javanese gamelan check in!
more and more javapilled everyday
okay, checking in since my last post. it’s been a few months since i got into javanese gamelan, and this has led me into a journey not only to discover my roots as a javanese person but to get into how this indonesian cultural heritage has become a niche subculture in the united states and this opens up another journey navigating this subculture. similar to the last post, i’ll divide it into a few parts…
part 1: javanese gamelan info dump
i learned the nitty gritty of javanese gamelan knowledge, how it’s structured, etc. and it’s really fascinating since a part of the work is detangling all my western music knowledge i’ve accumulated throughout my education! but here’s a little info dump. (this document is helpful for further reading.) maybe a picture of instruments in a javanese gamelan ensemble would help.
and here’s an example of javanese gamelan notation. this is “wilujeng.”
the main melody of a piece is called balungan, and this is considered the most basic notation. you start with the last note of the buka and continue with the ompak and ngelik sections of the notation above, as written. the instruments are slenthem and saron. this is what i mentioned in my last post as banging mallets to pieces of metal according to the notation.
then there’s the gong family of instruments, which establishes a sense of melodic rhythm. this includes the gong, kempul, kethuk/kempyang and the kenong, played according to the accent marks in the notation above (and beyond…)
then there’s the elaborating instruments, which plays a more complicated set of notes beyond the balungan. the peking repeats a denser version of the balungan melody, going ahead of the balungan in solo style and behind the balungan in jogja style. the bonang and bonang panerus plays a different melody elaborating the balungan, usually filling each other in tandem. the gender is played with two hands, plays another different melody. the gambang, also played with two hands, plays a melody that syncs up with the gender, but different as well.
the kendhang leads the tempo of the whole ensemble; when things get slower/faster that’s usually an indication to move to the next section of the piece.
the rest of the instruments plays an entirely different melody, but similar to each other. the rebab leads the melody of the entire thing, and usually it is in sync with the suling, celempung/siter, and the singers (sinden being the main woman soloist and gerong being the male chorus).
that’s all the instruments. the notation of the song indicates how you play it. as you can see it says : “ladrang wilujeng, laras slendro pathet manyura.” “ladrang” is the type of the piece and indicates the pattern of the gong instruments - different types of songs indicate different ways of playing them. “laras slendro” is which scale (laras) is the piece played in. there are two scales in javanese gamelan: slendro (pentatonic) and pelog (heptatonic). each of the instruments above come in two - slendro instrument and pelog instrument - and you switch on them based on the laras of the song you’re playing. as for “pathet manyura”…
part 2: pathet
“pathet” is a pretty advanced term… they didn’t really teach you this in class but i went on to find the definition itself. it’s something to do with the emphasis of the notes? the time of day the piece is played? the mood of the piece? how the notes are played? i don’t know… all western sources have failed to explain pathet (or tried as close as possible and end up with their admission of non-confidence), and i’ve looked into gamelan teacher youtubers who, in true javanese uncle fashion, explains things with different types of analogies. to this day i still don’t know what pathet is. i don’t really have to know, since i’m not in that level of gamelan playing where i need to know what pathet is.
this brings me to opacity, again - learning gamelan has really forced me to untangle all my western music knowledge and stop thinking about music in western terms. i often found myself explaining the instruments above and using terms like “oh it’s like chords” “it’s like the left hand when you play the piano” etc but those really are inaccurate. no westerner could understand, in western terms, what pathet is. hell i’m javanese and i don’t even know what pathet is. it’s not that javanese music is unknowable, or “foreign.” even folks from the west have been trying to crack it open. but there’s also a discussion to be made about that…
part 3: being an indonesian in javanese gamelan (real)
one thing that is really common studying gamelan in america: if you are indonesian you are the minority. if you go to these advanced classes for classical gamelan, they’re going to be mostly american, mostly white. i was invited to an advanced class with my gamelan group and got to know all these folks who have played gamelan for 10+ years and understands indonesian and javanese. they asked me what interests me in playing gamelan and i mentioned that i’m javanese - one of them said “uh oh!” but they were very respectful and left all the cultural information to me. it’s more apparent what mbak nana said that i referenced in my last post, that they are very skilled technically but culturally they will never be indonesian, and they know that.
part of it goes back to opacity. i saw mati diop’s brilliant film dahomey, about the restitution of beninese artifacts from france back to benin. a lot of these artifacts has served a purpose in the past, whether it be funeral tools, worship tools, etc. mati diop gives these these artifacts a dialogue, and they lament on the transition of their usage - from objects of use to stuff collecting dust in a museum. the film also features a debate between university students about the event. one of the topics of the debate touched on western modes of preservation - do these artifacts deserve just sitting in a museum studied by people and ending up collecting dust? the film’s currently playing in limited theaters - you can check out more about it through mati diop’s q&a at nyff below
there’s a beautiful gamelan made in the 1800s currently in storage at the museum of fine arts in boston, that should instead be played by a local ensemble, or returned to indonesia entirely. now just sitting there, collecting dust. sure, it’s an old set, and maybe it is preserved well - from a western perspective. archaic gamelan sets from the 1700s are played yearly during keraton holidays back in java. if they are out of tune, they are tuned by scraping them, and old gamelan sets could go back a few keys. these sets play tunes that has touched ears since the 1700s, and continue to be part of javanese life now, surrounded by people who appreciate the music as parts of their lives. while this gamelan in storage is being studied and intellectualized to death and left untouched and unheard for the sake of “preservation.” how disrespectful, then, is the western mode of preservation.
