•  
  •  
 

Abstract

This article develops the concept of “appreciative commoning” to focus on the importance of appreciation in musical community practices. By examining the practices of musical knowledge-sharing in the Earhouse Songwriting Club (ESC), a songwriting community, this article argues that greater attention should be paid to the roles of appreciation and support in facilitating media and cultural commoning in Indonesia. The article draws on ethnographic fieldwork in Earhouse, an initiative space located in Pamulang, South Tangerang, established by the musician duo Endah N Rhesa. Exploring three main activities of the community: weekly meetings, monthly showcases, and afterparties, I show how embracing appreciation is a crucial act in sharing musical knowledge among members of ESC. Throughout the article, I contextualize ESC practices by examining Pamulang’s urban context, Endah N Rhesa’s personal motivation, members’ opinions, and the specific mechanisms and articulations that influence them. Lastly, I situate the ESC practices against the growing acts of musical gatekeeping, particularly musical snobbery, that stifle musical knowledge-sharing in the Indonesian music scene. I argue that ESC’s appreciative commoning counters this musical gatekeeping by creating a form of communitas in which musical knowledge is shared equally through appreciative gestures. Although the concept requires further application in other contexts, appreciative commoning offers a perceptive focus on how humans interact through the arts and music.

References

Adyuta, Arya. 2024. “Making music together”, Inside Indonesia: The Peoples and Cultures of Indonesia, 19 March. [Retrieved from: https://www.insideindonesia.org/archive/articles/making-music-together.]

Akbar, Bani. 2023. “Polisi skena si paling musik dengan superiornya, maunya apa?”, Kumparan, 28 February. [Retrieved from: https://kumparan.com/184_-bani-akbar/polisi-skena-si-paling-musik-dengan-superiornya-maunya-apa-1ztErDAcXff.]

Andan, Mirwan. 2011. ”All for Jakarta – a note on the tenth anniversary of ruangrupa; Decompression #10, expanding the space and public”, Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 12(4): 591-602. Article 4. [DOI: 10.1080/14649373.2011.603921.]

Anderson, Esther R. 2021. “Positionality, privilege, and possibility; The ethnographer ‘at home‘ as an uncomfortable insider“, Anthropology and Humanism 46 (18 May). [DOI: 10.1111/anhu.12326.]

Arief, Anto. 2023. “5 Pertanyaan: Endah n Rhesa, dan lagu-lagu kota kecil”, Pophariini, 4 February. [Retrieved from: https://pophariini.com/pop-life/5-pertanyaan-endah-n-rhesa-dan-lagu-lagu-kota-kecil.]

Baulch, Emma. 2007. Making scenes; Reggae, punk, and death metal in 1990s Bali. Durham: Duke University Press.

Baulch, Emma. 2020. Genre publics; Popular music, technologies, and class in Indonesia. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.

Bonini, Tiziano and Alessandro Gandini. 2019. “’First week is editorial, second week is algorithmic’; Platform gatekeepers and the platformization of music curation”, Social Media + Society 5(4): 205630511988000. [DOI: 10.1177/2056305119880006.]

Borchi, Alice. 2018. “Culture as commons; Theoretical challenges and empirical evidence from occupied cultural spaces in Italy”, Cultural Trends 27(1): 33-45. [DOI: 10.1080/09548963.2018.1415410.]

Bruhn, Katherine L. 2013. “Art and youth culture of the post-Reformasi era; Social engagement, alternative expression, and the public sphere in Yogyakarta”. MA thesis Asian Studies, Ohio University. [Retrieved from: http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num= ohiou1364899327.]

Budianta, Melani. 2019. “Smart kampung: doing cultural studies in the Global South”, Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 16(3): 241-256. [DOI: 10.1080/14791420.2019.1650194.]

Crosby, Alexandra. 2013. Festivals in Java; Localising cultural activism and environmental politics, 2005-2010. PhD thesis, University of Technology Sydney.

