Javanese Gamelan And The West

Preeminant gamelan performer and scholar Sumarsam explores the concept of hybridity in performance traditions that have developed in the context of Javanese encounters with the West.

The gamelan music of central Java, until almost a century ago heard only in Java, is now being widely taught all over the world. More and more non-Indonesians are coming into contact with gamelan music through travel or through recordings or performances in their home countries. Yet, while valuable research material on gamelan music is available, this is the only short book available for those coming into contact with gamelan for the first time. The book outlines some of the basic concepts of Javanese gamelan, and provides a listening framework so that the perhaps exotic sounds can be given musical and cultural sense. Included in the text is an explanation of the historical background, the instruments and their making, tuning and notation, the structure of the music, and the place of gamelan music in Javanese society.

Gamelan is the first study of the music of Java and the development of the gamelan to take into account extensive historical sources and contemporary cultural theory and criticism. An ensemble dominated by bronze percussion instruments that dates back to the twelfth century in Java, the gamelan as a musical organization and a genre of performance reflects a cultural heritage that is the product of centuries of interaction between Hindu, Islamic, European, Chinese, and Malay cultural forces. Drawing on sources ranging from a twelfth-century royal poem to the writing of a twentieth-century nationalist, Sumarsam shows how the Indian-inspired contexts and ideology of the Javanese performing arts were first adjusted to the Sufi tradition and later shaped by European performance styles in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. He then turns to accounts of gamelan theory and practice from the colonial and postcolonial periods. Finally, he presents his own theory of gamelan, stressing the relationship between purely vocal melodies and classical gamelan composition.

Focus: Gamelan Music of Indonesia is an introduction to the familiar music from Southeast Asia's largest country - both as sound and cultural phenomenon. An archipelago of over 17,000 islands, Indonesia is a melting pot of Hindu, Buddhist, Islamic, Portuguese, Dutch, and British influences. Despite this diversity, it has forged a national culture, one in which music plays a significant role. Gamelan music, in particular, teaches us much about Indonesian values and modern-day life. Focus: Gamelan Music of Indonesia provides an introduction to present-day Javanese, Balinese, Cirebonese, and Sundanese gamelan music through ethnic, social, cultural, and global perspectives. Part One, Music and Southeast Asian History ̧ provides introductory materials for the study of Southeast Asian music. Part Two, Gamelan Music in Java and Bali, moves to a more focused overview of Gamelan music in Indonesia. Part Three, Focusing In, takes an in-depth look at Sundanese gamelan traditions, as well modern developments in Sundanese music and dance. The accompanying downloadable resources offer vivid examples of traditional Indonesian gamelan music.

Musicologist Judith Becker contends that sociopolitical changes in Javanese society since the 1940s are reflected in changes in the structure of gamelan music, which is one of the traditional musics of Java. She sees gamelan music as a musical system in a state of crisis, unsure of its proper function and direction. While traditional gamelan musical structures supported old Hindu-Javanese concepts of cosmology and kingship, modern innovations reflect Indonesian nationalism and a desire to become a "twentieth century nation." In particular, the introduction of Western musical notation, which Becker describes as "the most pervasive, penetrating, and ultimately the most insidious type of Western influence," is changing gamelan from an aural to a written tradition. Becker examines the works of contemporary composers Ki Wasitodipuro and Ki Nartosabdho to illustrate modern innovations in gamelan compositions and the attitudes of composers to their music, as they attempt to compromise between the ethos and structure of traditional gamelan music and the changing tastes and attitudes of the modern Indonesian nation. In addition to her interpretation of the political influence on gamelan music, Becker includes four appendices that ethnomusicologists will find valuable. Appendix I articulates her theory of the derivation of central Javanese gamelan gongan, the basic temporal/melodic repeated unit of gamelan music. Appendix II gives biographical sketches of Ki Wasitodipuro and Ki Nartosabdho and lists their compositions referred to in the text. Appendices II and IV deal with various aspects of pathet, a Javanese system of classifying gamelan pieces. A fifth appendix, by Alan R. Templeton, gives an informational analysis of pathet.

This book introduces the reader to the history, music and instruments specifically of the Central Javanese gamelan, although reference is also made to Balinese gamelan music. There is a detailed account of the ritualistic process by which a gamelan is made, while the book begins with an assessment of the influence of gamelan music on Western composers, from Debussy, to Benjamin Britten, to Steve Reich.

Music and music theory including, frequency, amplitude, duration, timbre, natural enviornment (Bosnian, Ganga, Becarac, Australia, Papua, New Guinea, spirit world, Tuvan; modern urban music, modern minstrels, rap music, transformative power of music, contra dance music, healing music (Kung healing ceremony); political power music (national anthems, protest and resistance); labor movement music, civil rights movement music; toptical songs in the United States; music and memory; much more.

Performing Ethnomusicology is the first book to deal exclusively with creating, teaching, and contextualizing academic world music performing ensembles. Considering the formidable theoretical, ethical, and practical issues that confront ethnomusicologists who direct such ensembles, the sixteen essays in this volume discuss problems of public performance and the pragmatics of pedagogy and learning processes. Their perspectives, drawing upon expertise in Caribbean steelband, Indian, Balinese, Javanese, Philippine, Mexican, Central and West African, Japanese, Chinese, Middle Eastern, and Jewish klezmer ensembles, provide a uniquely informed and many-faceted view of this complicated and rapidly changing landscape. The authors examine the creative and pedagogical negotiations involved in intergenerational and intercultural transmission and explore topics such as reflexivity, representation, hegemony, and aesthetically determined interaction. Performing Ethnomusicology affords sophisticated insights into the structuring of ethnomusicologists' careers and methodologies. This book offers an unprecedented rich history and contemporary examination of academic world music performance in the West, especially in the United States. "Performing Ethnomusicology is an important book not only within the field of ethnomusicology itself, but for scholars in all disciplines engaged in aspects of performance—historical musicology, anthropology, folklore, and cultural studies. The individual articles offer a provocative and disparate array of threads and themes, which Solís skillfully weaves together in his introductory essay. A book of great importance and long overdue."—R. Anderson Sutton, author of Calling Back the Spirit Contributors: Gage Averill, Kelly Gross, David Harnish, Mantle Hood, David W. Hughes, Michelle Kisliuk, David Locke, Scott Marcus, Hankus Netsky, Ali Jihad Racy, Anne K. Rasmussen, Ted Solís, Hardja Susilo, Sumarsam, Ricardo D. Trimillos, Roger Vetter, J. Lawrence Witzleben