The Politics of Participation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Wa r d e n N. 2016. Ethnomusicology’s “identity” problem: the history and definitions of a troubled
term in music research, El oído pensante 4(2). Retrieved from
http://ppct.caicyt.gov.ar/index.php/oidopensante.
Wi e b e D. 2017. Contextual Church Reform and the Secularization of ‘Sacred’ Balinese Music and Dance:
Forging Protestant/Hindu Music Networks in an Age of Mass Tourism. Ph.D. dissertation, Wesleyan
University.
Wi l f r e d F. (ed.). 2014. The Oxford Handbook of Christianity in Asia, New York: Oxford University
Press.
Wo n g D. 2008. Moving: from performance to performative ethnography and back again. In T. Cooley
& G. Barz (eds.), Shadows in the Field, Second Edition. New York: Oxford University Press.
Yo d e r McCulloh L. 1987. The Introduction and Expression of Islam and Christianity in the Cultural
Context of North Central Java. Ph.D. dissertation, Fuller Theological Seminary, School of World
Mission.
40(3), 413–438.
A r a g o n L. V. 2000. Fields of the Lord: Animism, Christian Minorities, and State Development in Indonesia.
Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.
B a r z G. F. 2003. Performing Religion: Negotiating Past and Present in Kwaya Music of Tanzania. New
York: Rodopi.
B e r g e r H. M. 2015. Phenomenological Approaches in the History of Ethnomusicology. Oxford Handbooks
Online.
B e r g e r H. M. 2008. Phenomenology and the Ethnography of Popular Music: Ethnomusicology at
the Juncture of Cultural Studies and Folklore. In T. Cooley & G. Barz (eds.), Shadows in the
Field, Second Edition. New York: Oxford University Press, 62–75.
B l a c k i n g J. 1973. How Musical is Man? Seattle: University of Washington Press.
B r i n n e r B. 1995. Knowing Music, Making Music: Javanese Gamelan and the Theory of Musical Competence
and Interaction, University of Chicago Press.
C o o l e y T. J., B a r z G. (eds.). 2008. Shadows in the Field: New Perspectives for Fieldwork in Ethnomusicology,
Second Edition. New York: Oxford University Press.
C o o l e y T. J. and B a r z G. 2008. Casting Shadows: Fieldwork Is Dead! Long Live Fieldwork! – Introduction.
In T. Cooley & G. Barz (eds.), Shadows in the Field, Second Edition. New York: Oxford
University Press, 3–24.
C o t t r e l l S. 2007. Local bimusicality among London’s freelance musicians. Ethnomusicology, 51(1),
85–105.
Dí a z -A n d r e a u M. 2005. The Archeology of Identity: Approaches to Gender, Age, Status, Ethnicity and
Religion. London, New York: Routledge.
Do m i n g u e z V. R., Wu D. Y. H. (eds.). 1998. From Beijing to Port Moresby: The Politics of National
Identity in Cultural Politics. Amsterdam: Gordon and Breach Publishers.
Du e c k J. 2016. The Oxford Handbook of Music and World Christianities, Oxford University Press.
F r i t h S. 1996. Music and identity. In S. Hall, P. Du Gay (eds.), Questions of Cultural Identity. Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc., 108–127.
G e e r t z C. 1960. Religion of Java. University of Chicago Press.
G i u r i a t i G. 2001. Ki Mantle Hood. In Grove Music Online, L. Macy (ed.). Oxford University
Press.
He r n d o n M. 1993. Insiders, outsiders: knowing our limits, limiting our knowing. The World of Music
35(1), 63–80.
Ho d g e s W. R. 2009. Ganti Andung, Gabe Ende (Replacing Laments, Becoming Hymns): The Changing
Voice of Grief in the Pre-funeral Wakes of Protestant Toba Batak (North Sumatra, Indonesia).
Ph.D. dissertation, University of California Santa Barbara.
Ho o d M. 1960. The Challenge of Bi Musicality. Ethnomusicology 4(2), 55–59.
Ke a n e W. 2007. Christian Moderns: Freedom and Fetish in the Mission Encounter. Berkeley and
Los`Angeles: University of California Press.
K i m J. K. 2004. Mission Strategy for the Javanese Church of Tomorrow in the Province of Yogyakarta.
Ph.D. dissertation, Biola University.
K u n s t J. 1942. Music in Flores. A Study of the Vocal and Instrumental Music among the Tribes Living in
Flores. Leiden: E. J. Brill.
K u n s t J. 1994 [1946] Indigenous Music and the Christian Mission. In Indonesian Music and Dance:
Traditional Music and its Interaction with the West. Amsterdam: Royal Tropical Institute, 57–87.
L u c y S. 2005. Ethnic and cultural identities. In M. Diaz-Andreu, L. Sam, S. Babić, D. N. Edwards
(eds.), Archaeology of Identity. London: Routledge, 86–109.
Ma n h a r t T. M. 2004. A Song for Lowalangi – The Interculturation of Catholic Mission and Nias
Traditional
Arts with Special Respect to Music. Ph.D. dissertation, National University of
Singapore.
Me k a V. A. G. 2012. Katolicka kultura muzyczno-liturgiczna w regionie Manggarai na wyspie Flores
(Indonezja). Ph.D. dissertation, Katolicki Uniwersytet Lubelski.
Me n d i e t a E. 2003. Afterword: Identities: Postcolonial and Global. In L. M. Alcoff, E. Mendieta
(eds.), Identities: Race, Class, Gender, and Nationality. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub.
Me r r i a m A. 1960. Ethnomusicology, Discussion, and Definition of the Field. Ethnomusicology 14,
107–14.
