Dangdut

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Dangdut is one of the most popular styles of Indonesian music , spreading throughout Indonesia in the early 1970s and, to a lesser extent, Malaysia and parts of the Philippines .

Emergence

The word dangdut refers onomatopoetically to the characteristic rocking even-numbered beat accented with the drums. Dangdut is a mix of styles that has its roots in the colonial era. The Portuguese brought the first European forms of music with them in the 16th century. At that time, the Kroncong , a melancholy chamber music style for the Indonesians and Tanjidor , a brass orchestra played outdoors, which initially served to entertain the Europeans, was born. Kroncong is now played with modernized keyboards and electric guitars. At the same time, Arabic gambus music came to Southeast Asia. In the 19th century, Chinese immigrants brought their tradition with them; from the Dutch colonial rulers came the marsh melodies and brass instruments, which together with all other styles made the tanjidor on the north coast of Java . Over the course of the 20th century, these competed with several indigenous musical styles in Java, such as the Jaipongan dance accompaniment, until the emergence of the dangdut and international pop music pushed other musical styles into the background.

The lyrics are about love, suffering and describe everyday life. The instrumentation corresponds roughly to that of western pop music. There are modern variants of the dangdut, in which style elements from house , R&B , rock and Latino are adopted.

rhythm

Musically, the dangdut is characterized by a special rhythm in which the first beat of a 4/4 time is lightly and the fourth beat strongly emphasized. This rhythm was adopted from the Indian music films of the early 20th century. A dangdut ensemble usually includes electronic instruments such as an electric guitar, keyboard etc. as well as the Indian tabla drum and the Indonesian bamboo flute suling . This ensemble, usually consisting of four to eight instrumentalists, accompanies a singer.

Categories

Today one can roughly divide the dangdut into two categories. On the one hand, there is the Dangdut in the style of its inventor Rhoma Irama , who is also known as the King of Dangdut. In contrast to Dangdut Kampungan - the Dangdut of the village - this style is often described as clean and decent. This is due to the fact that the singers of the Dangdut groups usually dance erotically on the village stages when they perform their songs. That is why the Dangdut-Kampungan was described as dirty or even forbidden ( haram ) by representatives of the middle class, but above all by Muslim extremists . In 2003 there was a dispute over the Dangdut singer Inul Daratista , who, according to some representatives of Muslim organizations, danced too erotically and, in their opinion, was damaging the morale of the people. For the same reason, Kedah Dangdut performances were banned in August 2008 in the Malaysian state .

Social relevance

The dangdut is a musical outlet for many of the world's largest Islamic nation with a population of 240 million.

Web links

Commons : Dangdut  - collection of images, videos and audio files