Javanese Gamelan Research Articles

“POHACI” SEBUAH ABSTRAKSI KARYA DARI SERAT CARIOS DEWI SRI

The 50 page study of the work of art entitled Pohaci by Hartanto, S. Sn., M. Sn., 2012, wassponsored by a grant from DIPA ISI Surakarta in 2012. Pohaci is a dance which was inspired bythe story of Dewi Sri or Nyai Pohaci Sanghyang Sri, a tale about the rice goddess, from West Java.This work takes the figure of Dewi Sri as a reflection of Javanese women with their characteristicsof elegance, beauty, gentleness, grace, kindness, and all the perfection of a woman. The dance lastsfor 27 minutes and is presented as a new dance form. The problem addressed in the study is howthe story of Pohaci Sanghyang Sri is treated with a new or different concept and how it is interpretedin the dance. The aim of this research is to present an abstraction of the figure of a womanand to provide substance for the new work in the form of a bedhayan. It also aims to increaseknowledge and add to the existing repertoire of dances that are based on literary works. Themethod used for answering the questions includes a method of interpretation and a method ofconstruction. The method of interpretation uses an approach which interprets various elements ofthe treatment such as the content and form, the movements, music, costumes and make-up, andalso the lighting. The method of construction is a way for implementing an activity of creating awork of art, beginning by planning the movements and continuing until the work is completed.The results of the study show that the dance Pohaci is not based on the actual storyline of DewiSri but rather on the figure of Dewi Sri herself who is likened to the figure of a Javanese woman.The work is presented in the form of a bedhayan and uses 7 female dancers, accompanied bymusic played on the Javanese gamelan.

Surono Seniman Serba Bisa

The process of an artist’s journey through life is closely related to his or her social and cultural environment. Surono is an artist who is highly regarded, especially in the traditional art of wayang orang (a form of traditional Javanese stage show). He is not only skilled in the art of wayang orang but also as a dancer, singer, director, comedian, and Javanese gamelan musician, and is therefore often referred to as a “complete” artist. Keywords: Artist, all-rounder, and creativity.

Wrapper Feature Subset Selection for Feature Extraction of Bonang Barung Single Tone Convertion Into Numeric Notation

Several researches have been done to study the characteristics of the bonang barung, one of Javanese Gamelan music instrument. One of them is convertion of bonang barung single tone to numeric notation using Harmonic FFT as feature extraction and Backpropagation Artificial Neural Network (ANN) for classification. The tone detection accuracy result from previous research is 70,74%. In this research we try to improve the detection result by searching the dominant features using Wrapper Feature Subset Selection (WFSS). Sequential forward selection (SFS) and sequential backward selection (SBS) are used as searching algorithm. The input of the system is a song recorded from a bonang barung then the detected tone is converted into numeric notation. From the experiment, WFSS-SFS produced 6 features with 86,4% accuracy while WFSS-SBS give a better result, it produced 13 features with 92,9% accuracy of tone detection.

From tacit to verbalized knowledge. Towards a culturally informed musical analysis of Central Javanese karawitan

In the music cultures of the world we encounter both tacit and verbalized musical knowledge to various degrees. In order to reconstruct emic views on musical concepts and practices which are a prerequisite of any seriously culturally informed musical analysis we need to disclose local knowledge by appropriate means even if it is not directly open to verbal discourse. Current computer technology enables us to set up interactive experiments where local experts can verbally address relevant musical features in discussing audio examples which have been prepared by the researcher. The performance of virtual musicians can be evaluated by the local experts and various relevant parameters may be investigated individually if suitable versions of customary pieces are available. Thus aspects which seem to be tacit knowledge because they usually elude verbal discourse can be made accessible and transformed into verbalized, declarative knowledge. The paper presents preliminary results of a case study on Central Javanese gamelan music (karawitan) where renowned Javanese musicians commented on computer-generated versions of traditional compositions regarding the idiomatically appropriate performance practice of the virtual ensemble as well as the tuning and sound of various virtual gamelan sets emulated by the computer.

