by Carol from India

Isn’t this word ‘’Angklung’’ beautiful? Do you know what is Angklung? Angklung is an instrument used in Indonesia to play music.

I went to Witten with my colleagues Carolin, Dirk, Frauke and Hannah to attend a music workshop conducted by Roynaldo Saragih at the Evangelische Popakademie.

Roynaldo Saragih is a church musician and director of various choirs on Sumatra, Indonesia and also, he is a very cool person. Since November he has been visiting the Westphalian and Rhenish churches for six weeks to give interesting insights into the music of Indonesia.

At first, I didn’t understand anything but then later on I tried to understand and started repeating reaping Frauke as she was sitting next to me and her voice was very audible and clear to me. So, I tried singing just like Frauke did and it was fun. Then Roy categorized us into different groups of notes (musical notes). Each note had a number so we picked Angklung according to our given number. We tried playing Angklung in groups according to the notes and it sounded so beautiful.

Music brings joy to my heart and it was the happiest day of my life, as I learned something new today. In spite of how awful I played Angklung, I loved trying and playing again. And the final conclusion was that I kind of learned how to play Angklung.

We also learned various kinds and forms of Indonesian music and how all this music is being used in churches. While learning about different instruments (Dangdut) of Indonesia, I felt a bit of India.

Dangdut is a popular traditional music genre of Indonesia which is partly derived of Indian, Arab, and Malay music. It consists of melodious and harmonic music with the main Tabla as the percussion beat especially in the classical dangdut version. Ah, you do not know what a Tabla is? The Tabla is a membranophone percussion instrument originating from India, consisting of a pair of drums, used in traditional, classical, popular and folk music.

So, this was my small musical trip to Witten. I hope you liked it