Sounds of Madurese East Java, Pt. 1: Tong Tong Kerapan

Location: Kalisemut, Kec. Padang, Kab. Lumajang, East Java

Sound: Tong tong kerapan (aka penthongan)

The Madurese have been in the news recently for all the wrong reasons. Beginning in June 2021, the regency of Bangkalan in Madura, an island off the northeast coast of Java, became a hotspot for the coronavirus’s deadly Delta variant. As cases exploded across East Java, the Madurese of that region were soon being blamed: many had irresponsibly spread the disease, it was said, after illegally going through with mudik, the Indonesian Muslim tradition of heading home and meeting with family for the Idul Fitri holiday. Famously pious, the Madurese were also seen by Javanese urbanites as being more likely to heed the advice of influential ustad, Muslim clerics who are notorious for leading their followers to disregard covid as a hoax, or to accept getting sick as all part of god’s plan. 

Soon after cases began to rise, a group of Madurese workers made headlines for protesting their mandatory swab testing upon each crossing of Jembatan Suramadu, the massive bridge which shuttles thousands of mostly working-class Madurese to the coastal metropolis of Surabaya and back each day. Soon, a backlash to the backlash: discourse in this Reddit thread full of mostly Javanese urbanites veered into full-on xenophobia.

This is all to say that, from the discourse, many people in Java and Indonesia have a rather shallow, negative impression of this entire ethnic group of seven million people. This is a people whose image, it seems, is badly in need of rehabilitation. As an ethnomusicology nerd, I’ve found one of the best ways to access the richness and humanity of a culture is through its music, and the Madurese have incredible music in spades. 

The Madurese of Madura proper have no shortage of rich musical traditions, from the raucous modern daul percussion orchestras of Pamekasan to the driving okol whip-fighting music of Sumenep in the east. But, it turns out, there’s a whole archipelago of Madurese musical worlds offshore, in the so-called “tapal kuda”, or “Madurese horseshoe,” a second homeland for the Madurese diaspora in “mainland” East Java stretching from Pasuruan, just east of urban Surabaya, to the northeastern tip of Java in Situbondo and Banyuwangi. Inspired by the work of Situbondo-born ethnomusicologist Panakajaya Hidayatullah and his work in the Madurese horseshoe, the Sounds of Madurese East Java series will highlight the Madurese musical traditions that Jaya and I have been exploring for the past few years. Now more than ever, it’s time to share these fascinating musical traditions with the world.

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To me, the most iconic instrument in Madurese music is the slit drum: variously called kenthongan, penthongan, tong tong, or dhung dhung, versions of this instrument seem to make their way into nearly every musical ensemble the Madurese form, from the booming wooden “gong” of okol to the modern hybrid musik patrol groups of Jember. A few weeks back, I made my way to Lumajang, East Java to document a fascinating variety: the tong tong kerapan.

First, a primer on Lumajang: tucked in the southeast corner of the horseshoe, this regency is a hidden gem full of hidden gems. Largely ignored by tourists (and the rest of Java, for that matter), the provincial town of Lumajang itself is not much to write home about, but it is hemmed in by an epic landscape of volcanoes - the mighty, sacred Mt. Semeru and Mt. Bromo on one side, and the smaller Mt. Lemongan on the other. Nestled in the foothills and margins of this land are dozens of villages and hamlets whose population is majority Madurese. This is a deep-rooted diaspora, with many families having settled here in the late 1800’s upon the opening of large sugar cane and tobacco plantations. Though nearly all speak Madurese as a first language and still embrace uniquely Madurese traditions, many have never even visited Madura, speak fluent Javanese, and see Lumajang as their homeland just as much as Madura. 

In a number of ethnically Madurese villages across Lumajang, a kind of slit drum ensemble lives on that, as far as I can tell, has already faded away in Madura. In Kalisemut, where I recorded, this music was traditionally played for the bull races still famous in Madura - karapan sapi, or in Madurese, kerapan sapèh. In karapan sapi, young jockeys race in chariot-like sleds, pulled through the dust by lean brown bulls. Music is a must to enliven this event, and in Madura nowadays the music of choice often seems to be saronen, the double-reed-led percussion ensemble. 

