The teachers of the Zhuang ethnic group in Indonesia play the ancient melody
Nanning, May 14 (Xinhua) -- Title: The ancient melody of the "Land of a Thousand Islands" resounds in the Zhuang Ethnic minority of Indonesia
The author is Zhang Guangquan
When Indonesian gamelan meets Chinese folk music, it's like coffee meeting tea, intoxicating people. Randy Geovani Putra, an Indonesian teacher at Guangxi Arts University, described the "encounter" of these two musical forms with vivid metaphors in a recent interview.
As the principal musician of the Gamelan Orchestra of Guangxi Arts University, Ren Di has been teaching in China for nearly seven years, allowing over 300 Chinese students to appreciate the charm of Gamelan, an intangible cultural heritage of Indonesia. This musical envoy from the "Land of a Thousand Islands" is building a bridge for cultural exchange in Guangxi with traditional Musical Instruments.
Entering Ren Di's classroom, the metallic percussion sounds rise and fall one after another, and the ethereal and cheerful melodies are full of exotic charm. Gamelan, which means "percussion" in Indonesian, is an important traditional music form in Indonesia.
In Indonesia, gamelan is indispensable from weddings to harvest festivals. Rendi said. In 2015, Ren Di came to Guangxi Normal University for further study. An encounter with the folk song "Mountain Songs Are like Spring River Water" opened the door for him to explore Chinese music.
At first, I thought this was a pop song! Recalling the "beautiful misunderstanding" of the past, Rendi couldn't help laughing. When he attempted to interpret this Zhuang folk song with gamelan, he found that the scale of Indonesian music and the pentatonic scale of China were like "two different languages". Finally, we found an innovative solution - using gamelan as accompaniment and Chinese instruments as the main players to achieve "resonance". Rendi said.
Facing the characteristic of gamelan, which was passed down orally and without musical scores, Rendi innovated his teaching method: first, he demonstrated the performance, then asked the students to record the musical scores by referring to the scales of traditional Chinese Musical Instruments, and finally practiced the performance. This "watch - listen - practice" three-in-one teaching model enables Chinese students to master this foreign art quickly.
In recent years, Ren Di has led the Ganmeilan Orchestra of Guangxi Arts University to participate in many events such as the China-Asean Expo and the "March 3rd" event in Guangxi, enabling more people to get to know the traditional music and culture of Indonesia.
Source: China News Service