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Song in the Sumatran Highlands

Genre: Rabab Pariaman

Rabab Pariaman is both the name of a genre and the instrument affiliated with that genre. They are associated with the kabupaten Padang Pariaman.
The rabab is three-stringed and uses a coconut shell as the body and resonator. Like its regional cousins, the rabab Pariaman is used to accompany vocals and is performed late at night. Unlike rabab Pasisia, however, it is a relatively rare genre and not represented prominently in the Minangkabau recording industry. It is one of the three genres included on the Smithsonian Folkways, Music of Indonesia series, Vol. 6. Night Music of West Sumatra. As Philip Yampolsky and Hanefi write in the accompany liner notes, rabab Pariaman "begin[s] with free-standing, non-narrative songs but shift to sung narrative [i.e. kaba] later in the evening" (1994).

Related Resources

Night Music of West Sumatra: Saluang, Rabab Pariaman, Dendang Pauah.

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Song: "Pariaman Tangguang" 7 This song is named after the place, the city Pariaman and kabupaten Padang Pariaman. plain 2021-06-26T23:54:39+00:00
Alternative Title: "Piaman Tangguang" is the abbreviated title.
Translation of Title: "Tangguang" means "approaching," "Pariaman" references the place, the city Pariaman and kabupaten Padang Pariaman, so the title translates as "Approaching Pariaman."
Composer: Unknown.
Type of song: Ratok.
Genre of origin: Adopted from Rabab Pariaman.
Place affiliations:
- City: Pariaman.
- Kabupaten: Padang Pariaman.
- Darek or Rantau: Rantau.
Source: Te E's List of Songs.
Description: According to Martis, the pantun can be either pantun muda or pantun perasaian.
Term: Kaba 5 Kaba are Minangkabau epics plain 2021-07-01T00:55:09+00:00
Kaba are Minangkabau epics or stories. As Minang historian Taufik Abdullah writes kaba rely
on an imaginatively constructed narrative to present the social and personal consequences of either ignoring or observing ethical teachings and the norms embodied in the adat system of action. (1999: 336)
They can also incorporate stories about social change and recent events (Abdullah; Yampolsky). Junus (1994) makes the argument that historically kaba were set in the remote past, but their publication in print in the 1920s, along with their proliferation on cassette recordings in the 1980s, has meant that kaba are presented in novel ways today. Newly-composed kaba, such as one that documents the large 2009 earthquake in West Sumatra, introduce an immediate past, rather than deal with the remote past (Fraser 2013).

The manner of presentation can range from live storytelling to theatrical production, print publication, or sound recording. As narratives, kaba become texts for a number of performance genres, including sijobang, rabab Pasisia, rabab Pariaman, dendang Pauah, and randai. As Yampolsky and Hanefi write in the linter notes to an album involving recordings of two forms--rabab Pariaman and dendang Pauah.
In randai the kaba is partly sung and partly enacted; in the others it is sung, to the accompaniment of a single instrument...When kaba are sung, the medium is usually rhythmic lines, without rhyme schemes or stanza forms (1994).
The poetic form means that most of the genres drawing on kaba have quite a different feel than those (see Abdullah 1999: 337 for an excerpt from Johns (1958)), like saluang, that draw on the pantun form.

Related Resources
- Abdullah, Taufik. 1999. "Tambo, Kaba, and History: Tradition and the Historical Consciousness of the Minangkabau." In Walk in Splendor: Ceremonial Dress and the Minangkabau, ed. A. Summerfield, J. Summerfield. Los Angeles: UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History. 334-339.
- Johns, Anthony, editor and translator. 1958. Rantjak diLabueh: A Minangkabau Kaba. Southeast Asia Program. Department of Far Eastern Studies. Cornell University., Ithaca., New York.
- Junus, Umar. 1994. ‘Kaba: An Untold (His-)Story’. South East Asian Studies 32(3): 399-415.
- Phillips, Nigel. [1981] 2009. Sijobang: Sung Narrative Poetry of West Sumatra. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Place: Padang Pariaman
Term: Kaba
Image: Rabab in Neon Lights Rabab in Neon Lights. It is not entirely clear what instrument this is: the scale seems too small for rabab Darek and too big for rabab Pariaman, and entirely unlike rabab Pasisia in shape. There are too many tuning pegs to be a representation of any known Minang fiddle. It might be the Rabab Pariaman, only because it was found in a shopping mall on the edge of Padang, closest to the region of Padang Pariaman.
Resource: Night Music of West Sumatra