David's AW News: Guitar Village Collab!

Greetings from somewhere in central Java

Collaboration. That's a good, profound and important word. I'll explain below something I learned this week.

Last week I was telling you about being Independent in Indonesia, if you missed it you can catch up here.

So earlier this week Bondhan and I caught the morning Lion Air flight from Denpasar, Bali down to Yogyakarta in central Java, the main island of Indonesia. Lion air has a reputation of being bad, but our flight was up there as the most perfect and beautiful ever. The seats are the tightest gap you can imagine, but our air hostess spots my cramped long legs and moves me and Bondhan to the emergency exit row with views just before the wing.  Taking off and banking around over beautiful surf, overflying our beach office then flying west over all Bali and seeing the straits between Bali and Java. Spectacular views of the Ijen mountain with a vivid acid blue lake near it's peak but also live lava flow burning down a flank.

Fly down the north coast over the fabled Madura Island of the coast near the port city Surabya, then we bank left and fly across the island and land at the new Yogyakarta airport. It's a short but dramatic flight. This week in Java is the same.. in just a few short days way too much to report..

Right now we are in the beautiful city of Solo famous for textiles and clothes production.  It's in central Java and the people here are the most open, happy and friendly you can imagine. But there is one village nearby where that friendliness reaches a new level. Bondhan who is the right hand man of Ringo, our agent in Bali.. in another life is also a musician in an (occasional) heavy rock band. We actually met in the pandemic when he was trying patiently to teach me to play guitar. And since his hometown is near here naturally he knew about the Guitar village.

Despite it being very hot, we decided to walk the streets and see what we could find. People smile and say good morning and it seems quite natural to just walk into peoples homes, all of which are artisan home industry places in full swing. A guitar is quite a complicated thing and here no one person makes a guitar from start to finish, each street does a particular process. The frame shape is formed and glued on one street. Another fixes, treats and polishes the fret boards, another specialises in the necks.  It's fascinating and the friendly, open people invite you into their workshops and homes. We learn how many years and generations a family has been doing a process.. and they tell us openly how many they can produce in a day, and how much they sell on the part they do. One guy made just the body of Ukuleles and sold them for amazingly for about €8 per dozen.. a stack by his front door waiting for fellow collaborators to pick up.

Gradually as we move through the village, past Jackfruit laden trees. Lime groves and low hanging mangos, the place seems blessed by nature, we find the finishing part of town where artisans put everything together, string up the instruments, add all the details and deliver a finished product. There is music playing everywhere as people work, and people even playing guitars on a break.

Even though Java is Muslim, they have a huge love of music. Especially Heavy Metal and 1970/80's music. The President of Indonesia known as Jokowi is famously an AC/DC fan and plays a mean electric guitar. In a local BBQ restaurant in Yogyakarta we were entertained by buskers playing music from my childhood. Blur and the Beatles.

By popular request we had been planning to add ukuleles to our musical instruments range for a while, but the prices and quality we found in Bali didn't make sense.  The cheapest quality are mainly for decoration and get finished in Bali for the souvenir market.  Back in Europe they would not compete at the bottom end of the (Chinese factory made) market. Whichever way I sliced it the product didn't add up. But here we can buy much better quality direct from the artisans and sell into the mid market - a nice product.. Bondhan had found the best selling Ukulele brand on Shopee (Indonesian Amazon) with top reviews and impressive sales figures.. We happened upon a household making just Ukuleles and it turned out to be the very same.

Bonhan made this video of our experience.. with a glimpse of some of the other projects we have been working on.

The father was very proud of his young daughter who had set up the Shopee online store and direct sales to end users, clearly a big boon to the family business. Bondhan road tested their product, nice sound, great details, very playable.. he entertained us with a pretty good Bohemian Rhapsody rendition..   We asked how many they could make for us a month - turns out they have extended family who can help and we can get not a huge amount but enough to get started. Bondhan asked for better strings, an improved tuning mechanism (a little more cost) and he will redesign some of the details. I think we can get a damn good Artisan made product to the market at around £35 retail. But it will take time.. a few months before they start to arrive.

The Ukulele Family

The thing that impressed me most is how this village all works together.. in a beautiful friendly collaboration. Each playing their own part just like in a band to make beautiful music together.. but in this case beautiful musical instruments. More news from Java next week..

Meanwhile in Europe. it's all happening. More new stock keeps arriving.. And what better time than when we have special offers (until midnight 30/08). Check out the rest of the main back in stocks.. and the other NEW PRODUCTS.

Take care..as they say here Hati Hati!

David