Words Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak Photos Jerry Adiguna

As the youngest son of legendary filmmaker Sjuman Djaya and the Bolshoi-trained ballerina Farida Oetoyo, a passion for the arts runs in Aksan Sjuman’s veins.

The 45-year-old musician is gifted with an ear for music and the intuition to create musical instruments that can release the unique sound he wants.

“Every musical instrument bears the sound preference of the maker. The instruments we know and use here have either Japanese, German or Italian styles. But the instruments I make are just different. They represent the Indonesian’s own sound aesthetic,” he said the day before the first anniversary concert of his Sjuman Instruments workshop on Aug. 23.

“I wish to see Indonesian sound contribute to the world’s musical instruments.”

A crisp and powerful sound came from his masterpiece of a transparent acrylic and wood grand piano when he played a random jazz composition at the auditorium of Usmar Ismail Film Center in Kuningan, South Jakarta.

The piano made its public debut at the concert, with its lineup of performers including string masters Oele Pattiselano, Kevin Yosua, jazz musician Robert MR and Tomorrow People Ensemble.

All of the instruments used were produced by Sjuman Instruments, and most of them were made of environmentally friendly material. To the concert he brought a bamboo-necked guitar, one with its back made of bamboo pulp and a drum set constructed from bamboo instead of metal.

At the start of the concert, he apologized to the audience after playing the bamboo guitar in his presentation about the instruments.

“We are here to exhibit our instruments, but I have nothing to sell to you now. All of them were sold out earlier,” he said.

QUALITY COUNTS

Born in Jakarta on Sept. 22, 1970, Aksan had a strong determination to make his own guitars from a young age. He not only learned to play them, but he also studied up on the parts, specifications and what made one brand stand out from others.

“I have so many wishes [for guitars] I couldn’t afford, but fortunately there are many good luthiers in this country,” said Aksan, who is popularly known by his stage name Wong Aksan as a drummer for Dewa 19 and Potret.

Aksan asked several of them to join him in his enterprise, with him as the main designer. Sjuman Instruments was established in 2014 although it only started production in April 2015.

Business quickly grew as musicians at home and abroad endorsed the instruments’ quality by showing their custom-made guitars on social media platforms.

Using only locally grown wood, preferably wood waste, with the pick-up, knob and bridge produced by local manufacturers specifically for Sjuman Instruments’ design, the handmade guitars are of premium quality, with the price determined by the intricacy of the designs and the materials.

“They have the same quality with branded guitars but at lower prices. Don’t get me wrong, though. They are not cheap, it’s just they are not as an expensive [as branded guitars],” said Aksan.

“I won’t compromise when it comes to the sound quality. I’m not only making a guitar that is physically unique as each music instrument has to provide the answers to these two questions: ‘Does it make good music?’ and ‘Does it inspire the musician to write a good composition?’ If both answers are no, then what’s the use?”

Not only is each guitar unique, but they all have their own individual story. There is a guitar made from the soundboard of a 100-year-old piano, and another from the wreckage of a sunken ship in Bali waters.

“The more aged the material is, the greater the sound the instrument produced,” he said.

These particular instruments are part of the Sjuman Series, the highest category for guitars made of selected woods.

Next in rank is the Third Generation, made of exotic fruit trees, such as mango and sukun (breadfruit) picked by the luthiers. For the Second Generation, Aksan used commodity woods.

“I will feel bad if we cut down trees on purpose for the guitars. That is why we rely on information from communities and networks on trees that have fallen down naturally or were felled by the owner. We also have good contacts with timber suppliers to get quality wood waste. Most recently I got two logs of Maluku camphor because they don’t do well in sales for house material. The wood turned out to make good material for a guitar.”

THE ‘KOPI TUBRUK’ PHILOSOPHY

From his drum playing, he was the endorser of a branded percussion instrument which deterred him from producing his own drum set. He speaks admiringly of Jakarta-based Harry’s Drum Craft, owned by percussion maestro Harry Murti, and its Indonesian sound.

“Never before had I heard the sound it made and I’ve played on every make existence. There is this original sound you couldn’t say no to. There are designer coffee brews and cappuccino, but what he made is kopi tubruk, Indonesians’ first choice when it comes to coffee.”

Kopi tubruk — literally “collision coffee” — is the thick Indonesian-style concoction of coarse coffee grounds mixed with boiled water and sugar.

These “sound” experiences inspired him to experiment with bamboo pulp to make the drums and guitar parts. For some of the instruments he combined bamboo with wood to make lighter plywood that comes in varied thickness and width. Next year, he said, the workshop would start replacing most of the elements with bamboo.

“We are very detailed about this. Don’t ask me how I know about the measurements. I just do and they worked perfectly without trial and error. And no one knows what sound an instrument will make until it’s done.”

This intuitive method he also applied when creating the acrylic-wood hybrid grand piano, the third of its kind ever made after German piano manufacturers Schimmel and Blüthner.

“Aksan is the brains behind this. He had come up with the idea before Blüthner launched theirs. He picked the material himself although I at first doubted how they could fit together. They come out perfectly,” said piano tuning and restoration expert Frankie Lioe, an Indonesian-born German national with 20 years of experience working with major piano manufacturers in Germany.

With only three staffers working on the piano, it took a year to get all the materials and another nine months to design and to build it. It was finished only a few days before the concert.

Named the Shakuntala SKL 189 AC — for the goddess in Indian mythology who epitomizes beauty, patience and virtue, and also the name of Aksan’s daughter Miyake Shakuntala Sjuman from his former marriage with actress and musician Titi Rajo Bintang — the hybrid piano will become Sjuman Instruments’ signature piano.

“We will no longer produce all-wood pianos. I think it’s time to change how a piano should look like after over a hundred years.”

He is getting busier with replying to emails from foreign buyers and endorsing fellow local instrument manufacturers while also supervising his Indonesia’s Boutique Instruments Shop in Kemang, South Jakarta.

They are not his only activities: He also oversees Rumah Karya Sjuman collective with his older brother Yudistira, a ballet dancer, while running his late mother’s ballet school Sumber Karya Cipta and his own Sjuman School of Music.

His next projects will focus on modernizing acoustic instruments for classical music, forming double quartet instruments (violin, viola, cello and bass) and producing studio equipment.

On top of all that, Aksan is also a member of the Jakarta Arts Council, his vehicle to achieve his dreams of “making Indonesia a better place for the arts”.

“I guess I always find myself in problems to stimulate the brain. I never say no to anything. Even if I don’t know how to do whatever I’m asked to, I will take the job first and learn about it later by doing,” he said.

For him, learning means exerting logic and reasons to understand things rather than following certain schools of thoughts.

“By using our own reasoning, we won’t end up doing the same thing with what others have done. We will come up with something different, regardless whether it’s better or not. We have to dare to be different and that’s how we progress.”

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