Screenshot from footage I shot of a kerapan sapi practice in Bangkalan, Madura, November 2019.

Not so in Lumajang. The old-school choice is tong tong, an ensemble of purely slit drums, six to be exact (in classic Indonesian synecdoche, the name of the ensemble is taken from the instrument itself) . In Kalisemut, the whole set of six slit drums was carved from a single jackfruit tree (pohon nangka) and painted a sharp green and red. At first glance, the tong tong are identical to tong tong played elsewhere in Madura and the horseshoe - whole cylinders of wood rigorously hollowed out through a slit along their length. Elsewhere, though, tong tong can be said to play a purely percussive role, often substituting for rhythmic elements in other Madurese ensembles like kendhang (drum), goong (gong), or kenong (smaller pitched gongs.) Tong tong kerapan, meanwhile, are tuned - depending on which side of the slit the instrument is hit, each tong tong produces two tones, and through the oh-so-Indonesian technique of interlocking, a few musicians can produce a scale approximating the pentatonic slendro favored by the Madurese. 

Pak Sus and the tong tong which bear his name.

Ascending from lowest pitch to highest, the tong tong are as follows: korbhian (from Madurese korbhi, “mother”); lake’an (from Madurese lake, “male”); paneros (“successor, follower”); kodean; teketek; and taktok. According to my friend Panakajaya, these terms aren’t unique to tong tong - they represent a kind of borrowing from the wider Madurese musical world and its typical organization, with each name mapping onto its musical role. As the “mother,” and the lowest and largest instrument, for example, the korbhian is the de facto leader of the group, anchoring the music. As a melody extends upwards, it is continued by the lake’an, or the son, then continued by the paneros, or “successor.” Musically, Jaya explains, the kodean is similar to the pangotekan (root word: kotek/kode) in other Madurese ensembles like kenong tello’, where it tends to fill in the upbeats in an interlocking pattern with the more steadily rhythmic (and onomotopoeic!) teketek and taktok.

So the pieces are melodic - where do those melodies come from? Just as in dhungdhungan, a tuned drum ensemble that Jaya and I will be sharing with you soon, many of the pieces are taken from gending or gamelan tunes such as those found in ludruk, a kind of Madurese folk theater, or the social dance called tayub. As in so many other genres in this part of Indonesia wherein an instrumental ensemble mimics the sound of another (see kaster and its soapbox approximation of kendang drumming, or the mouth harp-ified gamelan tunes of Lombok’s selober ensembles), I think part of the fun of this kind of music, for its musicians, is the puzzle of trying to fit the music of a huge gong ensemble into a handful of hollow wooden tubes! 

Pak Adan plays teketek/taktok, two tong tong slit drums fused together.

A neat thing about tong tong kerapan, though, is that, unlike a lot of those “borrowing” ensembles, this music has a special repertoire that is wholly its own. Remember the kerapan - “racing” - of tong tong kerapan. Some of the most exciting, dynamic tong tong music are those pieces that are tailor-made for the races, with each piece queuing up or responding to a particular event in the bull races. “Gludurân,” for instance, is played as the bulls start to run, its driving (rancak) rhythms helping to spur them on. “Perondiân” is played when a bull is a non-starter, standing uncooperative (“nakal, enggak mau lari”) at the starting line. “Tok Èlong Antok,” meanwhile, is played as a cruel accompaniment to the losing bull and jockey as they make their walk of shame. 

Hearing the musicians describe the bull races, I started dreaming of the day I could hear tong tong in context, surrounded by the pounding of hooves and the cheers of the spectators. “When’s the next one?”, I asked. “Oo, sudah jarang mas…” they answered - “Oh, it’s rare these days.” The kerapan sapèh bull races were once a regular occurrence, they explained. The people of Kalisemut were dry rice cultivators, and after each year’s rice harvest, the dry rice fields would be cleared and a bull race would be held right in those fields, a celebration and a sign of thanks to god for another successful harvest. In the 80’s, though, a new industry came in and disrupted the old way of dry rice farming and all of the traditions that went along with it. 

Pak Umam and his sugarcane.

