The Popularity of Karinding among Bandung Society

The study focuses on the impact of the karinding popularity on Bandung society. In trying to understand its focus, the study uses interdisciplinary approaches including sociology and anthropology. It employs qualitative research method including data collection from oral and wri! en sources. Since being played by a band called Karinding A! ack, karinding became popular in Bandung. Further, the popularity of karinding gave some impacts on Bandung people, both its practitioners and its audience. Some programs and activities considered as the result of the popularity of karinding include multiple activities such as tourism activities, networking development, educational activities, revitalization of traditional arts other than karinding, music development, literacy development, and the development of the creative economy.


INTRODUCTION
Karinding is a musical instrument which originally served as a personal entertainment, then later developed to have multiple functions in West Java.At fi rst, karinding was known by Sundanese people as a means of ge! ing rid of pests in the rice fi eld.Today, it has gone through various developments.The best moment happened in 2008, when there was an encounter between a community named Bandung Death Metal Syndicate with karinding that later developed as it is now.
Initially, the public response was ordinary for there were just a few people who knew karinding.However, it did not discourage individual member of the community of Bandung Death Metal Syndicate to introduce karinding and Sundanese culture to the metal music fans in particular and Bandung society in general.
Basically, at that time they thought that karinding can be used as an educational medium to teach moral values to the community.The local wisdom contained in its simple form can serve as a way of life for the people.
Traditional music that was considered out of date by the youths now is in contrary point of view when karinding began to develop in Bandung.They have realized to preserve karinding and Sundanese culture in general.Moreover, karinding b e came an opening gate to introduce other forms of Sundanese culture such as iket, pangsi, Sundanese le! ers, heritage, and Sundanese religion called Sunda wiwitan.Currently, karinding is believed to be a musical instrument that can raise the awareness of the youths to local values, especially underground musicians in Bandung.One of the music gorups that brought this phenomenon is Karinding A! ack, a music group formed by the pioneers of the metal com-munity, Ujungberung Rebels (it is believed to be the fi rst and largest music community in Indonesia), whose each band has thousands of fans.
Conservation eff orts by utilizing the development of Internet, technology and mass media, as well as a local economic base development, are eff ective tools to popularize karinding.Karinding expansion to major cities in West Java has caused some movements such as tourism activities, karinding networking, educational activities, revitalization of traditional arts other than karinding, development of karinding music and its forms, development of literacy associated with karinding arts and development of a creative economic base.

METHOD
The problems examined in this study are focused on the impact of the popularity of karinding among Bandung people.
To answer the questions, this study uses a qualitative method which is basically a holistic method that combines data analysis with relevant aspects in order to produce a description or a picture systematically, factually, and accurately about facts and relationships between observed phenomena.This research includes observation and in-depth interview which were carried out in Bandung, Soreang, and Lembang, involving the members of the Karinding A! ack band (later shortened-Karat) and other karinding p r actitioners associated with data necessary for this study.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The spread of Karinding in Bandung 1. Area The acquaintance of Abah Olot with Bandung metal musicians has brought a new story to the world of karinding in Bandung.From creative hands of the metal community, karinding arises and transforms into a new form.Regarding this, some youths are inspired to perform various cultural activities or even explore the potential of each individual that they later implemented in the form of creative cultural products with high economic values through karinding.A sequence of interesting events related to karinding during the period of 2008-2016 took place in some areas in Bandung such as Soreang (Bandung Regency), Lembang (West Bandung Regency), and other cities in West Java.
In particular, the fi gures (initiators) in Soreang and Lembang, as research locations, consciously acknowledged that the presence of karinding i n t h eir regions is strongly infl uenced by the music band Karat.Their pa! erns of spreading and movement the music are very similar to those of Karat.They also admi! ed that since they used social media, almost every product (songs and merch) that they launched was appreciated extensively, both positively and negatively.Appreciation of their patrons (fans) in social media could usually lead to invitations to perform in events such as music concerts, performances, gatherings, home bands, or wedding.