Prisons and Primary Schools: using CHAT to analyse the relationship between developing identity, developing musicianship and transformative processes

This paper draws on three different research projects to demonstrate the use of an expanded model of Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT), developed as part of a doctoral research study. The first project is an evaluation of the impacts of a Music Partnership Project within Primary and Secondary schools. The second project is an evaluation of the Good Vibrations Javanese Gamelan project in male and female prisons. The third project is an exploration of the learning processes within a Good Vibrations Javanese Gamelan Project in a young offenders' institution. CHAT provides a lens for analysing activity, placing the interactions between the individual, individual cognition and the socio-cultural environment at the heart of the analytical framework. Although a useful way of looking at activity in order to understand the individual and social processes occurring in a learning activity, criticisms of CHAT include the rigidity of the unit of analysis, its inability to view progression and transformation and the focus on one individual without taking into account the labour power that a group offers.

Ratio neutrophils lymphocytes as a prognosis marker in pancreatic cancer

Pendopo Mangkunegaran Surakarta is a building that has a volume of 3000 m3, a pyramid form of roof, and no walls. The objective of the research in this paper is to explore the condition of Listening Level (LL), a sub-sequence Reverberation Time (Tsub), Clarity (C80, D50) and Inter-Aural Cross Correlation (IACC) at Pendopo Mangkunegaran Surakarta. To quantify the acoustic parameters of the Pendopo, microphones were located in the area of the King, distinguished guests, dancers, and audience. The source of sound is located at the corner of where the Gamelan is played. The sound of Gamelan at the corner of the Pendopo produces a diverse distribution of sound and reverberation time in the room, especially in the center of the room. It is concluded that the acoustic quality of Pendopo building is appropriate for Javanese Gamelan performances with a well-developed spatial effect.

Acoustic parameter for Javanese Gamelan Performance in Pendopo Mangkunegaran Surakarta

Pendopo Mangkunegaran Surakarta is a building that has a volume of 3000 m3, a pyramid form of roof, and no walls. The objective of the research in this paper is to explore the condition of Listening Level (LL), a sub-sequence Reverberation Time (Tsub), Clarity (C80, D50) and Inter-Aural Cross Correlation (IACC) at Pendopo Mangkunegaran Surakarta. To quantify the acoustic parameters of the Pendopo, microphones were located in the area of the King, distinguished guests, dancers, and audience. The source of sound is located at the corner of where the Gamelan is played. The sound of Gamelan at the corner of the Pendopo produces a diverse distribution of sound and reverberation time in the room, especially in the center of the room. It is concluded that the acoustic quality of Pendopo building is appropriate for Javanese Gamelan performances with a well-developed spatial effect.

Playing Apart as "Playing Together": Lou Harrison’s Threnody for Carlos Chávez for Gamelan and Viola

on 22 February 2003, twenty days after the sudden death of lou Harrison, the first memorial tribute for this musical maverick took place at the university of California, Santa Cruz recital Hall. organized by musicologist/flutist leta e. miller and Harrison archivist Charles Hanson, the memorial honored Harrison’s rich, artfilled life by intertwining many of his wideranging creative interests. Spoken reminiscences were joined with a display of several of Harrison’s paintings, readings of his poetry, video presentations of dance performances for which Harrison had written the music, and performances of a handful of his compositions.1 music selections included an early work for flute and cello, a recently discovered piece for tubular bells (constructed by Harrison and his partner, william Colvig), a work for guitar, and a composition for piano. but it was the memorial’s final performance—Harrison’s Threnody for Carlos Chavez, played by Geraldine walther on viola and by Gamelan Sekar Kembar, directed by trish Neilsen—that best captured the complexity of Harrison’s artistic vision. whether by happenstance or by design, Harrison’s memorial service concluded with a piece that showed him at his least sentimental, yet most sophisticated, in dealing with “cultural fusion”—a piece in which he entertains the possibility that playing apart is also a way of playing together. Credited by mark levine with “fashioning . . . America’s first important body of ‘multicultural’ music,” Harrison took particular delight in writing for central Javanese and Sundanese gamelan, ensembles primarily comprised of bronze gongs and metallophones.2 Harrison’s initial

