Music of Indonesia Series
20-CD set. Produced and annotated by Philip Yampolsky. Smithsonian Folkways Recordings in collaboration with the Society for Indonesian Performing Arts. (1990-1999)
About the Project
This acclaimed 20-CD series documents the music of the Indonesian archipelago, introducing listeners to dozens of beautiful and varied musical styles from throughout this complex island nation. Guitars and gamelans, flutes and drums, voices and brass bands contribute to this musical treasure trove that the New York Times called "monumental and enjoyable."
Indonesian scholar Philip Yampolsky worked for over ten years with the Indonesian Society for the Performing Arts and Smithsonian Folkways Recordings to produce this remarkable series. Traveling to congested cities and remote rural areas, Yampolsky and his Indonesian colleagues used state-of-the-art digital equipment to create these beautiful recordings that will appeal to expert and novice alike.
Each CD contains more than an hour of music and extensive annotation that places the performances in their regional and national contexts. Individual CDs cover the gamut from popular roots-based urban music to ancient styles that are little known, even within Indonesia.
Made possible with funding from the Ford Foundation, the series is indispensable to anyone interested in the region. Music of Indonesia is available as individual discs. Those ordering the entire series will receive a 15% discount.
Unsure where to start? We recommend the single disk compilation Discover Indonesia (2000) SFW CD 40484 offering a sampling of 15 distinctive musical styles from throughout the archipelago.
Indonesia: A Nation & Its Music If Indonesia were superimposed on Europe, it would stretch from Ireland to the Caspian Sea. Only three countries--China, India, and the USA--have larger populations, and few encompass a greater diversity of societies and cultures. Indonesia's people belong to more than 300 ethnic groups, speak almost as many languages, and inhabit some 3,000 islands in the 13,700 island archipelago. Most (90%) are Muslim, but there also are substantial numbers of Christians, Buddhist/Taoists, Hindus, and animists.
Three-quarters of the population live in rural areas, but Indonesia's media is saturated with urban images, mostly generated from the capital, Jakarta, a megalopolis with more inhabitants than any U.S. city. Javanese rice-farmers, Buginese sailors, the Balinese pedanda (Hindu priest), the Acehnese ulama (Islamic teacher), Jakarta bureaucrats, noodle-vendors, Minangkabau traders, Chinese-Indonesia shopkeepers, batik-makers, bankers, shadow-puppeteers, shamans, peddlers, marketwomen, and dentists are all part of contemporary Indonesia.
Indonesia's music is as diverse as its people. Best known abroad are the Javanese and Balinese orchestras generally called gamelans, which consist of gongs and other struck metal instruments, but gamelans are only one aspect of a much larger musical universe. Solo and group singing and solo instrumental music (typically played on the flute, shawm, plucked lute, bowed lute, plucked zither, or xylophone) are found everywhere, as are ensembles of mixed instruments, and ensembles dominated by instruments of a single type--especially flutes, drums, xylophones, zithers, or gongs.
Much of ths music is indigenous to the cultures of Indonesia. On the other hand, some of the most prominent and commercially successful contemporary genres of popular music derive from foreign sources; however, since these are often sung in one of Indonesia's 300 languages, disseminated nationwide through the mass media, and avidly consumed by millions of Indonesians, they must be considered Indonesian. In addition to the indigenous and the clearly imported, there are numerous hybrid forms that mix traditional and foreign elements in delightful and unpredictable ways.
The Music of Indonesia Series offers sampling of this tremendous variety. In selecting the music, Yampolsky and his Indonesian colleagues concentrated on genres of special musical interest, and, wherever possible, present them in depth, including several examples to illustrate the range of styles and repertoire.
