Pengakuan UNESCO, Angklung Indonesia Mendunia

JAKARTA,KOMPAS.com— Angklung Indonesia telah mendapat pengakuan resmi dari Organisasi Pendidikan, Ilmu Pengetahuan, dan Kebudayaan PBB.

(UNESCO) sebagai bagian dari warisan budaya tak benda atau intangible cultural heritage. Penyerahan resmi sertifikat dilaksanakan di Jakarta, Rabu (19/1/2011), dalam pertemuan Komisi Nasional Indonesia untuk UNESCO dengan mitra kerjanya.

Sertifikat diserahkan mantan Duta Besar RI untuk UNESCO Tresna Dermawan Kunaefi kepada Menteri Pendidikan Nasional Mohammad Nuh. Turut hadir menyaksikan, antara lain, CEO Saung Angklung Udjo, Taufik Hidayat Udjo.

Tresna mengatakan, pemerintah dan masyarakat Indonesia harus melestarikan angklung. “Yang utamanya, angklung itu sarat nilai untuk membangun karakter. Harus ada kerja sama memainkan angklung untuk menghasilkan harmoni yang indah,” ujar Tresna.

Taufik mengatakan, angklung digemari di luar negeri. Negara-negara seperti Korea, Jepang, dan Malaysia telah mengenalkan angklung kepada anak-anak usia sekolah.

Source: http://oase.kompas.com/read/2011/01/19/14085343/Angklung.Indonesia.Mendunia

Angklung, Traditional In Harmony

Angklung

Angklung is a musical instrument made out of two bamboo tubes attached to a bamboo frame. The tubes are carved so that they have a resonant pitch when struck. The two tubes are tuned to octaves. The base of the frame is held with one hand while the other hand shakes the instrument rapidly from side to side. This causes a rapidly repeating note to sound. Thus each of three or more angklung performers in an ensemble will play just one note and together complete melodies are produced. Angklung is popular throughout Southeast Asia, but originated from Indonesia and it has been used and played by the Sundanese since the ancient times.

Etymology

The word Angklung originated from two words angka and lung. Angka means "tone", and lung means "broken" or "lost". Angklung then means "incomplete tone".

History

In the Hindu period and the era of the Kingdom of Sunda, the angklung played an important role in ritual ceremonies such as ngaseuk pare, nginebkeun pare, ngampihkeun pare, seren taun, heleran, etc. These ceremonies were inherent to Sundanese communities; in courtly and everyday living. In its function as the ritual medium, the angklung was played to honor Dewi Sri, the goddess of fertility, in a hope that their life and land will be blessed. Angklung is also used to signal time for prayer. Later, in Kingdom of Sunda these instruments were used as martial music in the Bubat War (Perang Bubat) as told in the Kidung Sunda.

A couple of Indonesian boys playing Angklung in early 1918.

The angklung functioned to build community spirit. Because of this, the playing of the angklung was forbade during the Dutch occupation of Indonesia. Because of this, the popularity of the instrument decreased and it came to be played only by children.

The oldest angklung still exist is called Angklung Gubrag. The angklung was made in the 17th century in Jasinga, Bogor. Nowadays, some of those older angklung remain in Sri Bduga Museum, Bandung.

As time flown by, the angklung received a more international attention. In 1938, Daeng Soetigna, from Bandung, created angklung that is based on the diatonic scale instead of the traditional pélog or sléndro scales. Since then, angklung has been used for educational and entertainment purposes and are able to accompany western music instruments in an orchestra. One of the first well-known performances of angklung in an orchestra was during the Bandung Conference in 1955. Udjo Ngalagena, a student of Daeng Soetigna, opened his "Saung Angklung" (House of Angklung) in 1966 as a centre for its development.

UNESCO designated angklung as a Masterpiece of Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity on November 18, 2010. As part of the acknowledgment, UNESCO insisted that Indonesia preserve their heritage.

Balinese Gamelan Angklung

In Bali, an ensemble of angklung is called gamelan angklung (anklung). While the ensemble gets its name from the bamboo shakers, these days most compositions for Gamelan Angklung do not use them. An ensemble of mostly bronze metallophones is used instead, generally with about 20 musicians.

