Kolintang , music
instrument originated from Minahasa, a place in North Sulawesi, an island in
the east part of Indonesia. It is made from light but solid local wood such as TELUR,BANDARAN, WENANG, KAKINIK whose fibre construction
appears in parallel lines. It can produce a long sound which can reach high
pitch note as well as low pitch note when struck.
The name Kolintang came from the sound: TONG (low
pitch note), TING (high pitch note) and TANG (moderate pitch note). In the local language, the invitation
“Let us do someTONG TING TANG” is: “Mangemo
kumolintang”. That settled the name of the instrument: KOLINTANG.
In its early days,
Kolintang originally consisted of only a series of wooden bars placed side by
side in a row on the legs of the players who would sit on the floor with both
of their legs stretched out in front of them. Later on, the function of the
legs was replaced either by two poles of banana trunk or by a rope which hung
them up to a wooden plank. Story says that resonance box was beginning to be
attached to this instrument after DIPONEGORO, a
prince from Java who was exiled to Minahasa, brought along Javanese instrumentGAMELAN with
its resonance box, GAMBANG.
Kolintang had a close
relationship with the traditional belief of Minahasa natives. It was usually
played in ancestor worshipping rituals. That might explain the reason Kolintang
was nearly totally left behind when Christianity came to Minahasa. It was so rarely
played that it was nearly extinct for about a 100 year since then. It only
reappeared after the World War II, pioneered by a blind musician NELWAN KATUUK, who reconstructed it
accordingly to universal musical scales. Initially, there was only one kind of
Kolintang instrument which was a 2 octave diatonical melody instrument. It was
usually played with other string instruments such as guitar, ukulele or string
bass as accompaniment.
We,
ourselves, had only heard of Kolintang music when it was broadcasted by
Indonesian Broadcasting Radio (RRI) in Menado in 1952
At that time, communication was not as advanced as today. Nelwan
Katuuk was from North Minahasa while we were from Ratahan, South Minahasa.
We start the production of Kolintang outside its native land of
Minahasa in 1964 in Yogyakarta, Central Java, At the same time we began
introducing the instrument around Central Java, our musical group toured the
area which later extended to cities in East and West Java. At that time
Kolintang was still a single melody instrument accompanied by guitar, ukulele
or string bass.
The next development was the idea of replacing string
instruments with kolintang accompaniment. We began exploring the idea in 1966
and it was not until 1969 we managed to make our first Kolintang ‘Orchestra’
performance at Satya Wacana Christian University in Yogyakarta. Our band
consisted of a set of 5 Kolintang, each with different function, namely Melody,
Alto, Tenor, Cello and Bass.
www.kolintang.co.id
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