Sabah Traditional Musical Instruments The sompogogungan accompanies the sumazau, a

festive and ritual dance like the magarang but slower in

The music of Sabah is intimately bound up with the daily tempo. The Kadazan Dusuns also play dunsai, a type of
lives and cultural traditions of the diverse ethnic cultures gong music, at funerals.
of Sabah. It can be found in many forms like ritual music
(for birth, marriages, harvest festivals, deaths) love
music, battle songs, story telling songs, among others. KULINTANGAN

For example, the Kadasan Dusun Bobohizan or Bobolian

(or high priestess) engages in ritual chanting to appease
the spirit in times disaster like floods or droughts. Also,
music and dancing are closely linked: the festive dances
like the Limbai of the Bajaus and Sumazau of the
Penampang Kadazans have distinctive wedding music. In
fact, in most Sabahan ethnic groups, song, dance and
the accompanying music are, in the main, inseperable as
each element is a part of an organic whole, which
permeates the lives of the natives.

This is reflected in the music’s significance to festive and
commemorative occasions and as a means of personal
expression and entertainment. Experience, then, the
intensifying power of the gong ensembles, the rhythmic
tung, tung, tung harmonies of the togunggak, the
healing musical balm of the suling.
The following traditional musical instruments of the
various Sabahan ethnic groups are divided according to
the way in which they work:
Is frequently included amongst coastal gong ensembles
though it is also found amongst interior natives like the
Labuk-Kinabatangan Kadazans and the Paitanic peoples
(both from the eastern Sabah) who have come into
contract with the coastal natives.
These idiophones produce predominantly ritual Music:
The Tatana Dusun of Kuala Penyu (Southwestern Sabah)
employ kulintangan music, and sumayau dancing, as
well as unaccompanied by ritual chanting in Moginum
rites to welcome the spirits.

IDIOPHONES: Instruments made with materials which
produce sounds when scraped, rubbed, hit and without
further intervention of other materials.
GONG ENSEMBLES
The Lotud-Dusun of Tuaran (west Coast of Sabah) use
gong ensembles in the slow sedate mongigol dance for
the seven-day Rumaha rites which honour the spirits of
sacred skulls and the five-day Mangahau rites which
honour possessed jars.
TOGUNGGAK (Interior Dusuns)
TOGUNGGU (Penampang Kadazan dusun) &
TAGUNGGAK (Muruts).

In older times before gongs were traded into Sabah, the

togunggak was used to accompany dancing and in
procession. It was and still is made of bamboo, which
flourishes in most parts of Sabah. Bamboo is a great
source of raw materials for Sabah’s musical instruments.

Are the most prevalent of Sabah’s indiophones, found
throughout most parts of Sabah especially amongst the
Kadazan Dusuns and Muruts.
The gongs are made of brass or bronze and were
originally traded in from Brunei in earlier times. Usually
they are thick with a broad rim. They produce a muffled
sound of a deep tone.
The togunggak consists of a series of hollowed out
bamboo tubes of varying sizes of the gongs. The music
produced is a hollow and rhythmic tung, tung, tung
sound of different pitches in each of the different sizes.
The togunggak is played by a troupe of a dozen or so
people in lieu of the gong ensemble.

The sopogandangan from the enterior (of the Tambunan

Kadazan Dusuns) accompanies the magarang, usually in
commemoration of harvest festival and weddings though
traditionally the magarang was associated with
headhunting.

The sopogandangan has more instruments (nine-eight

gongs and one drum) than the sompogogungan (seven-
six gongs and one drum) from coastal Penampang and
used by the Kadazan Dusuns there. (This does not
include the popular kulintangan).
MEMBRANOPHONES: Instruments where a membrane
is stretched across a hallow body (the ‘resonator’) and
then made to vibrate by rubbing/hitting.
DRUMS
Usually found in gong ensemble. They produce a
distinctive rhythmic musical pattern, leading to the
festive dances which they accompany an air of urgency
or heightened sense of excitement as the case may be.
Single-headed drums come mainly from the interior. For
example, the tontog of the Rungus or the karatung of
the Tambunan Kadazan Dusuns.
Double headed drums are found in coastal areas as well
as the interior, for example, the gandang of the bajau.
The membranes covering the drumheads used to be
made of goat or deer skin, or cowhide.
CHORDOPHONES: Consist of Chord and Resonator.
Vibrations are produced when the chord is scraped by a
bow or plucked with fingers and amplified by a resonator
(unsually a hollow compartment).
TONGKUNGON
Prevalent mainly amongst the Kadazan Dusun in
Tambunan, Penampang and Tuaran. It is made from a
large bamboo tube with thin strips cut in its surface to
form its strings, which can be tuned with tiny pieces of
wood/ cane at each end of the tongkungon. The names
and number of this string correspond to the main gongs.
Though it is mainly played solo and for personal
entertainment, its music can accompany dance in the
absence of gong ensembles.
SUNDATANG
A long-necked strummed lute found amongst Dusunic
peoples. It is made of jackfruit wood two or three brass
strings.
The sundatang of the Penampang Kadazan Dusun, the
Lotud-Dusun (who call it gagayan) and the Rungus are
more widely played than that of the Kadazan Dusuns of
Tambunan. The Tambunan sundatang has a small body
and a neck over one metre long.
It can be played for personal entertainment or as a
dance accompaniment (in the Tambunan magarang and
in Tuaran where it is sometimes played in pairs).
AEROPHONES: Instruments with a column of air within
a cylinder or cone. The sound is produced when this air
is vibrate by the player’s lips or nose or a single/double
reed or by air passing across the top of the tube.
Sabah’s aerophones are mainly played solo and for
personal pleasure.
SULING
Short bamboo mouth flute brown from the end with
fives holes ( Tambunan ) or six holes (Penampang). The
sound produced is soothing.
TURALI Bamboo Nose flute SOMPOTON

This is common to Dusunic communities. The Tambunan

Kadazan Dusuns call it turali or turahi whilst in
Penampang, it is called tuahi. It is widely played for
personal entertainment, except in Penampang and the
central part of Tambunan where it expresses grief after a
death.
The story behind the origin of the turali is that once
upon a time there was a man who had 7 sons and no
daughters. When both parents died due to some illness,
the sons were very grieved. However, as men and
warriors, they could not cry. To express their great
sorrow and grief for the death of their parents, they
made and played the turali.
BUNGKAU
Traditional this was from Kampung Tikolod, Tambunan.
It is now prevalent among Dusuns and some Muruts.
It is made of a double raft of eight bamboo pipes
inserted into a gourd. Inside the gourd seven of the
pipes have small polod palm lamellae or sodi inserted
into their sides and kept in place by beeswax ofr sopinit.
The eighth soundless pipe is stopped up with sopinit.
The player blows and sucks air through the gourd
mouthpiece to activate the sodi. The musical sound
produced can be likened to a cross between the sounds
from a conventional mouth organ and a bagpipe, minus
the latters’ shrillness. Often it is played solo, for
personal expression.

Source:
Sabah Tourism Promotion Corporation
http://www.sabahtravelguide.com/culture/default.ASP?p
age=musical_instruments

Bungkau Jew’s Harp (Uriding, Lotud-Dusuns) is widely

found throughout Sabah. Made from polod palm wood.
It is small and is held between the teeth. Its central
lamella vibrates when the end of the instrument is hit.
The sound is then resonated by the mouth to produce a
wide spectrum of sounds.

It is versalite as a device to attract edible lizards, in

farewell and battle songs, for post rice harvesting
celebrations and to imitate gong ensemble music.