Dahl, Sonja. 2016. “Nongkrong and non-productive time in Yogyakarta’s contemporary arts”, PARSE Journal 4: 107-119. [DOI: 10.70733/6ekwd92hdfiw.]

Darmawan, Ade. 2022. “Berakar dan menjalar; Lumbung sebagai model ekonomi dan estetika organisasi seni”. [Paper, Cultural Speech by Dewan Kesenian Jakarta, the Jakarta Arts Council, Jakarta, 10 November.]

De Angelis, Massimo. 2017. Omnia Sunt Communia. London: Zed Books.

Elliott, David J. 1991. “Music as knowledge”, Journal of Aesthetic Education 25(3), Article 3. [DOI: 10.2307/3332993.]

Elliott, David J. 1995. Music matters; A new philosophy of music education. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Endah N Rhesa. n.d. “About”, Endah N Rhesa Official Website. [Retrieved from http://www.endahnrhesa.com/about.]

Finnegan, Ruth. 2007. The hidden musicians; Music-making in an English town. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.

Geertz, Clifford. 1962. “The rotating credit association; A ‘middle rung’ in development”, Economic Development and Cultural Change 10(3): 241-263. [DOI: 10.1086/449960.]

Harvey, David. 2012. Rebel cities; From the right to the city to the urban revolution. London: Verso.

Hatley, Barbara. 2012. “Performing identity and community in Indonesia in modern times”, ACCESS: Contemporary Issues in Education 31(2): 104-114. Article 2.

Hess, Charlotte and Elinor Ostrom (eds). 2007. Understanding knowledge as a commons; From theory to practice. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Hough, Brett. 2015. “Balinese cultural communities and scenes”, in: Barbara Hatley and Brett Hough (eds), Performing contemporary Indonesia; Celebrating community, constructing identity, pp. 120-146. Leiden: Brill.

Iqbal A.R. 2020. “Menjadi music snob itu nggak ada keren-kerennya!”, Terminal Mojok, 27 February. [Retrieved from: https://mojok.co/terminal/menjadi-music-snob-itu-nggak-ada-keren-kerennya.]

Juliastuti, Nuraini. 2009. “Alternative space as new cultural movement; Landscape of creativity”, KUNCI Study Forum and Collective, 7 October. [Retrieved from: https:// www.kunci.or.id/articles/alternative-space-as-new-cultural-movement-landscape-of-creativity.]

Juliastuti, Nuraini. 2012. “Ruangrupa: a conversation on horizontal organisation”, Afterall Journal 30 (7 June). [Interview between Nuraini Juliastuti and Ade Darmawan.] [Retrieved from https://www.afterall.org/article/ruangrupa-a-conversation-on-horizontal-organisation.]

Juliastuti, Nuraini. 2018. “Limits of sharing and materialization of support; Indonesian Net Label Union”, Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 19(1): 87-102. [DOI: 10.1080/14649373.2018.1422343.]

Juliastuti, Nuraini. 2019. Commons people; Managing music and culture in contemporary Yogyakarta. PhD thesis, Leiden University.

KBBI. 2016a. “Apresiasi”, KBBI Daring. Badan Pengembangan dan Pembinaan Bahasa, Kementerian Pendidikan Dasar dan Menengah Republik Indonesia. [Retrieved from: https://kbbi.kemendikdasmen.go.id/entri/apresiasi.]

KBBI. 2016b. “Suportif”, KBBI Daring. Badan Pengembangan dan Pembinaan Bahasa, Kementerian Pendidikan Dasar dan Menengah Republik Indonesia. [Retrieved from: https://kbbi.kemendikdasmen.go.id/entri/suportif.]

Kurniawan, Agung. 2012. “Bukan cinta semalam; Organisasi seni rupa, seniman dan hubungannya dengan negara”, in: Hafiz and Ronny Agustinus (eds), Siasat; Seni rupa dan budaya kontemporer di Indonesia, pp. 11-25. Jakarta: ruangrupa.

Kusno, Abidin. 2020. “Middling urbanism; The megacity and the kampung”, Urban Geography 41(7): 954-970. [DOI: 10.1080/02723638.2019.1688535.]

