The Aesthetics and Ethics of Contemporary Female Songstress in Javanese Ensemble

Abstract

The research is financed by Lembaga DIPA LP2P3M Indonesia Institute of the Arts Surakarta 2018

Abstract

Javanese people had various arts and cultures, including karawitan (Javanese ensemble). Javanese ensemble was one of the traditional arts that was still popular and was maintained until now. Surakarta-style Javanese ensemble had elaborate garap instruments, also had garap vocal that was no less complicated than garap instruments. The so-called vocal was: sindhènan. In this study, sindhèn (songstress) was deliberately chosen as the object of study, because sindhèn still existed and had musical and social strength. This was evident in every performance, both in independent musical performances and as supporter of other performing arts, sindhèn always came with its aesthetics.  In the last decade, many young sindhèns had little concern for the sindhènan musical principles. In the end, it caused lack of good qualities of the sindhènan that they did. They justified the fact with, "sing penting payu (what matters was that my service could be sold)". Based on this fact, this study seeked to uncover problems related to sindhèn in klenengan performances, including: 1) Why was sindhèn become an important element in Javanese ensemble?, 2) How did the influence of sindhèn on klenèngan performances? Both problems were revealed using garap theory and aesthetic theory. The accumulation of various analyzes carried out in this study, essentially led to the goal of being able to produce a research finding that was centered on the essence of the problem. This was a qualitative research. Information was collected through literature studies, interviews, and direct observations of sindhèn’s performances in Surakarta-style Javanese ensemble shows. This study found that sindhèn needed aesthetics and ethics. Aesthetics included, céngkok, luk, wiled, and gregel. While in this term, ethics was meant as the manners of a sindhèn in Javanese ensemble performances. The way sindhèn acted, greatly influenced the klenenngan performances, because it could give its own satisfaction to those who liked performing arts.

Keywords: Javanese ensemble, sindhèn, aesthetic, ethics

DOI: 10.7176/RHSS/9-2-10