UC Riverside UC Riverside Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title If There are Stars in the Sky: Waldjinah and Keroncong in Postcolonial Indonesia Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8qt417k6 Author Skelchy, Russ Publication Date 2015 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE If There are Stars in the Sky: Waldjinah and Keroncong in Postcolonial Indonesia A Dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Music by Russell Peter Skelchy June 2015 Dissertation Committee: Dr. Rene T. A. Lysloff, Chairperson Dr. Deborah A. Wong Dr. Hendrik M. J. Maier Dr. Christina Schwenkel Copyright by Russell Peter Skelchy 2015 The Dissertation of Russell Peter Skelchy is approved: ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ ____________________________________________ Committee Chairperson University of California, Riverside Acknowledgements My research on keroncong began in 2007 during my first year of graduate studies at the University of California, Riverside. Along the way there have been many important people who have helped me throughout the process and I am truly grateful for all of them. I start with my family, especially my wife, Lisa Boggeri, who has given me her unconditional support, love and timely advice during the tenure of this project. She not only accompanied me on every trip to Indonesia but also has patiently endured through a nomadic lifestyle and my rather erratic sleep schedule the last few years. Thank you also to my parents, Colin and Monica Skelchy, as well as Linda and Michael Boggeri for their continuous love and support. Thank you to the members of my committee: Christina Schwenkel, Deborah Wong and Hendrik M.J. Maier. Each of them, in their own way, has shaped and influenced the type of scholar, educator and person I am and will become. I especially thank my adviser, Rene T.A. Lysloff for his imput, guidance and support for the duration of this project. I was able to conduct research for this dissertation with financial support from the Fulbright IIE Fellowship (2011-2012) and the University of California Pacific Rim Research Program Advanced Graduate Student Research Fellowship (2011-2012). These two grants allowed me to spend an extended period of time in Indonesia, which given iv the nature of this project, proved to be invaluable. I also thank Nellie Paliama and the staff at the American Indonesian Exchange Foundation (AMINEF) in Jakarta and Lisa Nishioka at the UC Pacific Rim Research Program for their help administering these grants. Additionally, I received generous funding from: a UC-Riverside Humanities Graduate Student Research Grant, a UC Pacific Rim Research Program mini-grant, the Gluck Fellowship for the Arts, and a Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) grant. Thank you to Jonathan Ritter, Walter Clark, Tim Labor, Leonora Saavedra and Rogerio Budacz of the UC Riverside Music Department, Monica Wicker of the UCR Office of Research Integrity, Karen Smith and Kara Oswood of UCR Graduate Division, Benicia Mangram (UCR Performing Arts Administration), faculty in the Southeast Asian Text, Ritual and Performance (SEATRiP) program (especially Mariam Lam, Sally Ann Ness, David Biggs and Muhamad Ali), my Indonesian and Javanese language teachers at Wisma Bahasa in Yogyakarta (Niken Wijayani, Anna Widiastuti, Mbak Mika, Pak Yosef, Mbak Deta and others) for all their efforts. Thanks to my cohort at UC Riverside for their friendship and many hours of intellectually challenging discussion: Shawn Mollenhauer, Jake Rekedal, Ron Conner, Mindy O’Brien, Miles Shrewsbery, Supeena Insee Adler, Victoria Dalzell, Alexandra Anaya, Joshua Brown, Lori Gregory, Teresa Maribel Sanchez, Aaron W. Singer, Popi Primadewi, Neal Matherne, Paula Probst, Taylor Greene, Hannah Balcomb, Erica Jones, Kate Alexander, Mike Atienza, Husni Abu Bakar, and Panida Boonthavevej. v In Indonesia, I thank the community of keroncong musicians who welcomed me into their worlds and enabled me to learn from their expertise. At the top of this list is Ibu Hajjah Waldjinah, who over the course of a year and a half, graciously allowed me into her home and into her life on a weekly basis. I am in deep gratitude for the generous amount of time she spent with me, especially during periods she suffered from ill health. I hope I have done justice to the stories she shared with me. There are many other keroncong musicians (and others) I wish to thank, unfortunately the list is too long to add all of their names here. In Solo (Surakarta): Pak Sapto Haryono, OK Putra Seniman, Pak Ary Mulyono and Pak Sanang of OK Bintang Surakarta, Pak “Keroncong” Wartono, Mas Imam D. Kamus and Mbak Dwiana