Community Involved in Shaping the
Appearance of Karinding in Bandung Some communities are closely related to Karat and give a signifi cant infl uence on the development of karinding in Bandung.Among them is the Ujungberung Rebels community.The acquaintance of karinding with Ujungberung Rebels community began when Bandung Death Metal Syndicate (BDMS) was formed.BDMS was initiated by some Bandung underground music figures, namely Amenk (Disinfected), Man (Jasad), and Okid (Gugat), which aims to liven up death metal music that was relatively quiet at that time.Developing local identity became their vision, because in addition to its uniqueness, they also assume that there was the same spirit with the music they brought.
Since 2007 they add martial arts like pencak silat and debus on their performance based on an advice of their friends.Since then, a traditional art began to get positive responses from Bandung metal music fans and led to close relationship between BDMS and Sundanese music groups.At that point, Ki Amenk and Man got to know karinding, and their tutors were Mang Engkus and Mang Utun.Since then karinding quickly spread among the metal musicians of Ujungberung Rebels until now.
Karat is a band that was born from the event namely "Jumat Keramat" ("Sacred Friday").It was a weekly activity held every Friday at a place called Common Room.From the search done by the writer on its offi c ial website, the Common Room Networks Foundation is a place facilitating the needs of dialogue and multidisciplinary collaborations between individuals, communities, and organizations with multiple backgrounds to share their experiences and knowledge, with both local people and foreigners.
Regarding this, the Common Room is a meeting point for people with diff erent interests and becomes a strategic place for Karat in accelerating the spread of karinding.As they joined in the Common Room, they met a French who was interested in their music and off ered a recording session, so that the Karat's fi rst song "Ma Hampura 1" was produced.After the single was uploaded on Youtube, it soon a! racted lots of friends and viewers, especially metal musicians, and as the result, Karinding A! ack was born.

Diff usion Pa! erns
The birth of some groups of karinding music in Bandung and its surrounding areas can be identifi ed as the impact of the Karat popularity among the Bandung society.Thus, the difusion pa! erns are analyzed by using Rogers' diff usion theory (1971: 5).
a. Diff usion Process Basically, the karinding spread process in Bandung can be classifi ed into four stages, namely: 1) Innovation Karat is able to present relatively buhun (old) music in a new concept.
2) Communication Channels There are three types of communication channels used by Karat, among others: (1) mass media (printed and electronic); (2) internet (social media); and (3) interpersonal communication.
3) Time Period The time span of 8 years is relatively a short time for Karat's achievement.Increasing numbers of players and researchers of karinding are a clear evidence of their success.

4) Social System
The similarity of the innovators' mindset in the eff ort of spreading karinding encouraged them to perform a series of penetrations that were initially impossible to be possible.Problems are solved and goals can be achieved.
b. Factors Aff ecting Diff usion Process 1) Social Level The success of karinding spread in Bandung is caused by the backgrounds of the Karinding A! ack members, in which the members can be considered the trendse!er in the area of metal music in Bandung, and even in Indonesia.
2) Strategic Location The central point of dissemination for information (Common Room) is fairly strategic (located in Central Bandung) and it is the success determinant of the information dissemination of karinding to other areas in Bandung, such as East, West, South, and North Bandung.Until now, the most active karinding music groups are commonly found in the region of West Bandung (Lembang) and Southern Bandung (Soreang).
3) Adopters' Characteristics Individual acceptance is regarded as one of the main factors aff ecting the process of karinding spread in Bandung.The adopt-ers' characteristics include musical taste similarity, open-mindedness, and music atmosphere in Bandung.

The Popularity of Karinding in Bandung
1.The Parameters of Popularity The term "popularity" used in this article means to be well-known and liked by many people.It means that the karinding popularity is defi ned as a traditional art which begins to a! ract Bandung society's a! ention and is favored by many people.These popularity parameters can be seen from multiple variables, including the growing number of the karinding m u sic groups, karinding performances, and creative economic actors related to the community or the practitioners of karinding.