Efficacy of indigenous imagery breathing-relaxation training through Javanese Gamelan music to reduce job stress responses among teachers at special-needs school

This study aim is aiming at testing the efficacy of breathing-relaxation training through Javanese Gamelan music to reduce job stress response among teachers at special needs school. This research used randomized pre-post control group design. 49 teachers at special needs school was involved and randomized to experiment group and control group. 25 teachers were included in experimental group, while 24 teachers were included in control group. The experiment group followed ten indigenous imagery breathing-relaxation training sessions. The data were analyzed by using independent t-test. The results of this study showed there is a significant differences between experiment and control group on systolic blood pressure t (47) = 4.2, p = .000, diastolic blood pressure t (47) = 3.1, p = .003, heart rate t (26.4)= 5.5, p = .000, and response stress t (36.4)= 4.7, p = .000. The explanation of result would be discussed further.

Musical learning and desistance from crime: the case of a ‘Good Vibrations’ Javanese gamelan project with young offenders

This paper discusses new empirical evidence for a positive relationship between musical learning and desistance from crime. On investigating the learning processes occurring within a Javanese gamelan project in a young offender's institution, parallels between musical learning processes and the development of certain attributes linked to desistance from crime emerged. The desistance paradigm centres on changing a criminal identity through the development of social and personal attributes, which resonate with recent research on the transformative effects of music and how musical identity can be changed positively through active and successful music-making. The research was carried out in a UK Young Offender's Institution involving 19 young people between the ages of 18 and 24 over a period of eight weeks. Participant observation was used as the main research tool. This paper presents two participant stories to illustrate the personal development and the social development that can be gained as a result of the project. These are discussed in the context of successful musical learning and the suggestion is made that musical learning and developing the attributes essential for inspiring desistance from crime arise from shared learning processes.

PROSES KREATIF ANTONIUS WAHYUDI SUTRISNO SEBAGAI KOMPOSER GAMELAN

The creativity of Antonius Wahyudi Sutrisno (Dedek) in creating the composition be an interesting thing for the author to be further investigated. This research was focused on the factors behind Dedek in finding creative ideas. Dedek works based on tradition reiterates that he uses the idiom of tradition in his works. The idioms used a series of structures, motifs or patterns, and techniques. From the idiom invention, the author observed the tradition one, of such pathet space, instruments (gamelan), and a model of the work, which all is associated with the science of Javanese gamelan. Through pathet space, the author assume that Dedek has a unique in terms of the selection range of tones, although, that is uncommonly performed in tradition karawitan. The exploration of the instruments and methods in use in Dedek works, gamelan instruments perceived authors have character and distinctive characteristics. While on the model of Dedek composition is not far from the tradition of serving space and schema structure that resembles a traditional convention. This research reviewed the more clearly about the characters of the existing tradition in Dedek works that came from the tradition idioms. Keywords: creativity, karawitan composition, tradition idioms

‘Click, Play and Save’: The iGamelan as a Tool for Music-culture Sustainability

This article explores the potential for web-based interactive music resources to represent and sustain music-culture heritage via digital means. Our focus is the University of Otago’s virtual Indonesian gamelan (iGamelan): an immersive online resource featuring interactive musical instruments, an audio-video gallery, and information archive. Designed in 2010–2011 for use within the tertiary education context, the iGamelan stands alone as an innovative learning/teaching tool, and also enhances real-life instructional sessions with the University’s pelog/slendro Central Javanese gamelan. This article illuminates the pitfalls and achievements of the iGamelan project and, at a broader level, demonstrates how contemporary technology can help sustain active music-making cultures.