While the instrumentation of gamelan angklung is similar to gamelan gong kebyar, it has several critical differences. First, the instruments are tuned to a 5-tone slendro scale, though actually most ensembles use a four-tone mode of the five-tone scale played on instruments with four keys. An exception is the five-tone angklung from the north of Bali. But even in four-tone angklung groups, the flute players will occasionally touch on the fifth implied tone. Secondly, whereas many of the instruments in gong kebyar span multiple octaves of its pentatonic scale, mosts gamelan angklung instruments only contain one octave, although some five-tone ensembles have roughly an octave and a half. The instruments are considerably smaller than those of the gong kebyar.

Gamelan angklung is often heard in Balinese temples, where it supplies musical accompaniment to temple anniversaries (odalan). It is also characteristic of rituals related to death, and therefore connected in Balinese culture to the invisible spiritual realm and transitions from life to death and beyond. Because of its portability, gamelan angklung may be carried in processions while a funeral bier is carried from temporary burial in a cemetery to the cremation site. The musicians also often play music to accompany the cremation ceremony. Thus many Balinese listeners associate angklung music with strong emotions evoking a combination of sacred sweetness and sadness.

The structure of the music is similar to gong kebyar, although employing a four tone scale. Jublag and jegog carry the basic melody, which is elaborated by gangsa, reyong, ceng-ceng, drum, and flute. A medium sized gong, called kempur, is generally used to punctuate a piece's major sections.

Most older compositions do not employ gong kebyar's more ostentatious virtuosity and showmanship. Recently many Balinese composers have created kebyar-style works for gamelan angklung or have rearranged kebyar melodies to fit the angklung's more restricted four tone scale. These new pieces often feature dance, so the gamelan angklung is augmented with more gongs and heavier gongs. Additionally, some modern composers have created experimental instrumental pieces for the gamelan angklung.

Sasando, When Melody-Bass-Rhythm Collide in Harmony

Once upon a time, there was a boy named Sangguana who lived in Rote Island. One day, he tended to savannah. Felt tired and asleep, he slept under a palmyra tree. That’s when the dream came. Sangguana dreamt that he played beautiful music with a unique instrument. The sound, the melody, was so enchanting.

Then he woke up. Surprisingly, Sangguana still remembered the tones he played in the dream. But he wanted to hear it one more time. So he tried to sleep again. And yes, he dreamt the same song and same instrument. Sangguana was enjoying his dream. However, he had to wake up.

Didn’t want to lose those beautiful sounds, Sangguana in no time created a music instrument from palmyra with the strings in the middle, based on his memory from the dream. Et voilà! A very unique music instrument!

A few weeks ago, I myself saw that instrument, and listened the sound Sangguana had heard in his dream. A talented local boy played the instrument in Indonesia Mencari Bakat, one of TransTV shows. It sounds like a harp, but it’s not.

We simply named it sasando.

In Rote language, “sasandu” means vibrating or sounded instrument. Yes, sasando comes from Rote Island, East Lesser Sunda province. It has 28 or 56 strings. The sasando with 28 strings called sasando engkel, and with 56 strings called double strings.

The shape of sasando alone is distinctive. The principal part is a long cylinder made of bamboo. The central is circle from the top to the bottom and there are some wedges where the strings are stretched, from the top to the bottom. These wedges give different tones to each picked string. Then, this sasando tube is placed in a place made of a kind of plaited palmyra leaves. This is where the resonance of sasando comes from.

Sasando is played with two hands from different direction, from left to right and from right to left. The left hand plays melody and bass, while the right hand plays accord. So this is instrument where the melody, bass and rhythm collide in harmony. So it’s not easy to play, of course.

Perhaps due to that difficulty, the number of sasando player has decreasing. Many of the old generation have died when the young is not interesting to even recognize this. Maybe that is why the government through the Minister of Culture and Tourism, Jero Wacik, at December 28th, 2007 gave an award to Jeremias Ougust Pah for having conserved and developed the traditional art using sasando.

It makes me think, hey, is there any band (even Indonesian band) that uses sasando as one of the instrument? Why not? Trust me, it will be exceptionally awesome.

NOTE: Actually, there are some version of sasando’s creating history. Beside Sangguana version, there are Lumbilang-Balialang version, and few others. Unless you are writing a thesis about it, you better leave those versions alone.


