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Musicians must be trained like soldiers: Bekraf
President Joko âJokowiâ Widodo plays a guitar in his hometown of Surakarta, Central Java, showing his appreciation of handcrafted creative industry products
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President Joko âJokowiâ Widodo plays a guitar in his hometown of Surakarta, Central Java, showing his appreciation of handcrafted creative industry products. The government is aiming to boost the countryâs creative industry through the Creative Economy Agency. (Antara/Widodo S. Jusuf) (Antara/Widodo S. Jusuf)
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span class="inline inline-center">President Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo plays a guitar in his hometown of Surakarta, Central Java, showing his appreciation of handcrafted creative industry products. The government is aiming to boost the country's creative industry through the Creative Economy Agency. (Antara/Widodo S. Jusuf)
If Indonesian music wants to be recognized internationally, musicians need to undergo intensive training, says an official.
The world is fascinated at present by what Korea has done with K-Pop. Korean artists are going global, making millions of dollars, and they are surviving the internet era, while musicians in Indonesia are still confused about how to deal with piracy.
"K-Pop products are not only the music; they integrate musicians and music in their marketing. Performance is everything, but their training is really long and can reach 10 years per artist," said Hari Sungkari, deputy of infrastructure at the Creative Economy Agency (Bekraf).
In the high-speed internet era, it is difficult to keep depending on CD sales. K-Pop producers make money from concerts, events and endorsements. CDs are only sold as memorabilia for fans.
Psy's 'Gangnam Style', arguably Korea's most successful song, has been viewed 900 million times on YouTube and reached three million downloads on iTunes, but the singer sold just 100,000 CDs, proving that physical sales are unimportant.
"What Indonesian musicians need is not incubation and startup funding but a visionary producer and intensive training. If necessary they need to be trained like the military," Hari said.
When music producer Park "JYP" Jin-young started to train then 18-year-old artist Rain in 2000, he underwent choreography, acting, vocal and even foreign language training in Japanese and English. The training lasted for four years.
However, Hari voiced his doubts that such training could be as successful in Indonesia, saying Indonesians lacked discipline.
"Koreans can undergo training like that because they are disciplined, but I am afraid that Indonesians lack that element," Hari said. (dan)(+)
