181 The Musical Structure and Meaning of Go Laba in the Context of People’s Life Philosophy in Ngadha Culture, Flores, East Nusa Tenggara Florentianus Dopo 1 ,  Yudi Sukmayadi 2 1 School of Post Graduate, Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia 2 Department of Music Education, Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia Received: June 10, 2018. Revised: October 8, 2018. Accepted: December 19, 2018 Abstract Art is an integral aspect of culture. Almost all aspects of human life are always wrapped in some form of art. Indonesia is a country that has diverse artistic expressions. Different from Western arts that emphasize the element of aesthetics, traditional arts in various cultures in the Eastern world display elements that are more than just aesthetics. Other intended elements include the values or the life philosophy of the owner community. Traditional music always has two compo- nents that can not be separated from one another: textual and contextual aspects. Understanding a musical tradition should cover both aspects in their entirety. This paper aims to expose the contextual aspects of a musical tradition of Ngadha, Flores, NTT called go laba. The contextual aspect in question is the values or life philosophy of the community represented through this traditional music. Keywords: Traditional Music; Values; Musical Meaning How to Cite: Dopo, F., & Sukmayadi, Y. (2018). The Musical Structure and Meaning of Go Laba in the Context of People’s Life Philosophy in Ngadha Culture, Flores, East Nusa Tenggara. Harmonia: Journal of Arts Research And Education, 18(2), 181-188. Harmonia: Journal of Arts Research and Education 18 (2) (2018), 181-188 Available online at http://journal.unnes.ac.id/nju/index.php/harmonia DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15294/harmonia.v18i2.9976 dience during an art presentation. Textual elements are those such as the composition of music embodied in rhythm, melody, harmony, musical structure, lyrics, tempo, dynamics, expression, instruments, and arrangements. Meanwhile, contextual as- pects are matters relating to the message or values to be conveyed through the ap- pearance of art such as meaning, function, purpose, essence or the role of art in the life of the community. The contextual as- pect relates to the beliefs, ideas, values or life philosophy of a community group that is revealed through the presentation of tra- ditional music. Unlike the textual aspects that can be INTRODUCTION Indonesia is a country with a variety of art. Almost all aspects of the cultural life of the people in various cultures in Indone- sia are always wrapped in art. History has proved that there is no society without art, because art is always present in human life and has a very important role (Prestisa & Susetyo, 2013). In traditional arts always have 2 (two) aspects that can not be separated from one another, namely the textual and contextual aspects. According to Susetyo (2009), the textual aspect is the elements of art that are enjoyed directly by the audience or the au-  Corresponding author: , Jl. Setiabudhi No. 229 Bandung E-mail: yudi.sukmayadi@upi.edu p-ISSN 2541-1683|e-ISSN 2541-2426