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Jew’s harp IS the oldest English name, period.

Known as ‘jew’s harp’ only in the English language, the instrument has no connection to traditional Jewish music or culture, and no established etymological explanation accounts for the name. ‘Jew’s harp’ IS the oldest recorded name in the English language. The name first appears in an English trade ledger in 1481 (a shipment of ‘jew's harps’ and ‘jew's trumps’ coming from The Netherlands to London), though archaeological finds and iconography show the instrument probably arriving in Britain earlier, in the 1200-1300s (see Kolltveit 2006 and Wright 2005 & 2015).

While jew’s harp is the oldest name in English, this doesn’t mean it’s the oldest name in the British Isles. The term trump (pronounced ‘troomb’) was used in Scotland and trumpagh in Ireland, echoing older European forms like the Spanish and Italian trompa. These likely pre-date the English name, and could explain why the instrument is named as both jew’s trump and jew’s harp on the trade ledger.

The earliest images of the jaw harp appear in medieval Christian churches

The earliest known image of the instrument is an enamel painting of an angel playing a jaw harp on the crozier (hooked staff) of William of Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester, which is dated to c1367.

There is also a carving of an angel playing what appears to be a jaw harp at Exeter Cathedral, c. 1300s, though this is currently described (rather unconvincingly, given the position of both hands) as a ‘broken trumpet’ on the cathedral’s website.

Other late-medieval images exist from the 14th and 15th centuries, including a fresco painting of another angel playing it in the crypt of Bayeux Cathedral in Normandy, France, dated to c.1400s.

Images of angels playing a variety of ‘high’ and ‘low’ instruments were common during the period, and shows that the jaw harp was firmly embedded and recognized as a folk instrument by that time. Its appearance in church iconography during this period makes it reasonable to assume that the association with Jews came later.

The instrument was also highly associated with medieval pedlars: from 1450-1698, Frederick Crane found 13 images of pedlars with jaw harps among their wares (see Crane 2003, 9). With the Edict of Expulsion in 1290, high levels of anti-Semitism in English society at the time, and zero record of Jews actually playing it, there is a possibility that the association could have arisen though association with Jewish sellers rather than players. Again, the first time the name appears is on a trade document for a shipment from Arnemuiden (a quay of Antwerp, which was then part of The Netherlands), to London, so the instruments could well have been exported by Jewish merchants on the continent into England during the period of expulsion.

Of course we can’t ignore the possibility of a derogatory name associated with Jews and negative dismissals of the instrument as being “simple” or “inexpensive”, and indeed in later centuries these connections were sometimes drawn in satirical illustrations. However, anti-Semitic depictions seem to appear later in the 19th and 20th centuries as a result of the name, not the other way around.

The exoticization of the ‘Other’

One of the inevitable offshoots of globalization and cross-cultural trade and commerce is the formation of others, subalterns, borderlands and border people — a sense of who is an insider and who is not. The term jew’s harp carries with it a sense of a border or boundary being transgressed, an instrument or cultural object coming in from elsewhere, a sense of orientalism or exoticism. The term’s racist connotations often overshadow a larger conversation about who and what belongs, and who and what doesn’t, especially in the context of Medieval Europe. The development of a European economy during this time through increased trade meant a lot of transgression of borders hitherto not crossed, and the availability of more ‘exotic’ and foreign goods. Europeans began developing an interest in commodities that were rare or unavailable in their region.

Phons Bakx’s collection of all known names for the instrument points to several other names circulating in Europe at the time that linked the instrument with various outsider groups, particularly Romani people (Italy: trompa de zingari) and regions near borders (France: trompe de Bearne), but also, in Spain, “trompa de Paris” linking it with a major urban centre. In this context, the term ‘jew’s harp’ fits within a wider trend and is not a singular occurrence of a racialized or exoticised name. Another name that stands out is "Bojonero" (Spanish-Italian vocabulary from 1638): a peddler who sells a variety of things like needles, knives, combs, and jew’s harps, and they were usually French (in other words, outsiders).1

This group of names supports the theory that the jew’s harp could have been named for the people selling it, not necessarily those playing it. This group of names could be part xenophobia, part marketing, and it is worth considering how highlighting the instrument’s ‘otherness’ may have enhanced its perceived commercial value in earlier times as an exotic object from far away people or lands. The instrument’s marginality and outsider status, even during its peak eras of popularity, meant is has never sustained a position as a prominent mainstream object. Its association with the liminal and the fringes continues through its use in folk music, metal, and shamanic/new age spiritual music today.

