'Music as a cultural memoir that discusses all cultural realities'

   

Burdened by his father’s success as a renowned Jazz musician, Barry Likumahuwa had big shoes to fill. Jazz music has always been targeted towards older audiences; together with his band called the Barry Likumahuwa Project (BLP), Barry gave jazz music a new breath of hope that led to the downfall of pop and rock music in Indonesia. They altered their master identities from the ‘serious’ jazz musicians to the more loosened up ‘rockstar’ style. Although the intention was to express their ideas of an urban jazz musician, BLP captured younger audiences as well through this identity. The songs they composed were very enjoyable; it gave a fresh perspective of jazz music and influenced a new breed of musicians. His influence on the public turned jazz into the preferred musical taste in Indonesia and jazz musicians are more highly received then ever before. 

  Ever since he was a kid, Barry’s personal interest has been music. His father played the clarinet, saxophone and eventually the trombone for his band but Barry had other plans, he was very interested with the bass due to his curiousity and urge to explore it.  

“Aku pilih bass karena aku tertarik mengeksplornya. Orang kan, tahunya bass cenderung sebagai instrumen belakang, hanya untuk rhtym dan menjaga beat . Padahal, enggak juga. Bass itu bisa dimainkan dengan banyak cara, bisa tiba-tiba di depan, sebagai lead , atau solo juga.”

(I chose the bass because I was very curious to explore it. People know that the bass is mainly used only to keep the rhythm and the beat. No, not necessarily. The bass can be played in many different ways, as the lead or as a standalone)

This can be heard in “Generasi Synergy” where he plays the bass alongside his band as the lead instrument and included a bass solo with slaps complementing the beat of the drums. Although the song was sang with a groovy tone, the use of language implemented in the lyrics was quite patriotic and moving. Note that the term 'Synergy' in this case means Synchronized Energy.
   When asked about Generasi Synergy, Barry stated that the song was written to unite the next generation through collaboration as they express their skills and talents to represent their Indo culture.

Chorus: 
Yakinkan dirimu engkau bisa taklukkan dunia
Bersama kita coba move our feet
Never resist or quit, take some speed
Kolaborasi dan karya synergy hasrat jiwa
We are the change that Indonesia needs
Yes indeed, generasi synergy

*translation. powered by Google translate
Convince yourself you can conquer the world 
Together we can try to move our feet 
Never resist or quit, take some speed 
Collaboration and creation synergy of the soul's desire 
We are the change that Indonesia needs 
Yes indeed, the generation of synergy

   
   Even though his father was already an established musician, Barry’s journey as a musician did not start very well as he found that carrying his father’s name dragged him down. At this point, the atmosphere around the interview grew tense as Barry expresses his true feelings about his father and his early career. 

   

   Barry admitted that he once changed his last name to Likoe but it didn’t last for long. Coincidentally him and his dad were assigned to perform at a musical production but Barry had just found out that his father was performing too on the day of the event. Observing the list of performers, Barry’s father was heavily depressed whilst seeing his son’s name without his real family name. Barry referred to this as a turning point in his music career as it pushed him to become known for his work, not only his name.

“Papa adalah guru musik terbaikku.Tapi, ketika aku memutuskan serius di musik, aku ingin orang mau main denganku karena memang aku bagus. Bukan karena Papa. Capek juga selalu diperkenalkan,‘Ini Barry, anak Benny.’ Bukannya, “Barry, pemain bass.’ Ini sempat jadi momok buatku,”

(My dad is my best teacher but when I decided to take music seriously, I want people to play alongside me because I’m good. Not because of my dad. I’m tired to be introduced as ‘This is Barry son of Benny.’ Whereas, ‘Barry, the bass player.’ This was my suffering.”)

TEDx Talk (annotations available)

Generasi Synergy (starts at 1:30)

BLP jam session

Language of Intimacy

   Greetings readers and classmates, welcome to my second language and literature blog post discussing the importance of a person’s home language.

   During the class discussion, we discussed several topics on Amy Tan’s essay ‘Mother Tongue’ and the topic language of intimacy was discussed for a great amount of time. I decided to discuss this topic even further with this opinionated post and describe my views that I was not able to share during the discussion.

    As Amy writes her novel called ‘The Joy Luck Club’ she realizes the importance of her mother’s ‘broken’ English (language of intimacy) in her life. As you may have known, a home language is the type of language that you would use or speak with someone that you have a close relationship with, most of the time it’s family members. If I were to give a definition it’d be 

A language that is spoken amongst closely related group of people under the influence of one’s culture and personal experiences. 

Based on people’s experiences, a home language is usually a merge of 2 or 3 languages and it wouldn’t mean anything when spoken to other people outside the ‘home’ because in order to understand it, you need the previous experience that would make what you are  saying make sense. It is confusing but if you have a language of intimacy you’d understand. I have a language of intimacy, it is a merge of Indonesian, English and Malay, only spoken between my younger brother and myself.

    What happens if this language of intimacy is used in the outside the house? This is the case with Amy Tan’s mother and her ‘broken’ English. I’d put the blame on culture because as an immigrant, Amy’s mother was raised in a different culture and speaks a different language obviously. It certainly affects people’s perception of her and thus leads to her not being treated fairly. I’ve heard that Chinese people and their culture usually stick with them even though they are immigrants because it is very strong and widely known today as with Filipinos, they are able to adapt to other cultures easily due to the fact that their culture is not as strong when being compared to the Chinese people? (source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xjhdSrgCPI)

   Anyways, what I am trying to say is that culture and language is very heavily linked. They have a negative relationship, the stronger the culture therefore the weaker the adaptability level.

Culture (An Introduction)

    Hi, my name is Andrew and I will be turning 16 in 2 months. I moved to Abu Dhabi when I was 8. It wasn’t easy but so does learning how to speak English at that age. To this day, my English speaking skills is still not as fluent as most of my friends at school but I’ve never felt excluded from a certain culture due to the bizarre number of people from different countries and different cultures that experienced the same transition in their lives. Language plays an important role here because it is the only way of communicating ideas between people from different cultures. When being exposed to different cultures, people change due to their ability to adapt with their surroundings and the use of language, the only way to communicate with one another.

   In this multi-cultural country that we live in, a conversation would usually include “back in my country, we call that _______.” or “where I used to live, we do it differently.” these quotes refer to a person’s culture where they used to live or where they are from. I believe that a culture is a society that follows certain acts, customs, ideas and rules to maintain their way of living. Each culture has a distinctive way of doing things, other cultures might find it somewhat unusual but others might have the same ideas and an altered interpretation. For example, I have an interest for music, I can play the guitar, drums, bass and the cajon. In this world we live in, not everyone listens to the same type of music. People’s music taste sometimes relate to their cultural difference. In my opinion, music is just a language that expresses ideas in a culture or community in a slightly different way and again each culture have their own ways of expressing ideas and customs whether it is through music or sacred rituals.

   At the end of the day, my idea of a culture is very similar to Renato Rosaldo’s, it is something we learn or born into.

“Culture encompasses the everyday and the esoteric… culture is all-pervasive.” -Renato Rosaldo