Me r r i a m A. 1964. The Anthropology of Music. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
Me r r i a m A. 1977. Definitions of ‘Comparative Musicology’ and ‘Ethnomusicology’: a historical
theoretical perspective. Ethnomusicology 21(2), 189–204.
Mu h a m m a d M. et al. 2015. Reflections on researcher identity and power: the impact of positionality
on community based participatory research (CBPR) processes and outcomes. Critical Sociology
41(7–8), 1045–1063.
Ne t t l B. 2005. The Study of Ethnomusicology: Thirty-one Issues and Concepts. New Edition. Urbana:
University of Illinois Press.
No t o s u d i r d j o F. S. 2001. Music, Politics, and the Problems of National Identity in Indonesia.
Ph.D. dissertation, University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Ok a z a k i Y. 1994. Music, Identity, and Religious Change among the Toba Batak People of North Sumatra.
Ph.D. dissertation, University of California.
P e r lma n M. 1994. American Gamelan in the Garden of Eden: Intonation in a Cross-Cultural Encounter.
The Musical Quarterly, 78(3), 510–555.
P o p l a w s k a M. 2004. Wayang Wahyu as an example of Christian forms of shadow theatre. Asian
Theatre Journal 21(2), 194–202.
P o p l a w s k a M. 2011. Christianity and inculturated music in Indonesia. Southeast Review of Asian
Studies 33, 186–198.
P o p l a w s k a M. 2016. New Christian music in Indonesia: inculturation in transition. In P. Bohlman,
J. Engelhardt (eds.), Resounding Transcendence: Transitions in Music, Religion, and Ritual. New
York: Oxford University Press, 111–125.
P o p l a w s k a M. 2018. Inculturation, institutions, and creation of localized Congregational repertoire
in Indonesia. In M. Ingalls, M. Swijghuisen Reigersberg, Z. Sherinian (eds.), Locating Christian
Congregational Music: Indigeneity, Cosmopolitanism, and Diversity. Abingdon, New York: Routledge,
133–158.
Po p l a w s k a M. 2020. Performing Faith: Christian Music, Identity and Inculturation in Indonesia.
Abingdon, New York: Routledge.
R a p p o p o r t D. 2004. Ritual music and Christianization in the Toraja Highlands, Sulawesi. Ethnomusicology
48(3), 378–404.
R a s m u s s e n A. K. 2004. Bilateral negotiations in bimusicality: insiders, outsiders, and the “real
version” in Middle Eastern music performance. In T. Solís (ed.), Performing Ethnomusicology.
Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 215–228.
R i c e T. 2008. Toward a mediation of field methods and field experience in ethnomusicology.
In T. Cooley and G. Barz (eds.), Shadows in the Field, Second Edition. New York: Oxford University
Press, 42–61.
R i c e T. 2007. Reflections on music and identity in ethnomusicology, Muzikologija 7, 17–38.
S h e l ema y K a u fma n , K. 2008. The ethnomusicologist, ethnographic method, and the transmission
of tradition. In T. Cooley & G. Barz (eds.), Shadows in the Field. New York: Oxford University
Press.
S h e l e m a y K a u f m a n K. 2001. Soundscapes: Exploring Music in a Changing World. New York and
London: W. W. Norton & Company.
S l o b i n M. 1994. Music in diaspora: the view from Euro-America. Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational
Studies 3(3), 243–251.
Smi t h L. T. 2012. Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples, Second edition. London:
Zed Books.
S o l í s T. (ed.). 2004. Performing Ethnomusicology: Teaching and Representation in World Music Ensembles.
Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
S o l í s T. 2004. Introduction. Teaching what cannot be taught: an optimistic overview. In T. Solís (ed.),
Performing Ethnomusicology. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
S t e e n b r i n k K. 2015. Catholics in Independent Indonesia: 1945–2010. Brill.
S t o k e s M. (ed.). 1994. Ethnicity, Identity and Music: The Musical Construction of Place. Oxford/Providence,
USA: Berg Publishers.
S u n q u i s t S. W., W. B. Eerdmans (eds.). 2001. A Dictionary of Asian Christianity, Michigan: Publishing
Company.
Ti t o n J. T. 2008. Knowing fieldwork. In T. Cooley & G. Barz (eds.), Shadows in the Field, Second
Edition. New York: Oxford University Press, 25–41.
Tu r i n o T. 2008. Music as Social Life: The Politics of Participation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Wa r d e n N. 2016. Ethnomusicology’s “identity” problem: the history and definitions of a troubled
term in music research, El oído pensante 4(2). Retrieved from
http://ppct.caicyt.gov.ar/index.php/oidopensante.
Wi e b e D. 2017. Contextual Church Reform and the Secularization of ‘Sacred’ Balinese Music and Dance:
Forging Protestant/Hindu Music Networks in an Age of Mass Tourism. Ph.D. dissertation, Wesleyan
University.
Wi l f r e d F. (ed.). 2014. The Oxford Handbook of Christianity in Asia, New York: Oxford University
Press.
Wo n g D. 2008. Moving: from performance to performative ethnography and back again. In T. Cooley
& G. Barz (eds.), Shadows in the Field, Second Edition. New York: Oxford University Press.
Yo d e r McCulloh L. 1987. The Introduction and Expression of Islam and Christianity in the Cultural
Context of North Central Java. Ph.D. dissertation, Fuller Theological Seminary, School of World
Mission.
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Published
2019-12-03
How to Cite
Popławska, M. (2019). INDONESIAN MUSIC-CULTURE AS A PERSONAL AND RESEARCH EXPERIENCE. Ethnologia Polona, 39, 71–89. Retrieved from https://journals.iaepan.pl/ethp/article/view/2004
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