Jaw harp appears several centuries after jew’s harp

Contrary to numerous online theories that jew’s harp is a ‘corruption’ of jaw harp, Wright identifies that the term jaw harp only appears around the 19^th Century, after the term jew’s harp had already been in use for several centuries (2020, 37). Many other theories abound, including that jew’s harp is a corruption of jeu as in plaything (Wright 2020, 12) or jeught meaning youth or adolescent (Wright 2020, 41). Other English-language names include ‘juice harp’ and ‘gewgaw’ (both cited as possible corruptions of, or origins for, the term jew’s harp), ‘mouth harp’ (though this is often also used for harmonica), trump or tromp; regional names exist in many other languages and dialects.

Jaw harp has overtaken jew’s harp in popularity since 2018

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=2015-08-18%202025-09-18&q=jaw%20harp,jew%27s%20harp&hl=en-GB

While jew’s harp is undoubtedly the older term, there has been a clear shift away from it in recent years. Google Trends data, which compiles Google search data going back to 2015, shows a turning point around 2018. At this point, Google searches for the term ‘jew’s harp’ rapidly dropped off and began a steady decline, while the term ‘jaw harp’ started a gradual increase in popularity. I hypothesize that these changes could be the result of several viral videos that have garnered millions of views since 2018. After Yakut khomus player Olena Uutai’s massively viral 2018 appearance on Britain’s Got Talent, the term ‘jaw harp’ became the most commonly-searched for name for the instrument, overtaking ‘jew’s harp’ and ‘mouth harp’ by a large margin. The gap between ‘jaw harp’ and jew’s harp’ has been steadily widening since, with ‘jaw harp’ gaining increasing traction through additional viral videos, particularly YouTube videos by the Bebbcorp Harpery channel, several of which have also reached millions of viewers since 2018.

Ultimately, ‘jaw harp’ is now the most used and searched for term, not just among English speakers, but globally. ‘Jew’s harp’ is undoubtedly in decline, and it’s highly likely that given enough time, ‘jaw harp’ will eventually replace it as the primary English term. We are in the midst of that process now. That doesn’t mean the older name is inherently bad or should be thrown out; rather, it provides an opportunity to dig deeper into the history of trade, borders, and globalization in Medieval Europe.

Choose your own adventure, but know the history

What to call the instrument comes down to personal preference; many individuals are switching to jaw harp, while several organizations are still using jew’s harp (though the name issue regularly comes up for discussion).

Here’s another way of thinking about it: the jew’s harp/jaw harp has always crossed borders, and it continues to do so now. It’s a truly cosmopolitan instrument, that contains and represents knowledge and technology from many cultures over many time periods and vast stretches of geography. Its otherworldliness prompts most listeners, upon hearing it for the first time, to ask ‘where does it come from?’ There’s always a sense either that it comes from elsewhere, or that it transports us to somewhere else. I believe that jew’s harp, along with the other names in the ‘harp of the other’ cluster, contain some of these ideas and can shed light on the centuries-long process of the instrument’s globalization, particularly in Europe, where it did likely arrive via the Eastern trade routes.

So the next time you see someone online yelling ‘jew’s harp is a corruption of jaw harp!’, please send them this article!

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And do let me know—what do YOU call it?

Works Cited

Bakx, Phons. ‘The 1000 Names of the Jew’s Harp.’ http://www.antropodium.nl/Duizend%20Namen%20Mhp%20voorw%20ENG.htm

Crane, Frederick. 2003. A History of the Trump in Pictures. https://jewsharpsociety.org/ijhs-publications

Kolltveit, Gjermund. 2006. Jew’s Harps in European Archaeology. Oxford: Archaeopress.

Wright, Michael, 2005. ‘Penning the air: Looking for the origins of ‘Jew’s harp’.’ The Jews Harper. https://jewsharper.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/penning-the-air3.pdf

Wright, Michael, 2015. The Jews-Harp in Britain and Ireland. Farnham: Ashgate.

The camaraderie and connection I feel at these events makes me feel like I’m truly part of a community. Time disappears into endless hours of nerding, excited conversations with people who just get it, and enough musical and artistic inspiration to sustain me for months. I may only see my harp friends once every few years, but the moment we meet, we’re right back in the zone.

I’ve put together a list of jaw harp events throughout the year, many of which I’ve attended, and some that are still on my bucket list. Most of us live in isolation from each other, connecting only online. My wish is for more harp nerds to experience the connection and fellowship at festivals. Do consider making the trek to one if you can!

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International Jew’s Harp Congress, various locations & dates

The original jaw harp festival, the International Jew’s Harp Congress has been running since 1984. The festival is not on a set schedule, and happens unpredictably every few years once a host institution is available. I’ve been attending these festivals since 2010, and they’ve been life-changing. The 2011 Congress is actually what convinced me to do my PhD on the jaw harp. The 2025 festival is being held in Hokkaido, Japan, and I’m beyond excited to attend.

