Traditions Of Gamelan Music In Java

This book is a wide-ranging study of the varieties of gamelan music in contemporary Java seen from a regional perspective. While the focus of most studies of Javanese music has been limited to the court-derived music of Surakarta and Yogyakarta, Sutton goes beyond them to consider also gamelan music of Banyumas, Semarang and east Java as separate regional traditions with distinctive repertoires, styles and techniques of performance and conceptions about music. Sutton's description of these traditions, illustrated with numerous musical examples in Javanese cipher notation, is based on extensive field experience in these areas and is informed by the criteria that Javanese musicians judge to be most important in distinguishing them.

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 is a wide-ranging study of the varieties of gamelan music in contemporary Java seen from a regional perspective. While the focus of most studies of Javanese music has been limited to the court-derived music of Surakarta and Yogyakarta, Sutton goes beyond them to consider also gamelan music of Banyumas, Semarang and east Java as separate regional traditions with distinctive repertoires, styles and techniques of performance and conceptions about music. Sutton's description of these traditions, illustrated with numerous musical examples in Javanese cipher notation, is based on extensive field experience in these areas and is informed by the criteria that Javanese musicians judge to be most important in distinguishing them.

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, Third Edition, introduces the emblematic music of Southeast Asia’s largest country, as sound and as cultural phenomenon, highlighting the significant role gamelan music plays in the national culture while teaching of Indonesian values and modern-day life. Despite Indonesia’s great diversity—a melting pot of indigenous, Hindu, Buddhist, Islamic, Portuguese, Dutch, British, and modern global influences—a forged national identity is at its core. This volume explores that identity, understanding present-day Javanese, Balinese, Cirebonese, and Sundanese gamelan music through ethnic, social, cultural, and global perspectives. New to the third edition: Updated content throughout to reflect current Indonesian history and geography, as well as revivals of gamelan ensembles by the Cirebonese courts Modern examples of Indonesian musics, along with new uses of gamelan and other traditional musics An examination of school gamelan and ISBI as a center of innovation Expanded discussion on dangdut and its current status in Indonesia, along with Islam’s effect on dangdut Listening examples now posted as online eResources

First Published in 2008. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.