Page 109 - The Guide To Sarawak

THE GUIDE TO SARAWAK 107
Orang Ulu musician, dancer, painter and traditional luthier Matthew Ngau Jau with his signature sape.
An elderly Iban man playing a traditional goat-skin drum.
to Sarawak are the evocative nose flute or Selingut,
the keluri, a mouth organ fashioned out of a gourd, and a bamboo zither, the lutong. The Majlis Adat Istiadat Sarawak (see page 121) has compiled extensive recordings of traditional Sarawak music to preserve what is mainly an oral music tradition.
Music
Traditional Music
Sarawak’s traditional
music is played on a
variety of instruments - most of which are also found in neighbouring regions of Southeast
Asia - including gongs, gamelans, xylophones, drums and other percussion instruments, zithers, lutes, bowed instruments, flutes, mouth organs and mouth harps.
One instrument unique to Borneo is the sape, a large lute carved from a single piece of wood and strung with steel wire. Its plaintive melody was traditionally used by the Kayan, Kenyah and Kelabit to accompany dances and praise songs. Although the sape’s steel strings and complex
tuning make it difficult
to play, it has nowadays spread to many other ethnic communities and it is enjoying an upsurge in popularity.
Matthew Ngau Jau is Sarawak’s best-known traditional sape player
and lute maker. He learnt
the instrument during his childhood in Ulu Baram
and became a protégé of a fellow Kenyah, the master sape musician, dancer and artist Tusau Padan (1930- 1996). Like Tusau, Matthew is also an expert in Orang Ulu dance and an accomplished ‘tree-of-life’ style painter. He has toured and exhibited in the USA, France, Germany, Australia and Taiwan, and
is a regular performer at the Rainforest World Music Festival.
Other instruments native
A detail from one of Matthew Ngau Jau’s imposing tree of life paintings.