The trumpet is a musical instrument that cannot be separated from the Reog Ponorogo art. Even making it should not be arbitrary, it requires certain skills and selected raw materials.
One of the Reog trumpet makers in Ponorogo is a young man from Nambangrejo Village, Sukorejo District, Ponorogo, named Rahmat Septian.
The 26-year-old youth is indeed a student at the Indonesian Art Institute (ISI) Surakarta. He has been proficient at making trumpets since he was still studying at school. Since junior high school, he has even mastered playing the Reog trumpet.
In making trumpets, Rahmat seems proficient in carving the wood that becomes the tip of the trumpet, or often also called petor. The wood that Rahmat carves is also not random wood, but must be of sono rivet, teak, or rare wood, namely mentaos wood.
“This type of wood also affects the sound quality of the trumpet, it has its own character,” said Rahmat.
Rahmat only works alone, not infrequently he also has to hunt for bamboo as a ‘watangan’ material. Watangan itself is a part of the trumpet that has five holes, where these holes are used to play notes.
Uniquely, in making holes in the watangan, Rahmat doesn’t use a drill at all, instead he uses an iron that is heated on a stove and then stabbed into a bamboo until it has a hole.
“If you use a drilling machine, there is a risk of the bamboo breaking,” he explained.
The bamboo he chose was the ‘wulung’ type, where the wulung bamboo has the thickness and diameter that is suitable for making watangan on the reog trumpet. Even the diameter of the bamboo he uses is not more than 3 centimeters.
“After the petor, watangan, next is the piningan, which is made of conical brass, then at the end is given a mustache from coconut shells,” he explained.
Rahmat said that the Reog trumpet would not be perfect without a ‘kimp’, which is a fold of palm leaves that can produce sound when blown. This flutter is then placed at the end of the disc which is then blown by the trumpeter. The third child of four siblings added that in one month he could sell 20 to 30 trumpets, with prices starting at IDR 200,000 to IDR 500,000, depending on the finishing and carving on the trumpets. Adv/ptr