Spectral-based Features Ranking for Gamelan Instruments Identification using Filter Techniques

In this paper, we describe an approach of spectral-based features ranking for Javanese gamelan instruments identification using filter techniques. The model extracted spectral-based features set of the signal using Short Time Fourier Transform (STFT). The rank of the features was determined using the five algorithms; namely ReliefF, Chi-Squared, Information Gain, Gain Ratio, and Symmetric Uncertainty. Then, we tested the ranked features by cross validation using Support Vector Machine (SVM). The experiment showed that Gain Ratio algorithm gave the best result, it yielded accuracy of 98.93%.

<i>Divine Inspirations: Music and Islam in Indonesia</i> ed. by David D. Harnish and Anne K. Rasmussen (review)

Reviewed by: Divine Inspirations: Music and Islam in Indonesia ed. by David D. Harnish and Anne K. Rasmussen Eliot Bates (bio) David D. Harnish and Anne K. Rasmussen, eds. Divine Inspirations: Music and Islam in Indonesia. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. 408 pp. This groundbreaking volume is framed by editors David Harnish and Anne Rasmussen as a corrective to a long-held "reductive summary" (p. 34), perhaps most famously articulated by Clifford Geertz and Benedict Anderson, that Indonesia is primarily an Indic region. All of the chapters are organized around specific local or regional musical genres, with the majority situated in Javanese regions, but most incorporate considerable discussion of other aspects of Islam in Indonesia, including clothing, mass mediation, Islamic organizations, government policy, religious practice, and movement forms (for example, dance and martial arts). Four themes serve to connect the disparate musical forms and cultural practices surveyed in this book. First, two institutions had a seminal role in shaping the nature of Islamic practice and governmental relations with organized Islam during the twentieth century. Muhammadiyah (founded in 1912) was originally concerned with a "pure" form of religiosity based on new readings of historical texts, while Nahdlatul Ulama (NU, founded in 1926), once a rural organization, was historically more accepting of local traditions. While most of the authors implicate these organizations in the transformation to particular traditional art forms, it quickly becomes apparent that these organizations had deep and complex relations with local communities, and thus musical change and transformations to public religiosity took divergent forms. Second, many of these authors structure their analysis around a dichotomy or continuum between adat (humanly generated custom, tradition) and agama (divinely revealed organized religion freed of local customs), a dichotomy also relevant to the organizations being considered. Third, and one of the most striking aspects of the case studies here, these essays demonstrate that many traditional art forms, even those without historical roots in Islam, were reconfigured to become a tool for dakwah (proselytizing, or bringing closer to Islam, from the Arabic term "da'wa"). Arguably, the preponderance and variety of Islamic music genres in Indonesia relate to the flexible way in which dakwah can be put into practice. Dakwah is not just an index of the permissibility of individual groups but is intertwined with the major religious associations and even national governance. Rasmussen cites the example of a music and sermon cassette released in the 1990s by Gus Dur, the leader of NU at the time and later the president of Indonesia. The role of dakwah in musical change is a recent topic in the historiography of Indonesian music, and most of the scholars draw on Rasmussen's earlier essay1 that helped invigorate this new avenue for research, and which compares dakwah with da'wa in the Arab world. Fourth, these authors show that a history of changes to music and religious practices necessarily confronts Indonesia's colonial past. As such, Islam as a national project posits an Islamic modernity (more accurately, plural Islamic modernities) in relation to the legacies of Dutch colonialism—and, in the case of Lombok, Balinese colonialism. Sumarsam's chapter explores the impact of Islam on Central Javanese gamelan and wayang kulit over a five-hundred year period. He distinguishes between tangible and [End Page 173] intangible transformations to Javanese expressive arts in relation to the morality continuum between halal (legitimate/approved) and haram (illegitimate/controversial) practices. Sumarsam notes that gamelan sekaten is believed to have been founded in the sixteenth century by a wali (Javanese Islamic saint) for the purposes of dakwah; gamelan sekaten illustrates how local traditions of heirloom worship were "appropriated and enhanced by Islam" (p. 49). Islam, rather than residing in opposition to extant musical practices, prompted an "intensive cultural development" involving new musical forms (e.g., terbangan), additionally intensifying gamelan making and leading to distortions of human depictions in wayang puppets and the introduction of Sufi mystical themes to wayang poetry. Concerning twentieth-century transformations, Sumarsam compares Muhammadiyah and Nahdlatul Ulama and their changing relations with traditional expressive arts. From its founding in 1912 until the 1990s, Muhammadiyah launched campaigns to rid Indonesia of "imaginations," "innovations," and "superstitions," but started to...