Source: www.warungfiksi.ne, www.sasando-rote.com

Microbes Help Children Breathe Easily? Bacteria and Fungi May Offer Protection Against Asthma, Study Suggests

Children who grow up on farms are less likely to suffer from asthma than other rural children. (Credit: iStockphoto/Linda Kloosterhof)

ScienceDaily (Feb. 24, 2011) — Children who grow up on farms are less likely to suffer from asthma than other rural children. An international team of researchers including Dr. Markus Ege and Professor Erika von Mutius at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet (LMU) has published a large-scale study that now indicates that this may be due to differences in the spectrum of microbes the two groups are likely to encounter. This findings suggest that certain microorganisms may protect against the disease.

---

The incidence of asthma among children in Europe continues to rise. But not all children are equally at risk. Several studies published over the past few years have shown that children living on farms are significantly less likely to develop asthma than others. An international team of researchers including Dr. Markus Ege and Professor Erika von Mutius of Children's Surgical Clinic in the Dr. von Hauner Children's Hospital (Medical Center of the University of Munich) has just published an epidemiological study that confirms this finding. It shows that the lower susceptibility of farm children to asthma can largely be accounted for by the fact that they are exposed to a greater variety of microorganisms than other children living in the same regions.

The physiological mechanisms underlying the effect remain to be elucidated, but the investigators have identified several species that might be responsible for the reduction in asthma risk. The results have broad implications for the prevention of asthma in other sectors of the population. "We have a long way to go before we can present new preventive measures, but at least we now have candidates for the development of a vaccine," says Ege. (New England Journal of Medicine online, 24 February 2011) Asthma is among the most prevalent chronic illnesses among children in Europe, and in many cases the condition will remain with them all their lives.

This is why asthma presents such a challenge for health-care systems. The disease results from a combination of genetic and environmental factors, and various studies have shown that farm children have a significantly lower risk of developing the condition than other children. In order to identify the reasons for this difference, LMU researchers selected a group of Bavarian schoolchildren for detailed study. In the context of two large-scale, pan-European, epidemiological projects, named GABRIEL and PARSIFAL, Ege and his colleagues compared children living on farms with others from the same rural districts who had little direct contact with farms.

In the new work, the investigators focused on the microbes present in domestic interiors. They collected household dust from children's bedrooms, and analyzed the bacterial and fungal DNAs in the samples. The results showed that farm children must cope with a much greater range of microorganisms than are children who live in other types of environment. The bacteria and fungi seem to act as guardians of health, for it turned out that the more diverse the microbial population, the lower the risk of asthma.

Exactly how the cells and spores perform this trick is still unclear, but the researchers suggest a couple of possible explanations. "One possibility is that a particular combination of microbial species stimulates the innate immune system and so prevents it from entering a state that promotes the development of asthma," says Ege. Another model proposes that continuous exposure to many different microorganisms makes it more difficult for the species that potentially induce asthma to become the dominant forms in the lower respiratory tract -- similarly to the gastrointestinal tract, where a balanced population of microbes is necessary for optimal organ function.

Microbial diversity alone, however, is not enough to prevent asthma. More probably, it takes a particular consortium of species to exert a protective effect. "Within the large spectrum of organisms that we examined, there are some that may be of special interest," reports Ege. "Among these are certain species of bacilli and staphylococci -- Staphylococcus sciuri, for instance -- as well as fungi of the genus Eurotium."

The next challenge facing the team is to elucidate, at the level of single species, the nature of the link between the microorganisms in household dust and the protective effect, with the long-term goal of identifying candidates that might serve as the basis of a live vaccine against asthma. In addition to the LMU researchers, investigators from the Technical University of Munich, the Universities of Besançon (France), Marseille (France), Ulm, Basel (Switzerland), Utrecht (The Netherlands) and Imperial College London (UK) participated in the study. The work was supported by the European Commission (GABRIEL and PARSIFAL) and by the DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) as part of its Priority Program Transregio 22.

Brown Recluse Spider: Range Could Expand in N. America With Changing Climate

Brown recluse spider. (Credit: iStockphoto/William Howe)

ScienceDaily (Apr. 23, 2011) — One of the most feared spiders in North America is the subject a new study that aims to predict its distribution and how that distribution may be affected by climate changes.

---

When provoked, the spider, commonly known as the brown recluse (Loxosceles reclusa), injects powerful venom that can kill the tissues at the site of the bite. This can lead to a painful deep sore and occasional scarring.