This new industry was tebu, or sugar cane. A simple cash crop, it represented a way for the people to rise above mere subsistence farming - they could earn a significant profit on this fast-growing plant, and the leftovers could even be fed to the cows! Within a few years, Kalisemut, like much of Lumajang, was a tebu village, and many old traditions tied to the sacred rice harvest were left behind - there were no upacara panen or harvest festivities for tebu - it was just a cash crop, after all, not something providing the profound sustenance of rice. 

With kerapan sapèh becoming rarer, the tong tong music that was synonymous with those races largely fell by the wayside. The group, led by Pak Umam, may not play often for the bull races these days, but the musicians haven’t abandoned their tong tong. Every month, Pak Umam explained, on malam Juma’at legi (“sweet” Thursday night, a special night on the Javanese/Madurese traditional calendar), the old tong tong crew gets together and plays, just for fun, on Pak Umam’s porch. The musicians are getting up there in age - the youngest is probably Pak Umam, who is in his fifties. Nonetheless, their playing remains tight and dynamic, a testament to decades of playing.

As always, the question remains - what will happen to this music? Who will carry on the tradition? Times have changed, it’s clear, and the heyday of tong tong kerapan may be past. But for now, every “sweet” Thursday night, you can expect Pak Umam and crew to be gathered on the porch, the beats of their tong tong stirring up memories of kerapan past in the night. 

 Context:

The journey began on YouTube, as it so often does here at Aural Archipelago (in fact, haven’t I written this sentence before?) Years ago, I came upon some incredible amateur footage uploaded with the title “Musik tong tong a la wong lumajang” - “Tong tong music, Lumajang style.” I was fascinated - the title used Javanese (“wong lumajang” - literally “Lumajang people”), but the music sounded so typically Madurese, a classic example of pendalungan cultural fusion typical of the region. There was no other information tied to the video, and try as I might, I couldn’t get the uploader to respond to my pleas of “Where is this, exactly? Can I come meet the band??” 

It seemed I’d have to go into full YouTube detective mode. Through the grainy footage, you could just make out some words written on the side of those bright red and green slit drums: “SUS KALISEMUT D.R.” Kalisemut - that sounds like the name of a village to me (Kali means “river”, while semut means “ant.” Kali is a classic prefix in Javanese place names - “Kaliurang, Kalibening, Kalifornia” is my classic Javanese dad joke.) I took to Google Maps, and sure enough - Kalisemut was a village in the district of Padang in Lumajang. 

Fast forward to June 2021, and my wife and I had quit our jobs, put our stuff in storage, and happily fled Jogja, vowing to make our way to Bali over land. I started to put out my feelers for friends of friends or internet contacts who I could hook up with in Lumajang, and I found the perfect guy - Mas Alfian aka Sardula Kelana, a Lumajang-based drum teacher who has spent the past few years helping revive another local Madurese musical specialty, serbung (to be shared soon!) With the look of a lost hipster and the energy of an especially passionate tour guide, Mas Alfian jumped at the chance to track down tong tong with me - in fact, he’d been to Kalisemut before, shooting a promotional video highlighting the surrounding area’s vast green wet rice fields.

Mas Alfian chats with Pak Sus.

As it turns out, I’d pinned another rare musical tradition to Kalisemut - the Javanese bamboo mouth harp called rinding. Again, I’ll share that soon enough, but suffice to say we found it, along with a fantastic old player and rinding maker named Pak Sutimbang. Pak Sutimbang, when shown the tong tong YouTube video, was stumped - “It must be another hamlet in Kalisemut,” he said. “We’re all Javanese here. It must be one of the Madurese hamlets nearby...Darungan, maybe?” We showed the video to his grandson, who had friends in Darungan, but he was also stumped. “Let’s just go there,” the grandson said, “and we’ll ask around.”

Soon I was on the back of Alfian’s motorbike, zooming over dirt and stone tracks to the hamlet of Darungan. Just as we were reaching the limits of the village, we flagged down a passing farmer on his motorbike. 

“Sir, we’re looking for tong tong music. Any idea where to find it?”

“Oh, tong tong. Yeah, that’s my group! Follow me.”

Cattle in Pak Umam’s stable.

