Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Gamelan of the Love God
Listening to a cd of Gamelan Semar Pegulingan; Gamelan of the Love God. Music from Bali. A gamelan is a specific grouping of instruments with much of the repertoire composed for those instruments. I bought the original LP of this music in 1972, when it was released. I'd heard excerpts of Indonesian music, was intrigued, but this album transported me to another place; almost jazzy, but incredibly exotic, true ensemble playing, no egos sticking out. Shortly thereafter, I was given a long out-of-print book, A House In Bali, by Colin McPhee, a Canadian who lived in Bali during the 1930s & helped rejuvenate the island's classical music traditions, including the restoration of a Love God Gamelan, which had fallen into disuse. Unlike how I treated most of my records, I took care of this one, often played it during my first decade on WFMU. In 1992 I made the mistake of loaning it to a woman I was trying to get into bed & never saw it again. I ran into her a few times & without my even mentioning it she always remembered she had the record & guiltily promised to return it. But I'd concluded she was a scarily strange person rather than sexy & interesting & the loss of the record was an acceptable price for not having to go to her house to retrieve it. I did stop by once, but she wasn't home & her old crone of a mother answered the door surrounded by cats trying to escape. By then I had a number of Indonesian recordings, & was drawn more toward the slower, languid style of Javanese Court Gamelans, which often features a solo singer. Recently, listening to other music from Bali, I realized I still missed the Gamelan Semar Pegulingan record.
Many colleges & universities have organized gamelan ensembles. One needs only some rudimentary musical ability to participate; compositions may include instruments & parts suitable for children. Performers traditionally learn the music phrase by phrase & memorize it without a written score. This appealed to me as a young musician & aspiring composer coming out of a rock & roll background. There were no gamelans to play with when I was in college in the early 70s. Later, the artist with whom I cohabited began constructing something like a gamelan, interactive sound pieces that were very popular when she exhibited them. Sadly, she subsequently abandoned that direction in her art.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
Many colleges & universities have organized gamelan ensembles. One needs only some rudimentary musical ability to participate; compositions may include instruments & parts suitable for children. Performers traditionally learn the music phrase by phrase & memorize it without a written score. This appealed to me as a young musician & aspiring composer coming out of a rock & roll background. There were no gamelans to play with when I was in college in the early 70s. Later, the artist with whom I cohabited began constructing something like a gamelan, interactive sound pieces that were very popular when she exhibited them. Sadly, she subsequently abandoned that direction in her art.