But the wounds are not always easy to diagnose. Medical practitioners can confuse the bite with other serious conditions, including Lyme disease and various cancers. The distribution of the spider is poorly understood as well, and medical professionals routinely diagnose brown recluse bites outside of the areas where it is known to exist.

By better characterizing its distribution, and by examining potential new areas of distribution with future climate change scenarios, the medical community and the public can be more informed about this species, said study author Erin Saupe. Saupe is a graduate student in Geology and a Biodiversity Institute student.

To address the issue of brown recluse distribution, Saupe and other researchers used a predictive mapping technique called ecological niche modeling. They applied future climate change scenarios to the spider's known distribution in the Midwest and southern United States. The researchers concluded that the range may expand northward, potentially invading previously unaffected regions. Newly influenced areas may include parts of Nebraska, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, South Dakota, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.

"These results illustrate a potential negative consequence of climate change on humans and will aid medical professionals in proper bite identification and treatment, potentially reducing bite misdiagnoses," Saupe said.

The paper is published in the March 25 edition of the journal PLoS ONE. The research team included Saupe; Monica Papes, a Biodiversity Institute and Ecology and Evolutionary Biology alumna; Paul Selden, Director of the Paleontological Institute and Gulf-Hedberg Distinguished Professor of Invertebrate Paleontology, Department of Geology; and Richard S. Vetter, University of California-Riverside.

What You Eat Depends On With Whom You Eat

If you are a woman who dines with a man, chances are you choose food with fewer calories than if you dine with a woman. (Credit: iStockphoto)

ScienceDaily (Aug. 10, 2009) — If you are a woman who dines with a man, chances are you choose food with fewer calories than if you dine with a woman. That is one of the findings in a study conducted by researchers at McMaster University.

The results appear in the online version of the international journal Appetite.

Meredith Young, PhD candidate in the Department of Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour, found that what a person chooses to eat at lunch or dinner is influenced by who they eat with and the gender make-up of the group.

By observing students in naturalistic settings in three large university cafeterias with a wide choice of food options and dining companions, Young found that women who ate with a male companion chose foods of significantly lower caloric value than did women who were observed eating with another woman.

What's more, when women ate in mixed-gender groups their food choices were at the lower end of the caloric scale; the more men in the group the fewer the calories. When women ate in all-female groups, their food was significantly higher in calories.

"Eating is a social activity," says Young. "In university cafeterias people select their food before they are seated and perhaps before they know with whom they will eat. Given the observed differences it seems likely that social groupings were anticipated at the time of food selection."

Young is not surprised by the findings. The diet industry targets female consumers and product advertisements typically depict very slim models rather than average-sized or overweight female models, she says, so food choices appear to be weighed against how other perceive them. In other words, smaller, healthier portions are seen as more feminine, and women might believe that if they eat less they will be considered more attractive to men.

"It is possible that small food portions signal attractiveness, and women conform, whether consciously or unconsciously, to small meals in order to be seen as more attractive," says Young.

As for men's food selections, the study showed that men were neither substantially affected by the number of nor the gender of their dining companions.

Protein-Patterned Fibers: Researchers Combine Active Proteins With Material Derived from Fruit Fly

Strands of Ubx fiber patterned with fluorescent protein are the result of research by scientists at Rice University and Texas A&M. The strands can contain active proteins that may find use as chemical catalysts and biosensors and in tissue engineering. (Credit: Zhao Huang/Rice University)

ScienceDaily (Apr. 20, 2011) — Researchers at Rice University and Texas A&M have discovered a way to pattern active proteins into bio-friendly fibers. The "eureka" moment came about because somebody forgot to clean up the lab one night.

The new work from the Rice lab of biochemist Kathleen Matthews, in collaboration with former Rice faculty fellow and current Texas A&M assistant professor Sarah Bondos, simplifies the process of making materials with fully functional proteins. Such materials could find extensive use as chemical catalysts and biosensors and in tissue engineering, for starters.

Their paper in the online edition of Advanced Functional Materials details a method to combine proteins with a transcription factor derived from fruit flies and then draw it into fine, strong strands that can be woven into any configuration.

