Street Music at Jakarta’s Taman Suropati

Every city has so many secrets that are never seen by the typical traveler, either due to being on a short time leash or because it is not too popular. My urge to explore and the tip of a local Indonesian friend took me to Taman Suropati park in Central Jakarta. This is one of those places that locals visit to see street musicians in action.


On a Saturday night, these street, musicians play and enthrall the crowd, while on Sunday morning, they teach music to kids. I missed the Saturday show, but was there on a rainy afternoon to see scores of kids protecting their violins, guitars and other musical instruments from the rain.


As soon as the rains stopped, all of them got ready and multiple classes in different parts of the park got into motion. I came to know that these were different classes based on the skill level of the students. Some of them were beginners while the others were taking advanced courses.


While some were learning how to play the violin, the others were learning the guitar and all of these in the company of street musicians. It was great to see street musicians share their love for music with the interested kids for free.


Apart from seeing these street kids in action, you could also see local Indonesians bring their pets to the park. There were pythons, iguanas and rare creatures from Kalimantan, Molucca and Papua, the names of which I don’t even know.