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Tapping potential in bamboo
Making music: Musician and instrument maker Rizal Abdulhadi wears bamboo-framed glasses and hold his bamboo rasendriya instrument, a mix of guitar, percussion and didgeridoo
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span class="inline inline-center">Making music: Musician and instrument maker Rizal Abdulhadi wears bamboo-framed glasses and hold his bamboo rasendriya instrument, a mix of guitar, percussion and didgeridoo.
The possibilities locked within Indonesia's bamboo forests are limited only by imagination.
Simple cups and sunglass frames, musical instruments and amplifiers are the tip of the iceberg for what can be created from this sustainable material, says bamboo eco-entrepreneur, musician and social activist Rizal Abdulhadi.
At just 27 years of age, this literature degree drop-out from Bandung's Padjadjaran University has cut music albums, given workshops, presented the prestigious TedX lectures and played gigs across several countries while still finding time to invent new musical instruments and push the boundaries for all things bamboo.
Tall, lithe and crowned with a rambunctious head of hair and a face-splitting grin, Ubud-based Rizal discovered music and the arts as a youngster growing up in a quiet village in Majalengka regency, West Java.
'My village is near Jati Tujuh. This is a village of artists and artisans called Konser Kampung [Village Concert]. I went there a lot when I was young and that was where I learned music, particularly the Sundanese suling [flute],' says Rizal, seated in the shade of his garden verandah in Penestanan.
Konser Kampung was developed by the man who would become Rizals' mentor and teacher, Subita, back in 1986, before Rizal was born.
While Konser Kampung paid honor to classical Sundanese music, the organization also experimented with modern musical styles.
'Jati Tujuh was a mix between modern and classical. Sometimes kids are lazy to learn classical music, so the mix of traditional and modern kept me interested and wanting to learn more about musical styles,' says Rizal, adding that Konser Kampung musicians also crafted and invented their own instruments, often from bamboo.
The founder of Konser Kampung, Subita, continues to mentor Rizal, working with him on new interpretations of musical instruments in Bali. He plays a short riff on his bamboo single stringed Belentung. Played slowly it is like a frog orchestra has lit up in the dusk of evening; fast and it's the opening bars of a Johnny Cash riding box cars ballad. 'Belentung means frog in Sundanese,' explains Subita, who has been crafting bamboo into music since 'I could hold a knife,' as most of the population of his Jati Tujuh village have done for decades.
It was Rizals' return to Jati Tujuh in 2012 that expanded his ideas of music, sculpture and literature, leading him to explore the potential hidden in bamboo.
'I had busked my way through university with my guitar, a standard acoustic. After I dropped out I began doing guerrilla concerts, taking my guitar into rice fields, markets and the homes of friends, plugging in and playing my original songs,' says Rizal of the training ground that would set him up to eventually play alongside one of Indonesia's heroes, Iwan Fals.
'I discovered through the guerrilla concerts that playing everywhere and anywhere you learn to create the vibe between the audience and yourself,' says Rizal who headed to the nation's capital to push harder for his dream of being a musician writing his own songs that always speak to social change. 'I made my first album in 2010 and played my biggest concert with Iwan Fals. My dad had said if I was really going to make it in music, then play with Iwan Fals and I did. My dad died a week later,' he added.
This was the turning point in Rizal's life. He returned to his home village to care for his mother and also returned to the embrace of Jati Tujuh and the teacher who had shone a light on music-making with forest-found materials.
'There I learned more about making instruments with bamboo. Then in 2013 I met Australian sculptor Ellie Hannon and she helped me create the Rasendriya guitar. The name is Sanskrit meaning an extension of the senses,' says Rizal of the instrument that is 'a combination of guitar, didgerridoo and percussion'. The didgeridoo element of the Rasendriya pays tribute to the Sundanese Awi goong that Rizal remembered from his childhood.
The year spent developing the Rasendriya paid off with an album that carried Rizal throughout Southeast Asia and into Australia to give workshops on instrument-making and playing folk festivals.
'My music is a mix of folk and world music. There is Sundanese percussion with balladic and lyrical music. It's not hugely popular in Indonesia. My music is more idealistic and not so much easy listening. My background in social activism means my words are about revolution and social justice,' says Rizal, pointing out that making do with what we have at hand goes some way to address environmental issues.
'This comes back to why I started making musical instruments. This world is all consumerism. Look at Fender and Jenkins guitars. Why not make our own instruments? I still have great hope for Indonesia because Indonesians are really creative. Sukarno [Indonesia's first president] said we had our own philosophy, Marhaenism, in which every single person has his or her own talent. If we don't have a job, we make one,' says Rizal, stressing we don't always need money to gain what we want.
'We may have no money, but we can still make our own instruments, cups, amplifiers and even sunglasses; we can be problem solvers,' says Rizal, who is launching his latest music album during this week's Ubud Writers and Readers Festival under his Tropical Folk music label.
' Photos by JP/JB Djwan