this brings me back to how americans are introduced to gamelan - most of them introduced through an ethnomusicology lens. gamelan is viewed as an art, but also something to be learned and pursued. as i learn the art with these folks, i have a mission in my head to learn all that is needed to be learned. i thought to myself, why are all the non-traditionally educated people who knows everything about gamelan… american? can i learn more about gamelan in this non-traditional setting as the only indonesian among the white americans? until i visited my aunt’s ensemble in connecticut.
gamelan kusuma asih in connecticut is a javanese ensemble formed by pak harjito (more on him later), gamelan professor at wesleyan, to engage connecticut community members with the instrument. what formed was an ensemble of indonesian aunties. my aunt told me how they didn’t really care about digging knowledge out of the craft or intellectualizing it; they just want to get closer to their roots, find community, and promote indonesian culture. rehearsals are filled with the sweet scent of sambal and fried tempe. the aunties joke around with pak harjito and flirt with the white men. none of these aunties know what pathet is! my aunt didn’t know the term for main melody is “balungan” until i talked to her about it yesterday.
watching their rehearsals and performance makes me think of one of my friends dylan’s text to me, “white people can’t form community.” i thought about it in a deeper level, and the definition of “community” that he is implying through his text. when americans get together to play javanese gamelan, they study it; when indonesians get together to play javanese gamelan, they live it. there is scientifically studying the behaviors of a cat, and there’s having a cat as a pet. sure, we need the scientific study, to know what’s inside and contribute to the production of knowledge. but these aunties are giving it its lifeline.
part 4: further developments / contemporary forms
pak harjito serves as the director of gamelan kusuma laras, and checks in on our rehearsals once in a while. he teaches gamelan at wesleyan (the student group, advanced group, and the community group), while also checks in on other ensembles in the east coast. i went to a concert of his repertoire, which includes fusing different styles of playing to writing pieces in collaboration with other instruments. there’s this really amazing piece that he wrote with another music professor at wesleyan, combining scottish bagpipe with the sekaten style of gamelan playing, and to be in tune with western notation, combining the slendro and pelog scales together, so players are playing both slendro and pelog sets at the same time. i also see this at my aunt’s show with kusuma asih, where they played a gamelan version of “america the beautiful” by alternating playing slendro and pelog scales. it’s quite fascinating.
on the reverse, ryan pointed out the works of lou harrison, a contemporary performer incorporating gamelan in his work. i believe he's also one of the first people constructing the american gamelan - making gamelan in an american style with scrap metal and cans. i’ve also seen a (less musical, more contemporary art) version of this through gunnar schonbeck’s instrument exhibition shown at mass moca. lou harrison’s work is pretty fascinating, and closer to western contemporary composition (think steve reich) than traditional javanese gamelan. thinking of all this… is it a possibility that… americans yearn for marching band?
my aunt, her friends, and i agree you don’t really participate in javanese gamelan in indonesia since it is mostly reserved to court music, mostly consist of men, and has a stigma attached to it (that it’s ancient and sacred, therefore scary/you don’t want to mess with it). meanwhile there’s a whole world to explore out there in regards to gamelan knowledge and contemporary composition! seeing the wealth of knowledge of gamelan abroad really fascinates me, but again the sad fact is they’re super appreciated abroad but not really domestically. i don’t know why that is, but i believe it is closely related to the stigma of javanese gamelan in indonesia, and the lack of arts funding by the government. kinda sad how white americans are the leading knowledge producer of world music, but that’s the way the world works…
part 5: anime
learning about all these gamelan communities, developments, and characters in america really fascinates me. in terms of the people you’ll see at a javanese gamelan rehearsal in the states: i’ve talked extensively about the americans (whether they’re interested because of ethnomusicology, work music, indonesia, or avant garde/experimental music), and the aunties. i’m in the archetype of young indonesian professionals who want to explore my roots. you’ll also see indonesian-americans (sometimes children of the aunties). gamelan masters like pak harjito are often educated throughout central java and brought to america through fellowships or professorships, then there’s the sinden/dancers, who are usually wives of the gamelan masters or the whites.
the community across the united states is extensive yet small. i’ve spent an entire afternoon perusing the gamelan.org united states directory, and you’ll see a lot of repeating names and pioneers/veterans of the community. it’s such a niche art form here in the united states and you meet the same people, it really reminds me of anime. for real! you see all these anime series on different niche activities: haikyu!! for volleyball, yuri on ice for figure skating, food wars for culinary school. i think there’s potential for gamelan. i keep meeting all these people and archetypes, and the way my own lineage and positionality engage with this whole new niche (and don’t forget the lore as well!) is really ripe material for anime…. maybe i’ll keep writing these posts and a producer could pick up my idea. ha!