Rethinking Debussy (review)

Reviewed by: Rethinking Debussy Allison K. M. Bloom Rethinking Debussy. Edited by Elliott Antokoletz and Marianne Wheeldon. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. [xvii, 277 p. ISBN 9780199755639 (hardcover), $99; ISBN 9780199755646 (paperback), $45.] Music examples, illustrations, bibliography, index. Rethinking Debussy, an essay collection born of the 2006 Claude Debussy International Congress held at the University of Texas at Austin, was published in 2011, just [End Page 73] before the 150th anniversary of Debussy's birth this year. Editors Elliott Antokoletz and Marianne Wheeldon write that its aim is to fill lacunae in Debussy studies, inspire new research, and offer "new perspectives with which to consider and reconsider Debussy's music" (p. xiii). It acts as an overview of current Debussy research by leading scholars, and as such, demonstrates varied approaches to music analysis and interpretation, biography, and reception history. Organized chronologically and grouped into four broad topics, the ten essays span Debussy's career from the influences of "Early Encounters" (the title of the first section) to posthumous reception in the Tombeau de Claude Debussy, with an entire section dedicated to Pelléas et Mélisande. Though the essays are diverse, unifying themes thread through the book, highlighting some of the most important questions in French fin-de-siècle studies today. These themes include how composers differentiated French music from that of Germans and Austrians to claim a particularly French musical history as their own; how symbolism influenced Debussy's musical trajectory, notably in the concept of "fate" or "destiny" that permeates Pelléas et Mélisande; and how the composer's attitudes toward his art and legacy changed over time. Other essays revisit traditional themes: Debussy's creative process; sources of inspiration (the poetry of his early Prix de Rome compositions, Russian music, classical antiquity and the classicism of the eighteenth century), and biographical details (debt and ill health). The first section of Rethinking Debussy concerns the composer's early musical development, and covers influences less frequently cited than Tristan und Isolde and the Javanese gamelan. In her essay "Debussy's Rites of Spring," Marie Rolf traces musical concepts that Debussy first developed as a student in competition for the Prix de Rome. Three assigned texts for the competition related to "printemps," a subject which prompted Debussy to develop new musical techniques for expressing spring's delicacy. Rolf argues that he first used cyclic composition and motivic transformation in these student pieces, and that the 1887 orchestral Printemps should thus be considered a landmark in his compositional development. Roy Howat's "Russian Imprints in Debussy's Piano Music" shows how Debussy's musical imagination was enhanced by his experiences with Russian music. Russian musical gestures signaled both an "exotic" Russian East and an affinity between Russia and France that distinguished their music from that of Germanic composers. Howat listens in particular for one such "Russian" gesture, the nega, which uses a static bass accompanied by chromatic motion in the inner voices and traces its appearances in Debussy's music from the 1880s onward. The second section of the book is its longest, with four essays on Pelléas et Mélisande that call into question the opera's performance history and its ultimate meaning. Jann Pasler's essay "Mélisande's Charm and the Truth of Her Music" connects the opera with French musical history, arguing that "charm" can be understood as a traditionally French aesthetic quality, opposed to the virility of supposedly "Germanic" values. Mélisande's clear voice allows her to embody charm and evoke desire in others, but she also represents truth and transcendence. Pasler regards Mélisande as a double figure, connecting Debussy to both past and future, since her transcendence could serve as "a conduit to a new kind of music" (p. 70). In his essay " 'Aimer ainsi:' Rekindling the Lamp in Pelléas," Richard Langham Smith takes an archaeological approach, excavating through the layers of interpretation that have accumulated in the work's century-long performance history. He examines performances of Maurice Maeterlinck's play Pelléas et Mélisande in London in 1893, where Debussy first encountered it, as well as more recent productions of both play and opera, suggesting that...