Factors Contributing to the Popularity of Karinding in Bandung a. Internet and Social Media
The development of information technology is considered as something that can change habits and a! itudes of the global world community.Whether it is realized or not, people nowadays are living in two worlds, the real world, and cyberspace (cyber community).This phenomenon is called "New Media" by Ron Rice.He defi n es it as a communication technology that involves computers that is able to facilitate communication with its users (Setiawan, 2013: 362).The power of the "New Media" lies on the Internet connection as a medium for fi nding and spreading information.
Social media is a term which refers to the online technology used for sharing opinions and information, having discussion, promotion, and establishing relationships.Its services are a mixture of technology, telecommunication, and social interaction.Mayfi eld (2008) revealed that social media as a new form of online media has some characteristics, among others: participation (eliminating the distance between media and audience), openness (creating a room for discussion), conversation (social networking as a two-way communication), community (communicating eff ectively in the community that shares same interest), and connectedness (making relationships with many people).
Social media help karinding p r actitioners and their managers to interact with their fans, partners and event organizers in a more fl exible way that leads to ge! ing job off ers or collaboration for performances or other activities.Social media platform that are commonly used by karinding practitioners are Facebook, Twi! er, Instagram, Youtube, and Reverbnation.
With those media, karinding practitioners can easily measure their band popularity among its audience.
b. Television as Mass Media Communication If we look close to online-news websites and social media, they give similar contents of information with television but sometimes faster, more detail, and more accurate.However, people are more a! racted to television other than to online website and social media.A number of technical issues such as a low signal of Internet connection, complicated use of gadget may be the reasons why public prefer television to social media.
As mass media, television has three major functions for society, namely: (1) the environment supervisor; (2) correlation between parts of society in responding to the environment; and (3) transmission of socio-cultural heritage, information delivered continuously from generation to generation.In this context, television functions as a medium to express a culture and introduce a new culture (cultural hybrid) in order to enhance and preserve its values (Eskaputra, 2012: 34).
The phenomenon of the karinding popularity in Bandung can be assumed as the result of mass media utilization by karinding players in order to maintain the existence and popularity of their band.Persuasive approaches can be done well, so that the karinding is often broadcasted by some local and national television stations.Karat efforts of penetrating broader music industry by performing in various national television shows have great impacts on the youth's interest in Bandung.Karat has performed in several private television programs like Ini Talk Show hosted by Sule and Andre, an electronic cinema Kelas Internasional, Live with Trio Lestari, and Music Everywhere with Noah Band.

The Impact of the Karinding Popularity on the Bandung Community
After Karat was born, karinding immediately spread everywhere, including Bandung, Lembang and Soreang.Youth's enthusiasm in responding to karinding in the location of the study has amazed the entire personnel of Karat.They can see that young people are very interested in ge! ing information about this instrument."Mystical" impression which always complements karinding instrument has also encouraged the personnel of Karat, especially Kimung, to dig more information about karinding and discover a series of musical development to answer questions proposed by the youth.
In addition to musical satisfaction, the popularity of karinding also has impacts on other aspects of the life of the music community in Bandung.The built of tourism activities, education, economy, traditional arts revitalization other than karinding, development of forms and music, development of the national and international network, and development of literacy related to karinding arts become a series of positive impacts that take place when karinding began to be popular in Bandung.The impacts on the research locations are varied, but basically, cover some of the following activities: 1. Tourism Activities The popularity of karinding turned out to have an impact on tourism activity, such as in Lembang.Karinding active movement in Lembang was also supported by a sponsor that facilitated sound system and a manager of a tourist destination who provided a meal as they were interested when they saw Karinding on The Street program initiated by Iwan and Hendra (karinding initiators in Lembang).They also were off ered to manage a tourist-destination village at Floating Market (leuit kampong), but due to their lack of managerial experience, the collaboration was ended.On the other hand, there was a home band of karinding in a cafe in Lembang that performed karinding regularly to entertain the cafe's visitors.At this point, it is clear how it all began with the karinding movement which then a! racted the managers of tourist-destinations, started networking and benefi ted from karinding.The massive movements of karinding in Bandung were then connected with a lot of performances either small or big scales, held independently or by the sponsors.Furthermore, the increasing number of ka-rinding m u sic groups and performances strengthened relationships between karinding music groups in Bandung and led to an annual activity called Karinding Camping.It is an event usually fi lled with group ritual prayer, karinding music performances, and ended with tree-planting.Karinding Camping was usually followed by dozens of karinding music groups from various regions around Bandung.

Karinding Educational Activities
(KEKAR) Since karinding g a ined its popularity and a! racted media's a! ention, Karat as the initiator had the initiative to do a movement by holding gatherings every week.The establishment of KEKAR is a kind of Karat's responsibility.As they are famous now, they feel responsible for giving information about karinding to those who are interested in having karinding class.
Each traditional music community (angklung, for example) is supposed to train someone's musicality.The values of togetherness, sensitivity, and desire to preserve the culture are maintained.Similar to karinding, its practitioners continue to develop methods that suit an educational purpose.Viewed from the perspective of karinding as an educational tool, it is now in line with objectives proposed by Bloom (1956) in which these objectives are divided into multiple domains, including cognitive domain, which contains behaviors emphasizing the intellectual aspects, such as knowledge, comprehension, and thinking skills.The aff ective d o main contains behaviors that emphasize aspects of feelings and emotions, such as interest, a! itude, appreciation, adaptation, and motor skills such as writing, typing, swimming, and operating a machine (Prasetya, 2012: 108).Manifestations of the educational goals proposed by Bloom can be seen from grading system formulated by Kimung and Karat.
In detail, programs run by KEKAR have been well developed.The lesson for basic level typically starts with history of karinding in Priangan to karinding playing techniques.Another program is group lesson to learn karinding, so that students will get guidance in creating a piece of karinding music.
There are three levels of karinding course: After students pass the evaluation of all stages, students are encouraged to organize a karinding recital for the next three months.Tutors who have the initiative to give guidance for free are the Karat members and karinding-course graduates.Recently, KEKAR has been re-opened and run in Soreang.