North American Jaw Harp Festival, various locations & dates

This was the first jaw harp festival I ever attended, and the gathering that connected me with my first jaw harp friends. It opened my eyes to the camaraderie amongst jaw harp nerds and made me feel like I’d finally found my people. The festival was run by the Jew’s Harp Guild for many years in Bay City on the Oregon coast. It is not currently active but there are hopes of it being revived, and I will definitely post if it does!

Munnharpe Forging Weekend, Gjøvik, Norway (May)

This is a highly recommended gathering for those who are interested in learning how to make jaw harps, or looking to improve their fabrication techniques. Usually there are local Norwegian blacksmiths teaching hot forging, and they often have guest makers who may demonstrate a variety of methods. In the evening, there are jam sessions with an array of jaw harps and traditional instruments. Despite not having aspirations to be a maker myself, I have attended this workshop several times and it’s an absolute joy. So much learning with wonderful people, and the outdoor springtime setting is beautiful.

Marranzano World Festival, Sicily (July)

If you’re a jaw harp and world music enthusiast, this festival is a must. Run by marranzano expert and activist Luca Recupero, this festival takes place outdoors in the summer in Catania, on the East Coast of Sicily. You’ll be steeped in everything the city has to offer, and be blown away by the ambience of the stage and sound system at night. You’ll see some of the best jaw harp players and bands here. This should be on any harp nerd’s bucket list, and you’ll definitely want to tack on some extra time to explore Sicily.

Ancient Trance Festival, Taucha, Germany (July)

An outdoor festival with camping, this is another long-running classic festival on the jaw harp calendar. Organized by the team at Dan Moi, this event features many big-name acts in the jaw harp world on multiple stages around the village of Taucha. This event also hosts workshops and a marketplace where you can buy jaw harps.

Le Reve de L’Aborigine, Airvault, France (July)

Another open-air summer festival with camping, this long-running French festival focusses on acts that incorporate jaw harp, didgeridoo, and overtone singing.

Munnharpe Festival, various locations in Norway (September)

Another beautiful Norwegian gathering, this one takes place in autumn when the daytime weather is still lovely and the nights are getting a bit crisper. This one is held indoors, at various rotating venues. You’ll get to hear the best players in Norway, take workshops with them, and mingle with the Norwegian folk music community. It’s so rare to be able to access jaw harp teachers and lessons, so getting exposure to the traditional Norwegian playing style through its own masters is highly recommended.

World Jaw Harp Music Festival of Taiwan, Miali, Taiwan (every other November)

This is a newer festival that’s an exciting addition to the jaw harp calendar. Founded by jaw harp player Hong Hong and happening every other year, it takes place once the intensely humid summer weather has cooled off. The second festival happened in 2024, and I’m hoping to attend the third festival in 2026. Stay tuned for more info!

Den Brumle Music Festival, Prague, Czech Republic (November)

Another great November option is Den Brumle. This one is currently on my wishlist as I have not yet attended, but it promises to be a great time with the most current jaw harp touring acts.

Global Vibes Dorombfestival, Kecskemét, Hungary (December)

Rounding out the year, we get a big finish to celebrate the holiday season with Global Vibes. A concert with a party atmosphere, hosted by well-known jaw harp player and maker Áron Szilágyi at the Leskowsky Musical Instrument Museum in Hungary, it features concerts, workshops, and all the good jaw harp vibes to usher in the new year.

Other jaw harp gatherings

World Mouth Harp Festival of India, Arambol, Goa, India

Founded by Neptune Chapotin of World Harps, this festival ran annually for several years, and has now transitioned into a monthly mouth harp gathering in Arambol organized by @mouthharpcommunitygoa. Follow their account for more information!

Khomus events in Yakutsk, Sakha Republic, Russian Federation

In addition to founding World Khomus Day on November 30th, Yakustk is home to the Khomus Museum, the world’s largest dedicated jaw harp collection. They host many khomus-related events throughout the year, and you can hear exceptional jaw harp performances at the Yhyаkh summer solstice festival, as well as the khomus virtuoso competitions.

Karinding events in West Java, Indonesia

The region of West Java (Sunda) is home to an amazing jaw harp community, where the local jaw harp karinding has been revived by metal musicians through the region’s underground music scene. If you’re there, try to catch a show by Karinding Attack or Karinding Sadulur, or attend the annual outdoor jaw harp camping retreat Kemping Karinding. This is on my bucket list for sure!

I hope this inspires you to get out there and check out a jaw harp gathering. There are several events not listed here, so please comment if you know any that should be added to the list. Attended a jaw harp festival before? Share your favourite memory!