KONSEP ÊMBAT DALAM KARAWITAN JAWA

Êmbat is one of the musical concept in Javanese gamelan music – karawitan Jawa. It is a kind of musical characteristic of a gamelan ensamble  which is generated by its interval structure – Jv. jangkah – of that gamelan. The only way to understand êmbat, one may investigate gamelan tuning system. Êmbat had been metioned in old Javanese manuscripts including Centhini and Wédhapradangga. Kunst and Hood also discussed êmbat in some extend, but the result does not quite fit to reality. This work aims to explain the concept of êmbat from the angle of the culture owner – Javanese.In order to explain the concept, this study has firstly to discover the concept of pitch in karawitan Jawa, secondly the tolerance of the limit in sifting tones , and finally approaching the main goal: the concept of êmbat it self. To reach the goal this studi conducted some simple experiments. Key words:structure of jangkah, tolerance of sifting notes, and êmbat

Performing Otherness: Java and Bali on International Stages, 1905–1952 (review)

Reviewed by: Performing Otherness: Java and Bali on International Stages, 1905–1952 Peter Steele (bio) Performing Otherness: Java and Bali on International Stages, 1905–1952. Matthew Isaac Cohen. London: Pallgrave MacMillan, 2010. Studies in International Performance. xiil, 285 pp., illustrations, bibliography, index. ISBN: 0230224628, 9780230224629 (Hardcover), $85.00. Matthew Isaac Cohen’s lucid and diligently researched monograph reminds us that intercultural performances of the Indonesian performing arts are not a recent phenomenon. In the twenty-first century, these art forms (especially the gamelan traditions of Java and Bali) are thriving in countless universities, cities, and towns throughout the world. Such groups are freely exploring and developing syncretic music and dance forms which blend Indonesian traditions with an eclectic laundry list of other performing arts styles and genres. Cohen’s work [End Page 164] seeks to describe how we have arrived at this present state of bustling artistic pluralism by exploring a time when such performances were rare and exotic curiosities. Thus while his work remains one of detailed historical inquiry, it operates with a consistent eye on the present state of global, intercultural performance. Cohen aims to “recollect an earlier generation of itinerant performers to provide perspective on ethical and professional conundrums faced in today’s global acumen” (3). Inspired by the work of critical theorists Rustom Bharucha and Edward Said, Cohen describes the development of these performances from the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries as a shift from the spectacle of “detached appropriations” to “ethnographically sensitive” representations which seek to engage the Other (4). Even casual admirers of Balinese and Javanese gamelan traditions are familiar with the well-documented encounters of European and North American artists and scholars with Indonesian music during this time. The work of Debussy, Spies, Margaret Mead, Miguel Covarrubias, Colin McPhee, and many others has helped establish a kind of Indonesian cultural dream world within the global imagination. However, Cohen eschews these more frequently read figures in favor of lesser-known artists and performers. In doing so, he carves a space for an assortment of esoteric and idiosyncratic examples of Indonesian exotica. These eccentric works illustrate the diverse means by which artists came to represent Indonesian culture to European and North American audiences. His work also covers a broad range of performance genres including dance, jazz, and puppetry. In many early cases, these performances were heavily influenced by the aesthetics of European theosophy, thus blending Javanese imagery and mythology with Indian Hinduism as well as Buddhism (83). For Cohen, the Orientalist impressionism of such performances addressed a desire for an authentic premodern experience, which would allow observers to live both “in modernity and beyond” (4). In Cohen’s work, “intercultural performance” encompasses the gamut from western artists performing in an ostensibly “Asian” milieu to the world’s first touring Indonesian masters. As such, his goal is not to legitimize, or otherwise canonize works as either “successful” or “unsuccessful” attempts at intercultural interaction. Rather, he describes how each artist relates to the concept of “Otherness” (21). Thus he is able to describe a diverse assortment of artists and works through their negotiation with the inscrutable specter of “the Other.” These negotiations proceed from a variety of perspectives. He describes late-nineteenth-century artists as largely Orientalist in terms of attitude and performance aesthetics. This critical lens is applied with lucidity to the work of earlier performers such as Cléo de Mérode and Mata Hari. According to Cohen’s reading, these Orientalist performances offer a “mediated” portrait of Javanese performing art forms, which do not truly “engage” with the Other. Instead they [End Page 165] merely “help the mind intensify its own sense of self ” (4). He traces a shift away from such representations in chronological fashion. In contrast to earlier artists, those working during the early twentieth century, such as Eva Gauthier and Stella Bloch, strove for more ethnographically detailed performance aesthetics. Cohen also documents the ways in which their efforts were in constant negotiation with the commercial interests of the time. Cohen also describes some of the first Indonesian groups touring the West “on their own terms” during the early years of Indonesian independence. These performers were faced with the dilemma...

