Javanese gamelan: some ethnomusicological questions

NB citations from Perlman, Marc, 2004. Unplayed Melodies: Javanese Gamelan and

the Genesis of Music Theory (Berkeley: University of California Press) and

Perlman, Marc, 1998. “The Social Meanings of Modal Practices…”, in Ethnomusicology 42

(1): 45-80.

Musical creativity

• ‘Creativity’. Western, romantic perspectives• Does ‘creativity’ necessarily mean

‘innovation’?• The creative individual vs. forms of collective,

‘relayed’ creativity• ‘Composition’ vs. ‘improvisation’• How is creativity conceptualized in different

cultures? What is the relationship between the conceptualization (‘theory’) and the practice?

Javanese contexts

• Composers and composition in the contemporary conservatory environment in Java and Bali (KOKAR, STSI, SMKI, ASTI - Akademi Seni Tari Indonesia)

• Wasatodiningrat (Pak Cokro): Lancaran Penghijauan, laras slendro, patet sanga, 1966. (NB combines slendro and pélog)

• “Pak Cokro wrote this piece to express his concern about potential environmental disasters caused by cutting down too many trees in Indonesia’s forests. Penghijauan means ‘re-forestation’” (liner notes: The Music of KRT Wasatodiningrat, Performed by Gamelan Tunjung, CMP CD 3007)

• Karawitan as a ‘music theory’, explaining how a group creates a performance out of a known balungan

• Kunst (1937), Hood (1954: balungan as cantus firmus), Lindsay (1985)

• (gatra)

Javanese contexts• Divergence and convergence.

“Each part should unite with the others (nunggal), but only as long as it can do so and still maintain its own life (urip dhéwé)” (Perlman 2004: 43); negotiating tension between ‘following the course of another’ and ‘being separate’ (mengikuti jalannya vs. misah).

• Garap (and ‘soft elaboration’); céngkok; pathet, modal formulae and improvisation.

Javanese contexts

Javanese contexts• Does the balungan ‘generate’ the performance,

through explicit rules? • Balungan a new-ish term (c. 1910), reflecting impact of

western observers ways of thinking about gamelan, need for notation, etc.

• Perlman’s observations (1998, 2005). Non-congruence of balungan and garap not easily explained by practitioners. Women vs. men, village vs. court.

• Sumarsam’s disagreement (1995): ‘implicit melodies’. A Javanese cultural preference for allusiveness and interiority? Or postcolonial critique?

Javanese contexts

• Comparison with western early baroque theory of chord roots. ‘Implicit bass’

• Zarlino (1558): a 5-3 chord on C and a 6-3 chord on E not necessarily ‘the same’

• Johannes Lippius, Disputatio music tertia (1610); Campion, Werkmeister, Kirnberger

• Rameau’s fundamental bass in the Traité de l’harmonie (1722)

Javanese contexts: conclusion

• Question of creativity elusive• Musical ‘creativity’ does not always equal

‘change’. Creativity a group process, involving complex kinds of implicit knowledge (and not merely following explicit rules). Questions of creativity can be significantly complicated when we project ‘our’ ideas onto other societies, particularly in colonial situations.