You can read the first part of the presentation here:

Harp Nerds

How metalheads revived the Sundanese jaw harp karinding - PART 1

I recently travelled to Seville, Spain, to give a presentation at the International Society for Metal Music Studies (ISMMS) conference. I was there to share material from a chapter from my co-authored book with Owen Coggins about jaw harps and heavy metal. We’ve been working on this collaborative project for several years now, combining our expertise to…

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10 months ago · 7 likes · 9 comments · Deirdre Morgan, PhD

Today’s instalment goes into greater detail about the formation of Karinding Attack, the influential band that kicked off the “heavy bamboo” movement in Bandung, as well as the philosophies underpinning these events. I hope you enjoy the second half, and please let me know what you think!

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I’ve explained some of the forces that led to the formation of this unique project. But we have to dig a bit deeper into how and why Karinding Attack was formed.

The band was founded as a direct response to the AACC Tragedy on Feb 9, 2008, which happened at an album launch for Beside at the Asia Afrika Culture Centre in Bandung. After the show, a combination of overcrowding, dehydration, and panic resulted in a stampede when the crowd tried to exit the venue. This led to 11 fatalities among the youth who were present, and many more injured.

This was a watershed moment for the Bandung scene: metal shows were temporarily banned, and the community went into mourning and did a lot of soul searching during this time. As Henry Spiller puts it in his recent chapter about karinding, the tragedy was seen as “un-Sundanese”, and this precipitated a journey among members of the Ujungberung Rebels to reconnect with Sundanese values as part of a healing process (Spiller 2023, 101).

Kimung began travelling to villages throughout West Java, speaking with elders about Sundanese traditions. It was through this process that he seized on karinding as emblematic of fundamental Sundanese values. He brought elder karinding maker and player Abah Olot to Bandung to give workshops. Olot comes from a family lineage of karinding makers who recall the instrument being played during village ceremonies going back several generations. These include thanksgiving celebrations as well as ceremonies for eclipses and full moons (Suwandi 2013, 28; Art Etsa Logam 2013, quoted in Spiller 2023, 94), connecting it with a pre-colonial agrarian way of life.

To say the instrument's introduction in Bandung resonated is an understatement. Things moved quickly, people were inspired, and by the end of the year, Karinding Attack had been formed, with many recognizable musicians joining its ranked from the first generation of Ujungberung Rebels.

So, why the karinding?

Jaw harps are all over Indonesia: Palmer Keen of Aural Archipelago has recorded at least 15 living jaw harp traditions, and that’s not counting the ones that have gone extinct or are still being practiced in under the radar.

These traditions are hyperlocal: travel a couple of hours in any direction, and the instrument is called something else (rinding, kurinding) and is built and played and conceived of differently.

Karinding is old. We don’t know exactly how old, but at least several hundred years, likely much older. Because it’s made of bamboo, it doesn’t leave a trace.

According to Kimung’s interviews with hundreds of villagers across West Java, the karinding is considered by many Sundanese to be their first musical instrument, and its sound is said to emulate the big bang. Its vibration and buzzing timbre are literally at the heart of Sundanese creation myths, and another example of how fundamental timbre is to the culture.

Despite this, the karinding, along with many other traditions, suffered during the political and social instability of the region during the twentieth century, and by the 1970s, it was in severe decline until it got picked up again in 2008 by the Ujungberung Rebels community.

They looked around at all the traditional Sundanese instruments and specifically chose the one that was the least popular and the most obscure. They intentionally chose the thing that was the most occult, in the sense of being hidden or unseen, overlooked, and buried.

They chose the most underdog instrument for this project specifically because they were the ultimate underdogs in that moment, and needed to rebuild their self image and rehabilitate their place in Bandung society. The karinding represented a way forward, as it was both completely original and totally Sundanese.

So this case study is about how Bandung metalheads bring metal aesthetics and approaches to traditional instruments, but it’s also about how the philosophy and metaphysics of the karinding are brought to bear on local variants of metal.

My doctoral research was all about the dynamics of jaw harp revivals, and the situation in Bandung mirrors other case studies in several regards. As pointed out by Caroline Bithell and Juniper Hill in the Oxford Handbook of Music Revival, “many revivals are driven by impassioned and committed individuals” (Bithell and Hill 2014, 10), referencing Antony Wallace’s “charismatic evangelists” and Ronström’s “burning souls” (ibid, 45).

Similarly, the karinding’s resurgence is largely due to the efforts of a very small group of people. Digging up forgotten traditions requires strong-willed advocates who are willing to go against the grain of mainstream tastes—and who better than metalheads to hold down that position?

In Bandung, Kimung, one of the original Rebels who contributed to the very DNA of Indonesian metal, turned out to be that person. Due largely to his efforts, karinding has transformed into a youth movement that’s still going today, even if there are now fewer karinding metal bands than there were 10 years ago.