Bondos and Matthews led the team that included primary author Zhao Huang and research technician Taha Salim, both of Rice, and research assistants Autumn Brawley and Jan Patterson, both of Texas A&M.

The research had its genesis while Bondos was in Matthews' Rice lab studying Ultrabithorax (Ubx), a recombinant transcription factor protein found in Drosophila melanogaster (the common fruit fly). This protein regulates the development of wings and legs.

"It's biodegradable, nontoxic and made of naturally occurring proteins -- though we have no reason to believe that fruit flies ever produce enough of these proteins to actually make fibers," Bondos said.

It was a surprise, then, to find that Ubx self-assembles into a film under relatively mild conditions.

"I was cleaning up in the lab one morning and I noticed what appeared to be a drop of water suspended in midair beneath a piece of equipment I was using the previous night," Bondos recalled.

It turned out the droplet was water encased in a sac of Ubx film. The sac was hanging by a Ubx fiber so thin that it was more difficult to see than a strand of a spider's web, Bondos said.

"It clued us in that this was making materials," said Matthews, Rice's Stewart Memorial Professor of Biochemistry and Cell Biology and former dean of the Wiess School of Natural Sciences.

The chance discovery prompted a 2009 paper in the journal Biomacromolecules about the material they dubbed "ultrax," a superstrong and highly elastic natural fiber.

"We found that if you put a little drop of this protein solution on a slide, the Ubx forms a film. And if you touch a needle to that film, you can draw a fiber," Matthews said. "Then we asked, What if we could incorporate other functions into these materials? Can we make chimeras?" The answer was yes, though it took ingenuity to prove.

Chimeras in the biological world contain genetically distinct cells from two or more sources. In Greek mythology, chimeras are beings with parts from multiple animals; a pig with wings, for instance, would qualify. But real chimeras are usually more subtle. On the molecular level, chimeras are proteins that are fused into a single polypeptide and can be purified as a single molecular entity.

As a proof of principle, the team used gene-fusion techniques to create chimeras by combining Ubx with fluorescent and luminescent proteins to see if they remained functional. They did. The combined materials still formed a film on water. Drawn into fibers and put under a microscope, Ubx combined with enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP) kept its bright green color. Ubx-mCherry was bright red, the brown protein myoglobin (from sperm whales) was brown, and luciferase glowed.

Huang was able to make patterns with strands generated by the chimeras by twisting red and green fluorescent proteins into candy cane-like tubes, or lacing them on a frame. "This patterning technique is pretty unique and very simple," said Huang, who recently defended his thesis on the subject. He said making solid materials with functional proteins often requires harsh chemical or physical processing that damages the proteins' effectiveness. But creating complex three-dimensional structures with Ubx is efficient and requires no specialized equipment.

Bondos is studying how many proteins are amenable to fusion with Ubx. "It looks like it's a fairly wide range, and even though Ubx is positively charged, both positively and negatively charged proteins can be incorporated." She said even proteins that don't directly fuse with Ubx may be able to connect through intermediary binding partners.

Bondos said the 2009 paper "showed we could make three-dimensional scaffolds. We can basically make rods and sheets and meld them together; anything you can build with Legos, we can build with Ubx."

Ubx-based materials can match the natural properties of elastin, the protein that makes skin and other tissues pliable, Bondos said. "You don't want to make a heart out of something hard, and you don't want to make a bone out of something soft," she said. "We can tune the mechanical properties by changing the diameter of the fibers."

She said functionalized Ubx offers a path to growing three-dimensional organs layer by layer. "We should be able to build something shaped like a heart, and because we can pattern the chimeras within fibers and films, we can build instructions into the material that cause cells to differentiate as muscle, nerves, vasculature and other things."

Bondos suggested the material might also be useful for replacing damaged nerves. "We should be able to stimulate cell attachment and nerve growth along the middle and factors on the ends to enhance attachment to existing nerve cells, to tie it into the patient. It really is pretty exciting."

Matthews said the ability to characterize and pattern fibers for different functions should find many uses, because enzymes, antibodies, growth factors and peptide recognition sequences can now be incorporated into biomaterials. She said sequential arrays of functional fibers for step-by-step catalysis of materials is also possible.

"You're only limited by your mechanical imagination," she said.

The Robert A. Welch Foundation and Texas A&M Health Science Center Research Development and Enhancement Awards Program supported the research.