The Creation of Clonzon's Clonzon Songs

"Clonzon" is an onomatopoeia in Malay, meaning the sound of metal pounding or the sound of feet ringing during a dance. It is a product of the fusion and mutation of two musical cultures, Portuguese and Indonesian.

Beginning with the term "clonzon" it referred to a small orchestra (consisting of mandolin, flute, small violin, guitar and cello for strumming, triangle, tambourine and 5-stringed small guitar). These small bands were already in the homes of wealthy Portuguese at the beginning of the 19th century, but they gradually spread out of the Portuguese settlements to all of Java, in the process absorbing elements of the local music, Kemeran music. The musicians of the band liked to play and sing a kind of Portuguese folk song called "Fado" (Fado), expressing their nostalgia for their homeland, and later this kind of song was also known as "Clonzon".