Revitalization of Traditional Arts
Other than Karinding Another movement considered as the result of the karinding popularity is the reappearance of instruments such as celempung, terbang, toleat, and tarawangsa.This is also the result of karinding appreciation in daily life.The appreciation of karinding as a sacred instrument gave impact on its development and usage in ritual practices and custom ceremonies such as hajat buruan, seren taun, ngarajah, pabaru Sunda, tumpekan, Basically, almost all conventional music groups that still exist today in Bandung have not-too-complicated musical forms, tend to have lots of repetition, and almost do not have accompanying instruments (chord).Nevertheless, in terms of the instrument, almost all groups spread across several areas of Bandung have similarities.They have several instruments that serve as a melodic instrument (fl ute or tarawangsa) and percussion (celempung).This indicates that in terms of instrument, the form of karinding ensemble starts to develop.There is a possibility that one day there will be a distinctive feature in instruments used in the karinding ensemble.

b. Karinding Collaboration
In terms of music, there are some diff erences when it is compared to conventional karinding.Karinding c o llaboration uses Western musical instruments, such as guitar and sequencer.The presence of the guitar and sequencer, according to the practitioners, enhances the music.The guitar functions as a melodic instrument as well as a guide (leader) in particular basic tones.In another period in 2012, there was a new generation (young people) that explored karinding with Sundanese pop music style.Furthermore, in 2013-2014, karinding musical exploration began to turn to buhun music."Bangbung Hideung" became obligatory repertoire in the performance of this new generation.Ironically, they admi!ed that the karinding band they heard fi rst was Karat, with their metal-style appearances they often wore clothes from metal bands like Burgerkill, Jasad, Disinfected, and Gugat, as they believed that the members of those bands had risen karinding in West Java.

Literacy Development
Literacy in Sundanese culture is still low.Many types of traditional performing arts, especially bamboo music, have not been wri!en in books or academic writings.A fi gure from Cilengkrang (now Cijerah), grown in a metal community in Bandung, named Iman Rahman Angga Kusuma, known as Kimung, became a pioneer in developing literacy culture in the fi eld of karinding music.Having decades of musical experience and history degree from Padjadjaran University, he decided to focus his research on karinding.
At least there are three books related to karinding art wri! en by Kimung.Memoar Melawan Lupa (Minor Books, 2011), Jurnal Karat, Karinding A! acks Ujungberung Rebels (Minor Books, 2012), and Ujungberung Rebels Panceg Dina Galur (Minor Books, 2012) are a trilogy taking karinding as an object of study.These sources also have stimulated academics to conduct various studieson it at several universities in Indonesia.Multiple approaches were used in the study ranging from history, communication studies, politics, sociology, anthropology, musicology, creative economy, education, acoustic physics, graphic design, cinema, and many more.

