11-1-11 gig

Hey fellas :)

I just had another gig this afternoon, we played acoustic style. This is actually an event called "3 days around the world," so basically people build booths representing their own country, decorate it, and show it off. We played a number of patriotic songs in front of our booth, which was fun, aaaand not to mention the free food!  :P

Well this is one of those moments in which I think that Indonesian national/patriotic songs are not bad after all. No. They're not just 'not bad', they're awesome! They are mostly short, but the chord progression is epic and unusual. You won't find any Em-C-G-D -andrepeat'tilltheend- * I can't believe people actually buy those kind of songs and think that those are fantastic. More like craptastic to me*. Too bad the Indonesian mainstream songs are 'cheap' these days. Like seriously 'cheap'. ugh. 

Not only the patriotic songs, but the traditional songs are awesome as well! Especially when played in different kind of arrangement. I realized also that even though Indonesia is small, we have LOTS of traditional musical instruments. There were 2 kinds in our booth. 

Gamelan

Angklung

last time there was 1 Indonesian band called Garasi, they blend one of their song with Gamelan. It's mind blowing. Watch it here.

After our performance, another friends of mine performed, and they sang some old school Indonesian songs. It was neat and very soothing. And then people started to get bored, and they played some DANGDUT songs. OH MY GOSH. I don't really fancy dangdut, but when they played them, everybody got 'high' and started to dance. That was really fun. This event really makes me realize that Indonesia is not lame no matter how corrupted it is. I'm proud to be Indonesian. The music and cultures are epic *yet idk why some Indonesians are anti Indonesia and all there's to it*. Well, except for some of the mainstream music that's growing like mushrooms these days. They don't suck. They're just cheap. No taste. Lame lyrics. The mainstream music back then were waaaaaaaayyyyy better.

Btw, I didn't know that those plate of steel in Gamelan are actually very heavy, curved, and they have different thickness, and the notes are different than the ordinary C D E F G A B.. Instead, it was A C D E G A C.

Lessons from this gig:

For musicians out there, it is important to know many kinds of music to broaden your horizon. One of them is your country's traditional/national/patriotic music. It's even better if you know how to play the traditional instruments. Whether you like it or not, I believe that it's a part of yourself as musician. It's  the music from where you come from, for goodness sake. When you hear it, you say 'it's frickin lame', 'not cool,' or  you may think 'wtf?!'. *I'm frickin ticked off when there's people around me who thinks so*. If you don't even know how to appreciate the kind music from where you come from, you still call yourself a musicaholic/musicfreak/musiclover/musician? Gimmeabreak. When you're still thinking like so, clearly you can't see the big picture. You're gonna stuck with the mainstream and go with their flow no matter how suck it gets. 

Have you ever even think about what you can do with those traditional stuff?