Sasando: Indonesia’s Garlic-shaped Guitar
BERITA LAINNYA - 28 April 2025
Sasando: Indonesia’s Garlic-shaped Guitar
One of Indonesia’s most popular traditional musical instruments is the sasando. Sasando is a tube zither instrument and is played by plucking its strings the same way we play the harp. Sasando comes from East Nusa Tenggara and is part of Rote’s culture.
Legend has it that the first sasando was made by Sangguana. The tale began when he was stranded in Ndana Island. Then, he was brought to the island’s king, King Takalaa. While Sangguana was at the palace, people started to notice his incredible art skill. Everyone was impressed by his skill including King Takalaa’s daughter. She asked him to invent a musical instrument never seen before. One night, Sangguana dreamt playing a magnificent instrument. Quickly, he made a instrument based on that dream. When he was asked what instrument he was playing, he said, “it’s a sandu.” From that day, people start playing sandu or later called the sasando.
Sasando is made from three separate parts. The main part is a tube made from bamboo with a length around 7-80 cm. At the top and bottom of this tube is placed a bridge and a nut to place the strings. On the centre part of this instrument, is placed a handful of senda to stretch out the strings. The senda are placed with precision to give each string a unique sound. The last but also important part is the cover. The cover is made from lontar or palmyra leaves. This cover gives the sasando it’s unique shape.
There are several types of sasando, three to be exact. First, Sasando Gong. This type of sasando is played by following a gong’s rhythm. This type of sasando uses the pentatonic scale and has 7 to 11 strings available to use. The second type is Sasando Biola. It is called biola because the head part of this sasando is similar the head part of a violin. Unlike Sasando Gong, Sasando Biola uses the diatonic scale and has 30 to 36 strings. The last type is Sasando Elektrik, which is a product of modernization. It works very similar to the acoustic one, except it uses an electric amplifier.
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