Creative Economy Development
The spread of karinding in Bandung has engendered to a new movement of creative economic activity.Economic benefi ts are received by artisans and karinding musical groups today.The rise of karinding community network which has boosted the rise of new music groups certainly has an impact on the demand of karinding instrument on the market.Further, it expanded to the bamboo-craft industry.Some creative economic activities including the sales of karinding instruments, albums, and merchandise manufacture indicated the karinding infl u ence on the creative industry.Furthermore, these creative products were then distributed through channels of Bandung metal music community, such as distribution stores (distro) or during traditional music and metal music performances in Bandung.a.Sales of Karinding Instruments and Merchandise Economic-based development with a vision to prosper bamboo craftsmen is an idea brought up by the Karat members.They refuse brokers or the intermediary practices among the craftsmen.Thus, members of the group such as Okid encourages every karinding craftsman to always give identity to each karinding they made, so that when the consumers want to buy again, they can directly contact the craftsman.
As a creative economy practitioner, Okid (2016) admits that the sales of karinding in Bandung are quite diff erent from other regions.Karinding craftsmen in Lembang tend to have a stable rate of sales because they live in a tourist destination.Most craftsmen distribute their hand-made karinding through the distro in Bandung, others sell the crafts hand to hand or on the tourist destination like Tangkuban Perahu.
b. Karinding Performances Karat is the only music group that able to penetrate music industry because it is supported by a strong and stable network.Their music album distributed massively by Karat has an important role in penetrating a wider music industry.Supported by a militant network of metal music community, Karat is a group that gets national and international appreciation.Some printed and electronic media such as Ireland local television and the British magazine Metal Hammer had proven that the metal music network supporting Karinding A! ack could not be underestimated.Some constraints related to the album or merchandise distribution to wider market, among others: 1) Unready management to fulfi l the distributor's demand (record company).
2) Easy listening songs for listeners are not available, as is the case for Karat, people still do not understand the messages trying to be delivered in their works.
Karat that serves as an inspiration and an innovator for many karinding music groups inspired a new mindset for later karinding groups that traditional arts could not be underestimated, especially from fi nancial aspect; it is not to commercialize artistic traditions, instead, it is meant to develop more appreciation to traditional performing arts.c.Album Sales For the karinding music group in Bandung, launching a karinding album is still something new.The socialization of the importance of having works released in a CDformat album is continuously done by Kimung and friends in Karat.Improving their knowledge of both sound exploration and recording techniques are kept being done, so that local karinding music group can release albums soon.For a musical group, releasing an album means risking its reputation, because it shows the group's musicality, quality, identity, and vision.However, another important thing is the support of market and distribution network in order to reach wider listeners.
A karinding music group's album released in CD format is sold and promoted through a distribution channel commonly used by Indie bands; their CDs are entrusted to be sold in several distros managed by Remains Distro.Karat's album is released and distributed independently.Karat c l aimed that its album is the fi rst album created by a karinding music group that is contained their own songs.This distribution pa! ern had never been done by the other traditional music groups.Metal and Indie music networks generally are the distribution channel chosen by Karat and are considered an eff ective way up to now.In addition to that, the mapping of karinding music network in West Java is a target set by Karat in distributing and promoting its products.Yet, since the karinding networking is not fully ready, the band uses social media to reach listeners and fans outside Bandung.

CONCLUSION
The characteristics of the Indie music community, especially metal music in Bandung, that is open to a new culture, is the channel for karinding to access some areas outside Bandung.Karinding becomes an opening gate to introduce other Sundanese cultures such as iket, pangsi, aksara Sunda, pusaka and even Sundanese religion called Sunda wiwitan.Recently, karinding is assumed as an instrument to raise young people of Bandung's awareness, especially of the underground music community, for local values.Its pioneer is Karinding Attack, a music band founded by the pioneers of metal community Ujungberung Rebels (which is believed as the fi rst and biggest music community in Indonesia), whose each band has thousands of fans.
Karinding now has spread to some areas in Bandung and its surroundings.The karinding p r actitioners in those areas consciously admi! ed that their musical movements were much infl uenced by the existence of Karinding A! ack.The massive movement of karinding in Bandung has a! racted a lot of a! entions, especially form media which become more active in investigating and reporting its practitioners.Slowly but sure, the karinding practitioners keep trying to develop karinding.They always set targets every year in order to keep the existence of karinding and also to establish the network on local, national and global scales.
Finally, the karinding expansion to other big cities in West Java has caused some benefi c ial activities such as tourism activities, the expansion of karinding networking, educa-tional activities, revitalization of traditional arts other than karinding, the development of karinding music, literacy development, and activities of the creative economy.

Bibliography
2. Development of Karinding NetworkIt cannot be denied that the main factor contributing to the popularity of karinding in Bandung was the birth of Karat.Since it was established in 2008, there were about 40 karinding bands that actively practiced and performed.Now, the number has increased to approximately 200 bands.That means within 8 years, the number of karinding music group has increased to 400%.Graph 1.The growth of Karinding Group

Table 1 .
Lesson Materials for Karinding Class Pergeseran Fungsi Instrumen Kar i nding di Jawa Barat.Thesis.Pro-g r am Studi Penciptaan dan Pengkaj i an Seni Pascasarjana.Bandung: Sek o lah Tinggi Seni Indonesia.Cultural Theory and Popular Culture a n Introduction.Fifth edition.Harlow, E n gland; New York: Pearson Longman.Revised edition.New York: O x ford University Press.