Pandanwangi, Pak Danis Sugiyanto, Mbak Sruti Respati. In Yogyakarta: Pak Jimbo, Pak Nugroho, Mbak Nunuk Nirawati, Mas Basuki and OK Kadin, Ibu and Pak Priyadi, Ibu Sri Hartati, Pak Andi and Pak Abdul Kadir Petrus of OK Surya Mataram, Pak Subardjo HS, Pak Martinus and OK Rinonce, Pak Aryon Suharyono, Pak Singgih Sanjaya, Pak Hardjono, Mas Sem and Keroncong Roti Bakar, Mbak Dwi Wahyuni, Mas Canggih Finalti (Ichank), Mbak Sekar Natawijaya. In Bandung: Pak Adi Wiratmo and OK Jempol Jenthik, Pak Partho Djojodihardjo. In Jakarta: the late Pak Hendarmin Susilo and his son Djakawinata Susilo of Gema Nada Pertiwi (GNP), Pak Andre Michiels and Krontjong Toegoe, Mbak Ubiet Raseuki, Pak Didit Hadiyanto. In Malaysia: the late Pak Wawang Wijaya, Pak Dwiono Hermantoro, Encik Abdul Malik, Encik Nizar Kamal Ariffin, Encik Makmor Jantan and OK Arif Lukisan, Encik Zubin Mohamad, Pak Edhi Kunthoro. Last on this list but vi certainly no less deserving of my gratitude is my assistant for this project and friend, Sowanya Hara, who helped me not only with transcriptions for many hours of interviews but also invaluable insights into the nuances of Waldjinah’s stories. Thank you my friend, I am truly grateful for your contributions to this project. In the Fall 2008 I founded Orkes Pantai Barat (the West Coast Orchestra, or “OPB” as we call it), an ensemble comprised almost entirely of students and faculty at UC Riverside. Since that time, I have had the pleasure of playing (and learning about) keroncong with talented musicians who were also incredibly fun to be around. Over the years, the list of OPB members has grown substantially and I wish to thank each of them: Mike Atienza, Angela Montijo, Genie Yoo (vocalists), Husni Abu Bakar, Aaron Singer, Erica Jones, Hovig Sarkissian, Rafaella McDonald (guitarists), Jennifer Courtier, Vito Mahaputra, Neal Matherne, Stephen Fong (electric bassists), Julian Lozos (violin), Kate Alexander (violin/cak), Deborah Wong (flute), Craig Chin, Popi Primadewi (cuk), Rene Lysloff (keyboard/synthesizer) and Matt Geer (cello). Finally, I am grateful for friends and family who have been especially supportive during this period: Tetsunori Ishida, Melanie Nottingham, Felipe Neira, Anita and John Pater, Barbara Hendroff, Elsie and Francis Hendroff as well as my Skelchy and Hendroff relatives in Malaysia, Australia and elsewhere. vii ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION If There are Stars in the Sky: Waldjinah and Keroncong in Postcolonial Indonesia by Russell Peter Skelchy Doctor of Philosophy, Graduate Program in Music University of California, Riverside, June 2015 Dr. Rene T. A. Lysloff, Chairperson The basis of this dissertation is a life history of Waldjinah, keroncong’s most renowned vocalist, whose career spans the era of Indonesian independence and modernization beginning in the mid-twentieth century. As a musician, the arc of her career places her at the forefront of larger developments in the keroncong genre— whose historical trajectory and popularization in the twentieth century paralleled Indonesia's emergence as a modern (and modernizing) independent nation. The dissertation interweaves four main threads: 1) a life history of Waldjinah, 2) a narrative of keroncong, 3) a narrative of postcolonial Indonesia as a modernizing nation, and 4) my own subjectivity as a researcher and keroncong musician. In a broad sense, this viii study examines how Waldjinah attained her stature as a national artist, the challenges she faced in doing so, and the mechanisms that enabled her to succeed. Drawing from research in ethnomusicology, anthropology, postcolonial studies and critical theory, I explore how processes of modernization in non-Western countries continue to complicate and disrupt previously held theoretical interpretations of modernity. By approaching “the modern” through cultural production rather than political economy, I examine how Waldjinah, as a keroncong musician, helped to bind and shape the modern nation by giving tangible form to the abstract idea of national culture. ix Table of Contents 1 Prelude: Introducing Waldjinah.………………………………………………………….……..1 2 Voices of Development…………………………………………………………………….…….….38 3 Spirituality, Islam and the Aging Voice…………………………………………………….….73 4 Growing Up in Solo……………………………………………………………………………….…….127 5 Interlude: Songs, Technique and Idiom……………………………………….………………158 6 A Teenage Bride and Mother……………………………………………………………………...212 7 Bintang Radio: On the National Stage………………………………………….………..……256 8 Going International……………………………………………………………………………………..324 9 Solo Girl: Gender and Image in Print Media………………………………………….……..366 10 Mati Suri and Reinvention……………………………………………………………….………...432