Pathêt: Ruang Bunyi dalam Karawitan Gaya Yogyakarta

This research aims to answer a question of why two Javanese gamelan pieces (gending) of differ- ent pathêt (modes) cannot be performed consecutively without grambyangan lead. The data of this research were obtained from in-depth interview and observation of karawitan (gamelan performanc- es), focusing on karawitan training process, wayang performances, and karawitan performances for pleasure or uyon-uyon. Using phenomenology method, it can be concluded that pathêt is a space of sound. Two gamelan pieces having different modes are similar to two gamelan pieces in different spaces. There is a link between spaces that can be opened by the sound of gender or grambyangan. As a space, karawitan has three spaces of sound, i.e. space of pathêt nem, space of pathêt sanga, and space of pathêt manyura. Keywords: gending, pathêt, ruang bunyi, karawitan Jawa.

Rasa: Affect and Intuition in Javanese Musical Aesthetics (review)

INDONESIA Rasa: Affect and Intuition in Javanese Musical Aesthetics. By Marc Benamou. (AMS Studies in Music.) Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. [xliv, 298 p. ISBN 9780195189438. $45.] Music examples, illustrations, bibliography, index. [A]rt and the equipment to grasp it are made in the same shop (Clifford Geertz, Art as a Cultural System, in Local Know - ledge [New York: Basic Books, 1983], 118). Marc Benamou cites this pithy passage toward the end of his monograph on the aesthetic universe inhabiting the world of Central Javanese gamelan (orchestral) and making. To me, it is an exemplary summary of this startlingly erudite, culturally sensitive, and comprehensive work. Benamou is an ethnomusicologist at Earlham College, and is recognized by cognoscenti of Javanese (especially in the United States) as one of the foremost non-Javanese students and scholars of vocal in the tradition (karawitan) involving gamelan ensembles. He is also a practicing musician in that tradition, and as an associate professor of also teaches gamelan at Earlham. So it is no surprise that he would treat us to an outstanding, detailed-filled ethnography. But Benamou is clearly interested in social and philosophical issues about aesthetics too. He desires to investigate how Javanese musicians use language in systematic ways to categorize and characterize they hear-and above all, what they feel-when they listen to their music (p. xi). So, then, his work seeks to offer a clear and well-reasoned discourse on Javanese musical aesthetics. What is startling, however, is that he has managed to do both at once with sophistication and clarity, and convinces us that it could not be otherwise. Benamou must guide his readership through terminology in multiple languages (high Javanese, low Javanese, Indonesian, Arabic, English, Dutch), multiple informants (now referred to by many anthropologists as resource people), complex geographic and social environments, and multiple genres of vocal and instrumental music. That he is able to do so with clarity and precision is testimony to his skill as an ethnographer; that he does so with writing that is graceful, selfdeprecatory, sympathetic, and intelligent is icing on the cake. (At this point, I must disclose to the reader that I am also a non-Javanese performer and student of karawitan, both instrumental and vocal music, and my scholarly interest in this tradition is also ethnomusicological. However, I come to the topic as a cognitive psychologist rather than as an ethnographer: two different lenses through which to perceive and appreciate a complex and fascinating culture.) Benamou has a delightful and facilitative way of addressing the crux of the many issues involved with concise and very direct writing. Consider the following example, wherein the reader is quickly informed about the point of the study, but also alerted to the complex issues involved in doing the analysis: By attending to musical affect and how musicians talk about it, we are led to both musical object and musical activity at the same time. This is because affect is at the heart of the aesthetic experience, and yet it cannot be understood outside of a larger context. This context may be taken for granted when one is a cultural insider, but it becomes much less transparent in a cross-cultural setting. (p. xv) Despite all these favorable omens, Rasa is likely to be hard work for readers unfamiliar with the traditional of Central Java. There's a great deal of terminology required to learn about musical structure, style, and performance practice. Even more nomenclature surrounds the overlapping clusters of synonyms for aesthetic values attributed to these musical phenomena. Still, the author is aware of the challenges his readers face, and he is at great pains to provide definitions, glossaries, contextual clarification, English translations, and insightful discursive detours. …