A former teacher, Kimung founded the Kelas Karinding (literally karinding class), a free afterschool program teaching youth to play the instrument. He’s been facilitating this for many years, and the influence of his work and status in the community has gone a long way to re-establishing the instrument as part of daily Sundanese life.

Post-2008, there was an explosion of karinding bands inspired by Karinding Attack and Kelas Karinding. Many of these bands were formed by metalhead teenagers following in the footsteps of their elders from Ujungberung.

While the top handful of karinding metal bands are still active today, they’ve never seen the success of the death metal bands that birthed them, making them somewhat marginal even within the underground.

So, did heavy bamboo actually become a new genre, or was it more of a collaboration, like the boundaried cross-pollination between the metal scene and the reak trance scene in Bandung as discussed by Luigi Monteanni?

Not exactly. I argue that bamboo-core was more of a developmental phase. Not so much a genre as an artistic movement that opened doors to new opportunities.

This developmental phase in metal has propelled karinding onwards into other local environments. In addition to publishing several history books about the metal scene and the karinding, Kimung is now working at the Atap Foundation, a media centre that teaches youth film, animation, and music recording. He is now in a new stage of his “karinding campaign”, where he is not only influencing youth to embrace the instrument, but helping them develop a wider array of skills in order to make art about it and use it to tell more distinctly Sundanese stories.

He has acted as the producer of several animated films, documentaries, a karinding compilation album of different bands, and of course, his book The History of Karinding in Priangan (2019)—note the blackletter font on the book cover.

Finally, he has his sights set on integrating karinding into the mainstream, forming a karinding orchestra and spearheading a collaboration between that group and a Western-style orchestra, experimenting with different tunings in order to make the instrument playable with a wider array of instruments (including different styles of gamelan) and finally, working on an application to get the Sundanese karinding registered with UNESCO as Intangible Cultural Heritage.

Some may wonder if he has outgrown his metal roots, so it’s worth noting that he has done all of this using his same social media handle: @kimun666

Kimung is not the only Rebel whose work with karinding has moved further afield. Man Jasad is now working as a cultural ambassador with the local government to preserve Sundanese arts in his region of West Java. Despite moving into local politics, like Kimung he still centers his identity as a metalhead, as you can see in this screenshot from an Instagram video of him playing karinding in a sacred spring while wearing a metal shirt.

He captioned the video with the same Sundanese phrase seen on the tshirt on the right, which translates as “awaken the senses”. Note the meditative pose and demeanour in both images. This echoes the sentiment that playing karinding, whether you’re a metalhead or not, is ultimately about reconnecting with yourself and finding an existential anchor, a throughline to a sense of self, history, and eternal present. And strong, connected selves are precisely what is required in order to refuse and resist the constant onslaught of hegemonic forces that are designed to separate us from who we are, in order to make us compliant and complicit in power structures that threaten our very survival.

Today I’ve shown how the Sundanese embrace of metal—not as something foreign but as something that already aesthetically and timbrally made sense—led to the revival of a local traditional instrument. Importantly, the karinding case is not folk metal, it’s a folk revival that has emerged from metal.

During the first keynote panel of the 2025 ISMMS conference in Seville, Nelson Varas-Diaz asked: what have we missed and overlooked in metal studies? This presentation suggests that the relationship between metal scenes and folk revivals could be one of those areas. Can we shift the frame to include not just the music that bands make but the impacts they have on their communities? How do bands who incorporate folk instruments influence the wider understanding of those traditions?

I’ll end by asking the audience, can you think of any other examples of folk revivals that have come out of a metal scene? I welcome your questions and comments!

Works Cited

Bithell, Caroline, and Juniper Hill, eds. 2014. The Oxford Handbook of Music Revival. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Groth, S. K., & Bubandt, N. (2024). Noise Without Noise: Art Interventions in a Southeast Asian City. In InterNoise 2024: Proceedings of the 53rd International Congress and Exposition on Noise Control Engineering: 1-11.

Kimung. 2019. Sejarah Karinding Priangan. Minor Books.

Kimung. 2022. The Dynamics of Karinding in West Java. Journal of the International Jew’s Harp Society 7: 22-33.

Monteanni, Luigi. 2025. “Extreme Traditions: On Bandung’s Intergenerational Sonic Ecologies.” CTM Festival Magazine. https://www.ctm-festival.de/magazine/extreme-traditions-on-bandungs-inter-generational-sonic-ecologies.

Monteanni, Luigi. 2025. “Extreme Traditions: On Bandung’s Intergenerational Sonic Ecologies.” CTM Festival Magazine. https://www.ctm-festival.de/magazine/extreme-traditions-on-bandungs-inter-generational-sonic-ecologies.

