[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
NIME Assignment: “Inspirational Sounds”: Bring a one minute audio clip of music to share with the class and explain why you find it compelling. Try to identify the qualities that appeal to you or that make it well suited to the purpose for which you use it.
I chose to share a minute of music that I recorded while visiting Saturday morning Gamelan rehearsals at the pendopo (front hall) of the Mangkunegaran Palace, in Solo, Java, Indonesia.
I went there on my last day in Solo, with my friends Mas Jon and Mbak Nana. Because they’re two of Solo’s top students, we got in from the back door, hung around the courtyard and waited for the orchestra to invite us to play. There are two well known sets of Gamelan in the palace that were built in the 17th century. These instruments are considered holy and venerable spirits live within them. I was told that the ones we got to play with on the day I went is even older.
The sound was incredibly rich, and the rhythm and melodies are very different from the contemporary classical pieces we at New York’s Gamelan Kusuma Laras play. The kendhang (drums) is beat with tabuh (mallets), unlike contemporary kendhang playing. The balungan (melody) players are responsible for only two or three notes, but if they don’t get it correctly then the entire piece falls to pieces. The simplicity and sacredness make it feel primordial. And to think that people gathered here hundreds of years ago listening to the same music is intense. Listening to the recording does not quite capture the ethereal ambience of that Saturday morning, but noticing the chirping of birds, the shutter of my camera and the gaggle of tourists is an interesting side effect of recorded audio. They help settle me in that memory, which audio recorded in a studio would never do.
I made a terribly terrific faux pas by referring to Pak Hartono, descendant of the kings of Surakarta, in the formal. But he brushed it off and even invited me to play for the last two pieces. As soon as we finished, the crowd of elderly players rushed us from our seat to cover the instruments with thick red cloth. It’s to cover them from dust, they tell me. I also shot some video of the experience, but the sound quality was not as good and I needed to condense the 30 minutes of audio into a minute. The result is the MP3 above.