The farmer led us down the track and into his front yard, a classic Madurese tableau of cattle stables and a pigeon house, with chickens and pigeons scratching about in the dirt. The farmer ducked inside and came back with a handful of cylinders in seemingly handmade fabric cases. Soon they were unsheathed, and we saw the familiar red and green tong tong - on the side was written: SUS KALISEMUT D.R.

“By the way, Pak,” I asked later, “what’s your name?”

“Sus.”

We’d met the right guy. 

(Actually, in hindsight, he may not have been the “right guy” after all - we later learned that Pak Sus was not a musician, nor was it his group, but somehow he’d gotten the rights to paint “SUS” on the side of the village’s tong tong.)

Pak Umam and his korbhian.

Soon enough, though, another farmer pulled up dragging a huge bundle of sugar cane scraps on the back of his motorbike. A shy-looking man, his defining feature was a glorious, Mario-like mustache. Pak Sus introduced us: “This is Pak Umam.” 

It didn’t take much asking, or explaining: Pak Sus and Pak Umam were ready and willing to play for us: “We just can’t play right now - everyone is still out harvesting cane.” We were patient, though - we’d come back after the evening maghrib prayer.

Later that night, we returned to the house we’d met them - it wasn’t Pak Sus’s house after all, but Pak Umam’s, and he’d gathered the whole team. We sat down politely in the guestroom across from Pak Umam and another incredibly helpful man, the village head, whose name I didn’t get. Just as we were beginning to make small talk, the sound of tong tong rang out from nearby - was it next door? “The musicians are ready,” Pak Umam explained, so we headed through the house and out onto another adjoining porch. 

A rough woven mat had been rolled out across the space, just as in the video, and a handful of men were sitting there in the rural Madurese uniform of black peci caps, collared shirts and patterned sarung. They were playing before we’d even sat down, balancing their tong tong against the floor and tilting them to expertly hit each note along the slit. 

Just as before, nobody seemed to be too concerned about what Mas Alfian and I were doing there, or what exactly we were looking for - they had simply jumped at the chance to play. For the next hour or so, Pak Umam led the group on korbian as they went through nearly the entire tong tong repertoire, taking breaks for tea and stories about the old days when harvest rituals went on for days, and the tong tong group would play for hours and hours. 

The night wore on, and after we’d gotten a decent selection of Tong Tong’s Greatest Hits, Mas Alfian and I took turns sitting in with the band (me on teketek, the easiest instrument - just eighth notes from start to finish!) Mas Alfian, who’s played drums in post-rock and emo bands but rarely tong tong, delighted at the music, filtering it through his understanding of Western drums - “That was 64 bars exactly!”, he’d say. “Did you hear those double strokes??”

The night had a funny ending: Pak Sus showed up out of nowhere towards the finale and sat to the side, finally following us out to the yard after we had packed up and said our goodbyes. Just as we got to Alfian’s motorbike, Pak Sus leaned over to us, and in an almost conspiratorial voice said, “Guys. Have you ever seen a banana flower growing right out of the ground?” No, we answered. “Come check this out.”

So we followed Pak Sus through the dark, bouncing down the dirt road of the village until we reached another compound with the requisite pigeon houses and stables. We dismounted, and Pak Sus whipped a flashlight towards a banana tree. At the base was a small growth, like a sapling, jutting right out of the ground. At its tip, hanging like a lantern, was the purple teardrop of a banana flower. “What did I tell you? Growing right out of the ground.”

Equal parts amused and confused, we thanked the enigmatic Pak Sus and said our goodbyes, driving off into the dark, down past Pak Sutimbang’s house and into town. Mas Alfian and I were in agreement as we drove into the city: That couldn’t have gone any better! And as a bonus...a banana flower, growing right out of the ground! 

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The Tong Tong Kerapan band of Dusun Darungan, Ds. Kalisemut, Kec. Padang, Kab. Lumajang, Jawa Timur is:

Korbhian - Pak Umam Songot

Lake’an - Pak Parten

Paneros - Pak Supri

Kodean - Pak Sakri

Teketek/Taktok - Pak Adan

Special thanks, terima kasih, nuwun, and sakalangkong to Mas Alfian for his incredible support and guidance, Cak Jaya for the inspiration and Madurese spell-check and translation, and Pak Umam and crew for their incredible music.