Spiller, Henry. 2023. Archaic Instruments in Modern West Java: Bamboo Murmurs. SOAS Studies in Music. New York: Routledge, 2023.

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This presentation is based on a chapter from a book project about the global phenomenon of jaw harps being used in metal music, co-authored with Owen Coggins and contracted with Routledge/Ashgate

It’s been in development since 2020. In 2022, we co-taught a seminar on it at VCC and we presented an overview at the ISMMS conference in Mexico City. Today’s presentation is our first time presenting on a single chapter in detail.

But first, let’s revisit some of the main themes and associations that make jaw harps and metal a particularly rich intersection to explore. It’s worth pointing out that these associations are not consistent in every single jaw harp tradition, but they are frequently seen in our particular case studies

Bandung, West Java is one of the largest metal scenes in the world.

The term “Sundanese” refers to the ethno-linguistic group which is dominant in this region of the island (shown on the second map in orange). Ujungberung district on the northeastern side of Bandung city is dubbed locally as “Metal Village”, and is regarded by many as the birthplace of the Indonesian metal scene.The “Ujungberung Rebels” community has produced hundreds of bands and a vibrant underground scene since the 1980s comprised of independent recording studios, cassette trading, amateur radio, zines, and metal festivals.

Indonesia’s unofficial “Big Four” metal bands are notably ALL from Bandung: Burgerkill, Jasad, Forgotten, and Beside. Other well-known Bandung bands include: Siksakubur, Turbidity, Kaluman, Gugat, Undergod, and many, many others.

This photo encapsulates the themes of today’s presentation: how traditional and metal signifiers coexist in Bandung and articulate a Sundanese modernity that is both hyperlocal and cosmopolitan. Today I’ll be discussing how the Sundanese karinding revival occupies a special place in global metal: it is the only case study in our book, and to our knowledge, in which a jaw harp revival has emerged from an underground metal scene.

So, how did we get here?

I want to start by using Groth & Bubandt’s term “Javafuturism” to problematize applying the Western concept of “noise” to music in Indonesia. Whereas “noise” music in the West was conceived as an explicit break from the conventions of homophonic harmony, tonality, and form, […] In Indonesia, the texture of court music in Java and Bali in particular was characterized, not by linear melody, but by heterophonic texture and microtonality. (Groth and Bubandt 2024, 7)

So, in a place where cyclical layers of texture and timbre and relative pitch centres reign supreme over harmony, linearity, and standardized pitch, what does noise even mean? What is noise aesthetics in a place where everything is “noisy”?

Groth and Bubandt argue that in Java, noise is not a discreet genre:

“What later goes under the umbrella term “noise music” in Indonesia, is an assembly of experiments in the creative DIY scene of newly democratizing Indonesia […] Combining heavy metal, rock, punk, artistic experiments, media art, and political protest, noise music was a “street-level” phenomenon associated with political protest and a youth movement rather than a rarified artistic genre.” (ibid, 8)

Further, they point out that many Indonesian noise music artists told them that: “gamelan, particularly in its village performances with their vivid overtones, microtonalities and frequencies, is also noise.” (ibid, 8)

So there is a sonic pre-disposition here that has contributed to the largescale embrace of heavily distorted genres like metal. But again, the concept of "distortion" in this context falls short, as it implies the ruination of a pure signal, rather than an aesthetic preference for timbre, texture, and overtones. In other words, what is considered noisy and oppositional to the West, may actually just fit right in on Java, with metal arriving not as a foreign export or harbinger of cultural imperialism, but as something already somehow deeply familiar, relevant, and engrained.

We also see this aesthetic in the DIY amateur radio scene, which was a beloved hobby of 80s and 90s Indonesian youth before the era of cellphones, and played a direct role in the development of the underground metal scene in Bandung.

Brik-brikan radio, literally “crackle” or “noise” radio, refers to the DIY FM transmitters that was hugely popular in and around Bandung. The Sundanese term “Ngebrik” literally means making noise or making a fuss, and the radios, with their resolutely exposed circuitboards are still referred to as Brik FM, literally “noise FM”.

What is incredible is that several of the first generation metalheads who would go on to form the Ujungberung Rebels community actually bonded through this hobby. As a blog post by Obozs reports: “Dinan (Necromancy) first met Uwo-Agus (Funeral) from jamming brik-brikan. [...] The members of Monster were brik-brikan addicts. They talked about music, exchanged information, and finally met, formed a band, and built a community.”

Kimung, top right, was a founding member of Monster, the original bassist for Burgerkill, and a founder of Karinding Attack, who I’ll discuss shortly. He is now a historian of the Bandung metal scene and a karinding activist and educator.

