B. Barendregt the Sound of Longing for Homeredefining a Sense of Community Through Minang Popular Music
B. Barendregt The sound of longing for homeRedefining a sense of community through Minang popular music In: Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 158 (2002), no: 3, Leiden, 411-450 This PDF-file was downloaded from http://www.kitlv-journals.nl Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 02:24:12PM via free access BART BARENDREGT The Sound of 'Longing for Home' Redefining a Sense of Community through Minang Popular Music Why, yes why, sir, am I singing? Oh, because I am longing, Longing for those who went abroad, Oh rabab, yes rabab, please spread the message To the people far away, so they'll come home quickly (From the popular Minangkabau traditional song 'Rabab'.) 1. Introduction: Changing mediascapes and emerging regional metaphors Traditionally each village federation in Minangkabau had its own repertoire of musical genres, tunes, and melodies, in which local historiography and songs of origin blended and the meta-landscape of alam Minangkabau (the Minangkabau universe) was depicted.1 Today, with the ever-increasing disper- sion of Minangkabau migrants all over Southeast Asia, the conception of the Minangkabau world is no longer restricted to the province of West Sumatra. 1 Earlier versions of this article were presented at the 34th Conference of the International Council of Traditional Music, Nitra, Slovakia, August 1996, and the VA/AVMI (Leiden Uni- versity) symposium on Media Cultures in Indonesia, 2-7 April 2001. Its present form owes much to critical comments received from audiences there. I would like to sincerely thank also my colleagues Suryadi, for his suggestions regarding the translations from the Minangkabau, and Robert Wessing, for his critical scrutiny of my English.
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