Leeuwen, Lizzy van. 2011. Lost in mall; An ethnography of middle-class Jakarta in the 1990s. Leiden: KITLV press. [Verhandelingen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 255.]

Luvaas, Brent. 2009. “Dislocating sounds; The deterritorialization of Indonesian Indie pop”, Cultural Anthropology 24(2): 246-279. [DOI: 10.1111/j.1548-1360.2009.01131.x.]

Musonda, James. 2023. “Gatekeeping through music; A case of the Patriotic Front in Zambia”, Africa Spectrum 58(1): 21-37. [DOI: 10.1177/00020397231158123.]

Ostrom, Elinor. 1990. Governing the commons. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Prawirosusanto, Khidir M. and Eliesta Handitya. 2019. “Kolektif sebagai institusi kebudayaan alternatif di perkotaan Jawa; Telaah infrastruktur sosial”, Antropologi Indonesia 40(2), Article 2. [DOI: 10.7454/ai.v40i2.13006.]

Purwoadi, Bagus. (ed.). 2021. Mengeja Fixer 2021; Pembacaan kolektif seni Indonesia dalam sepuluh tahun terakhir. Jakarta: Yayasan Gudskul Studi Kolektif.

Reza, Muchamad. A. 2025. “Mahasiswa Jatim di PTN Jogja; Jadi goblok perkara beda selera musik, dicap ‘rendahan’ hanya karena tak tahu Perunggu-FSTVLST”, Mojok.co., 18 August. [Retrieved from: https://mojok.co/liputan/ragam/kuliah-di-ptn-jogja-jadi-goblok-karena-selera-musik.]

Richter, Max. 2012. Musical worlds in Yogyakarta. Leiden: KITLV press.

Santagata, W., Bertacchini, E., Bravo, G., and Marrelli, M. 2011. “Cultural commons and cultural communities”. [Paper, Thirteenth Biennial Conference of the International Association for the Study of the Commons, 10 January.] [Retrieved from: http://hdl.handle.net/10535/7359.]

Stavrides, Stavros. 2016. Common space; The city as commons. London: Zed Books.

Swaragita, Gisela. 2021. “The ‘ngab’ era; Indonesia’s ‘bro culture’ aims for manliness without toxicity”, The Jakarta Post, 24 August. [Retrieved from: https://www.thejakartapost.com/life/2021/08/24/the-ngab-era-indonesias-bro-culture-aims-for-manliness-without-toxicity.html.]

Swastika, Alia. 2015. “Audiences and arts spaces in Jakarta post-1998”, in: Barbara Hatley and Brett Hough (eds), Performing contemporary Indonesia; Celebrating community, constructing identity, pp. 221-236. Leiden: Brill.

Turner, Victor. 1977. The ritual process; Structure and anti-structure. New York, NY: Cornell University Press.

Volont, L., T. Lijster, and P. Gielen.. 2022. “Cultural commoning in the city”, in: L. Volont, T. Lijster, and P. Gielen (eds), The rise of the common city; On the culture of commoning, pp. 15-32. Brussel: Academic and Scientific Publishers. [DOI: 10.46944/9789461173492.]

Wallach, Jeremy. 2002. “Exploring class, nation, and xenocentrism in Indonesian cassette retail outlets”, Indonesia 74: 79-102. [DOI: 10.2307/3351527.]

Wallach, Jeremy. 2008. Modern noise, fluid genres; Popular music in Indonesia, 1997-2001. Madison WI: University of Wisconsin Press.

Interview

Andin. (31-12-2022). [In-person.]

Andin. (15-2-2023). [In-person.]

Ashry. (14-2-2023). [In-person.]

Bhisma. (22-1-2023). [Online interview.]

Dodo. (19-2-2023). [In-person.]

Vanessa. (27-2-2023). [In-person.]

Widiastuti, E. (9-1-2023). [In-person.]

Widiastuti, E. (13-2-2023). [In-person.]

Download

Share

COinS