In interview, he told me that he and his friends had a schoolteacher who taught them how to make their own radios, and recalled running cables to antennas outside their bedroom windows and finding ways to jam the button down on the CB microphone so that it could be placed in front of the speaker of a cassette player, and used to broadcast the latest tapes to each other over the air.

Now, a huge amount of additional noise and distortion was introduced to the music through this sharing process: the white noise of the radio medium itself was enhanced by the fact that they were usually broadcasting over the lowest frequencies on the FM dial that were not being used by commercial stations because the reception was so poor (the low 80s). However, this was not an impediment to the youth at all—quite the opposite, the distortion was prized as being fun and part of the experience.

Kimung recalled hearing Sonic Youth for the first time over Brik radio, and thinking that it was an extreme noise band. When he finally heard the clean studio recording, he said, “oh THAT’s what they sound like?” So Brik radio basically made everything sound more metal, including metal and things that weren’t metal!

Amazingly, these distorted pirate broadcasts came to the attention of the owners of the local private radio station, and according to Kimung were part of the impetus to turn it into the first dedicated rock music station in Indonesia. These broadcasts were part of a body of evidence, along with zines, bootleg cassettes, and underground venues, that heavy music was something Bandung wanted to hear.

It’s in this sonic environment that Sepultura enters the chat.

In the 1980s & 90s, Thrash metal was a huge influence on the first generation of Bandung metal bands, several of which actually started as Sepultura cover bands before moving on to write their own material. Bandung bands related to Sepultura not just sonically but thematically with regards to indigeneity and post-colonial experiences of identity reconstruction.

Luigi Monteanni (2025) quotes Addy Gembel from Forgotten: “The first time I heard Sepultura […] They are from Brazil! A third world country. They have social problems… So many problems, and they were expressing it in their music. […] And that related with my life, with my experience of Ujungberung.”

Sepultura’s 1996 Roots album was particularly influential. First, it employed the use of the berimbau, an Afrodiasporic musical bow that has become an emblem of Brazilian national identity through the mid-twentieth resurgence of capoeira. Interestingly, it produces a similar buzzing timbre to a jaw harp and has been frequently mistaken for one by listeners over the album’s 3-decade history. Sepultura's use of a berimbau on the album resulted in a surge of interest in the instrument both at home and abroad, as well as an interest in incorporating traditional instruments into metal in general.

By the early 2000s, the second and third generations of Bandung metal bands were well established and some were already starting to collaborate with local traditions.

Karinding Attack appeared on the scene in 2008, taking these developments quite a few steps further with a sound they called “heavy bamboo” or “bamboo-core”. Founded by Kimung from Monster and Burgerkill and lead singer Man from Jasad, the group started a trend in Bandung and dozens of similar bands were formed over the next several years.

This post is continued in Part 2 below!

Works Cited

Bithell, Caroline, and Juniper Hill, eds. 2014. The Oxford Handbook of Music Revival. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Groth, S. K., & Bubandt, N. (2024). Noise Without Noise: Art Interventions in a Southeast Asian City. In InterNoise 2024: Proceedings of the 53rd International Congress and Exposition on Noise Control Engineering: 1-11.

Kimung. 2019. Sejarah Karinding Priangan. Minor Books.

Kimung. 2022. The Dynamics of Karinding in West Java. Journal of the International Jew’s Harp Society 7: 22-33.

Monteanni, Luigi. 2025. “Extreme Traditions: On Bandung’s Intergenerational Sonic Ecologies.” CTM Festival Magazine. https://www.ctm-festival.de/magazine/extreme-traditions-on-bandungs-inter-generational-sonic-ecologies.

Monteanni, Luigi. 2025. “Extreme Traditions: On Bandung’s Intergenerational Sonic Ecologies.” CTM Festival Magazine. https://www.ctm-festival.de/magazine/extreme-traditions-on-bandungs-inter-generational-sonic-ecologies.

Spiller, Henry. 2023. Archaic Instruments in Modern West Java: Bamboo Murmurs. SOAS Studies in Music. New York: Routledge, 2023.

Share Harp Nerds

I’m a Canadian ethnomusicologist, musician, and educator, and jaw harps are my special interest. I’ve been researching, playing, and travelling the world in search of this instrument and the people who are passionate about it for the past 20 years.

I found my first jaw harp lying on the floor of a friend’s house in 2005. I thought it was a bike tool. After being told it was a musical instrument that was impossible to play, I immediately took to Google. Not knowing what it was called, I searched for “twangy mouth instrument” and within moments was introduced to a world of fascinating people, festivals, and events devoted to this tiny object. Things escalated quickly from there. Already in the midst of a pivot back to music after quitting classical piano to study world literature and film for several years, I enrolled in an ethnomusicology course and never looked back. In ethnomusicology, all of my interdisciplinary interests and yearning to see the connections between things from a multifaceted perspective finally found a home.

