Sasando is a harp

Harp

The harp is a multi-stringed instrument which has the plane of its strings positioned perpendicularly to the soundboard. Organologically, it is in the general category of chordophones and has its own sub category . All harps have a neck, resonator and strings...

-like traditional music string instrument

String instrument

A string instrument is a musical instrument that produces sound by means of vibrating strings. In the Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification, used in organology, they are called chordophones...

 native of Rote

Rote

Rote can refer to:*Crwth, a Welsh instrument*Rote learning*Rote Island, an island in Indonesia*Return on tangible equity, an economic concept...

 island of East Nusa Tenggara

East Nusa Tenggara

East Nusa Tenggara is a province of Indonesia, located in the eastern portion of the Lesser Sunda Islands, including West Timor. The provincial capital is Kupang, located on West Timor...

, Indonesia

Indonesia

Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...

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The name ”sasando” derived from Rote dialect ”sasandu” means "vibrating" or "sounded instrument". It is believed that sasando already known to Rote people since 7th century.

The main part of sasando is a bamboo

Bamboo

Bamboo is a group of perennial evergreens in the true grass family Poaceae, subfamily Bambusoideae, tribe Bambuseae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family....

 tube that served as the frame of the instrument. Surrounded the tube is several wooden pieces served as wedges where the strings are stretched from the top to the bottom. The wedges function is to hold the strings higher than the tube surface and also to produce various length of strings to create different musical notations. The stringed bamboo tube is surrounded by a bag-like fan of dried lontar or palmyra leafs (Borassus flabellifer

Borassus flabellifer

Borassus flabellifer, the Asian Palmyra palm, Toddy palm, Sugar palm, or Cambodian palm, is native to South and Southeast Asia, in the Indomalaya ecozone...

), functioned as the resonator of the instrument. Sasando is played with both hands reaching into the stings on bamboo tube through lontar opening on the front, and the player's fingers plucked the strings in the fashion similar to playing harp or kacapi

Kacapi

Kacapi is a zither-like Sundanese musical instrument played as the main accompanying instrument in the Tembang Sunda or Mamaos Cianjuran, kacapi suling genre , pantun stories recitation or an additional instrument in Gamelan Degung performance.Word kacapi in Sundanese also refers to santol tree,...

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Sasando has 28 or 56 strings. The sasando with 28 strings called sasando engkel, and with 56 strings called double strings.

Legend

According to local tradition, the origin of Sasando was linked to folktale of Rote people about the tale of Sangguana. Once upon a time, there was a boy named Sangguana who lived in Rote Island. One day he tended to savannah. He felt tired and fell asleep under a palmyra tree. Sangguana dreamt that he played beautiful music with a unique instrument. The sound and the melody was so enchanting. Then he woke up, surprisingly Sangguana still remembered the tones he played in the dream. He wanted to hear it one more time, so he tried to sleep again. He dreamt the same song and same instrument. Sangguana was enjoying his dream, however he had to wake up. Did not want to lose those beautiful sounds, Sangguana tried to recreate the sounds and in no time created a music instrument from palmyra leafs with the strings in the middle, based on his memory from the dream.