From the Editor

From the Editor Ricardo D. Trimillos Aloha kākou! In signal ways this issue engages current concerns of the Society for Asian Music, including those about our own positionality. We consider ourselves an international Society that seeks to present the diversity of scholarship about Asian music. In the past our Society has been concerned about the underrepre-sentation of voices from colleagues living and making their careers in Asia. An understanding of Asian music ideally combines a variety of viewpoints; those located within the region are critical. For articles in this issue two of the five authors reside in Asia. In addition, we recognize that our international community of researchers uses more than one form of scholarly English, and we acknowledge this diversity. That acknowledgment makes a statement about our community and the journal’s intent to be inclusive and less obsessive about the politics of language. However, we intend to continue the “obsessiveness” concerning scholarly rigor set in the past and reflected in the present issue. As editor I hope the articles in each issue will constitute a cohesive entity for the reader, rather than simply a collection of well-written studies. In this issue I suggest the interrelationships of the five articles and their order to be in the fashion of the Malay pantun, in which an idea from one couplet provides linkage to the following couplet. Each article contains ideas or data that tie it to the preceding and/or following one. My introduction of the five articles is in the spirit of the pantun metaphor. A relatively new approach for ethnomusicology is virtual viewing via the Internet and other electronic media. Francesca Lawson’s essay on music at the opening ceremonies of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing uses this new technique to argue that the event itself draws upon a Chinese cultural sensibility and upon historical notions of ritual. Tasaw Lu considers a similar cultural sensibility among Chinese in tumultuous twentieth-century Burma, where they constitute an ethnic minority. The author, based in Taiwan, provides a provocative analysis of a diasporic Chinese identity informed by two competing political entities—Taiwan and mainland China. In the same way that Lu focuses upon Chinese musical practices outside the homeland, Maria Mendonça historicizes a Javanese gamelan tradition outside the homeland—one established in the Netherlands during World War II by Dutch nationals. She argues for its significance as seminal to the performance [End Page 1] component of American ethnomusicology and its thematic of bi-musicality. In another application of historical method combined with musical analysis, Kwok-Wai Ng, located in Hong Kong, examines change in Japanese gagaku by examining musical material for the hichiriki (shawm). Referencing the earlier study on the ryūteki (flute) by Allan Marett, Ng allows for a comparison between these two melodic instruments and posits divergent histories. In a pantun the final couplet often draws together elements from the preceding ones. Joseph Lam in his extensive consideration of masculinity and its musical manifestations during the Ming dynasty touches upon themes from preceding contributions, including music during times of turmoil and the nature of a cultural sensibility. The first article by Lawson presented an emergent methodology—virtual viewing; the final one by Lam addresses an emerging thematic—masculinity studies. The five articles are linked and come full circle as a cohesive series, beginning and ending with new and promising features for our field. Asian Music is committed to addressing the trajectories and goals set out for us. We hope you will continue to encourage and support this commitment, both as readers and as contributors. [End Page 2] Ricardo D. Trimillos University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa Copyright © 2011 University of Texas Press