Music is life
- Phoebe Yap
- Mar 17, 2020
- 2 min read
Have you ever been wondering what is the musical instruments that the indigenous group would play? Let's take a look on it!
1. Sape (Orang Ulu)
- Sape is one of the string instruments from the lute family, which has a short neck. It is made from soft wood, usually the meranti's. The sape has quite an elongated body which is hollowed out and functions as a resonator. The shape of the body looks like a sampan and is often called ' the boat lute' in the west.
This is the picture of me trying to sape at Sarawak Cultural Village last year. The style of playing is like guitar but the sounds are totally different from guitar. According to the Orang Ulu that made this sape, he mentioned that "the sounds are inspired by nature. Back then, people did not simply play it. It was considered a ritual performance." This sape that I am playing is smaller and different size of sape produce different sounds.
There are various musical instruments played by the Ibans, but I will choose 2 of the instruments that not common heard by you! :)
1. Engkerumung
- A set of eight small brass gongs that are arranged on rattan strips tied to a sounding platform. It is arranged according to its sound scale. Each gong is struck with a wooden stick or mallet in a prescribed order, with the accompaniment of two larger gongs.
2. Ruding
- A ruding, often made of brass, but best of aping palm, used by young people for singing to each other. It consists of a flexible metal or bamboo tongue or reed attached to a frame.
Bidayuh traditional music generally consists of a large gong that consists of two Oguong and Kitaak, cymbal, drum or Pedabat and Tawak (a small gong). There are also other traditional instruments such as flute / bamboo flute and guitar. Yet such instruments much less playable because the manufacturing process is quite complicated.
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