Deeply immersed in the Balinese gamelan scene at UBC, I completed 9 weeks of fieldwork in Bali in 2007 and wrote my MA thesis on the Balinese jaw harp genggong. It was this experience that made me want to continue pursuing ethnomusicology and jaw harp studies. I took a break from academia and worked as a marketing assistant, stage manager, and a host of other administrative roles in the classical and choral music scenes in Vancouver. Here I gained valuable skills and experience and got to work with many excellent musicians, venues, and colleagues.

At the same time, my interest in the jaw harp remained constant. From 2007 onwards, I attended the North American Jew’s Harp Festival in Bay City, Oregon, eventually leading the event for its final two years. In 2010, I took a 5 week tour of European jaw harp festivals, and met many people who would go on to become lifelong harp friends. In 2011, I embarked on a life-changing trip to Russia, where I attended the 7th International Jew’s Harp Congress in Yakutsk (Siberia). Here, we set the Guinness World Record for Largest Jew’s Harp Ensemble with 1344 players all twanging simultaneously (see video below). This experience was transformative, and convinced me that the scale of the international jaw harp community had reached a critical mass that warranted further study and documentation.

After several years of supporting other artists, I was finally ready to return to academia to continuing pursuing my unwavering curiosity about these instruments and the people who loved and valued them as much as I did. In 2012, I moved to London and began a PhD on the global jaw harp revival at SOAS, University of London. My fieldwork took me across Europe multiple times, with a special focus on the harp communities in Norway, Austria, and Sicily. My PhD years were some of my most fulfilling and fertile, immersing me in the world music scene in London, a group of amazing colleagues at SOAS, and frequent trips to incredible festivals across Europe, all of which led to my exponential growth as a scholar and musician.

I moved back to Vancouver and began my post-secondary teaching career, where I have spent the past 10 years honing my skills as a music educator specializing in ethnomusicology, pop music history, and digital marketing for musicians. My mission as an instructor is to spark curiosity and the same inquisitive spirit I have for the jaw harp in my students, creating an environment where they can explore and activate their inner music nerd. Now on sabbatical for the first time in a decade, I’m returning to my own forever obsession.

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What to expect

Gems from the archive

So far my jaw harp travels have taken me to Bali, Russia, Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Germany, Austria, Italy, France, Norway, the US, and the UK, with more trips planned in future. I have an archive of unpublished notes, videos, and audio recordings from my years of festival and fieldwork trips waiting to be shared here.

Highlights from my current book project

I’m on sabbatical from teaching so that I can work on the book I’m co-authoring with metal scholar Owen Coggins: Jew’s Harps and Metal Music: Folk Traditions in Global Modernity. The jaw harp appears on over 200 metal albums, and in more than 300 metal tracks, by bands from over a dozen countries, spanning Nordic and Baltic regions, Patagonia, Central Asia, Eastern Europe, Indonesia and more. Get nuggets of the latest discoveries from our research in real time, as we go!

Sneak peaks of new music

I’m also embarking on a new music project using jaw harps and the vintage Line 6 DL4 pedal. I’m loving the process of exploring the strange combinations made possible when these two archaic technologies encounter one another. This year is all about creativity and expression and reconnecting with the things that brings me joy, so expect clips of new arrangements and original pieces. I’m aiming to show more of the creative process and less perfection.

Interviews and a podcast?!

Eventually, I hope to include interviews with fellow harp nerds here! I want to use this space to connect, build, and strengthen relationships. Please reach out if this is something you’d be interested in.

I’m still figuring out my capacity and rhythm, so expect one or two posts a month for now. At the moment, free subscribers get access to all posts. In future, I may offer additional perks (like educational content or group hangout sessions or whatever feels fun and interesting), but for now all the content is all-access.

A huge part of my interest has always been the people behind the instrument: players, makers, enthusiasts, nerds, scholars, weirdos, iconoclasts. The jaw harp community represents a place where I can be myself and talk shop about my favourite subject without having to justify anything. I’ve gone to great lengths to attend festivals and meet other harpers around the world, and I’ve always felt that harp nerds are my people.

This newsletter is a place for me to share my passion with likeminded people in a casual, conversational format, and bring my material to a wider audience. Until now, my work has only been available in academic formats. Substack allows me to combine all the best aspects of an email newsletter, a permanent blog with a searchable archive, and a place to host podcasts and conversations. I’m tired of algorithms that bury content and don’t let me connect with who and what I want to see anymore.

More than anything, I want to create some real connection here and I truly hope you’ll subscribe and feel like this is a welcoming space where you can interact, leave comments, and ask questions.