University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

Finding cultural identity in gamelan: a multimedia look at Balinese culture in Los Angeles through Gamelan Burat Wangi

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Finding cultural identity in gamelan: a multimedia look at Balinese culture in Los Angeles through Gamelan Burat Wangi

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Content FINDING CULTURAL IDENTITY IN GAMELAN:
A MULTIMEDIA LOOK AT BALINESE CULTURE IN LOS ANGELES
THROUGH GAMELAN BURAT W ANGI
by
Elisa Jennifer Dulay Hough
A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF ARTS
(SPECIALIZED JOURNALISM: THE ARTS)
May 2012
Copyright 2012 Elisa Jennifer Dulay Hough
Thank you to Henry Spiller for introducing me to this vibrant music
and to the UC Davis Gamelan Ensemble for welcoming me into this vibrant community.
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Table of Contents
Dedication

List of Figures

Abstract
Finding Cultural Identity in Gamelan
Kebyar > The music
Desa Kala Patra > Cultural adaptation
Banjar > Family community
The Video: Barong Dragon Dance
The Sounds: Audio Organology
The Photos: Golden Beats: Burat Wangi Rehearsal
About the Writer
Glossary of Terms
Bibliography
Appendices: Website Screenshots
Appendix A: Website Homepage Screenshot
Appendix B: The Story Page Screenshot
Appendix C: The Video Page Screenshot
Appendix D: The Sounds Page Screenshot
Appendix E: The Photos Page Screenshot
Appendix F: The About Page Screenshot
Appendix G: The Glossary Page Screenshot
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List of Figures
Figure 1: Barong dragon dance Y outube video screenshot
Figure 2: Ugal
Figure 3: Pemade
Figure 4: Kantilan
Figure 5: Kendang
Figure 6: Trompong
Figure 7: Ugal
Figure 8: Calung
Figure 9: Reong
Figure 10: Ceng-ceng
Figure 11: Suling
Figure 12: Kempli
Figure 13: Klenang
Figure 14: Kempur and gong
Figure 15: Kemong
Figure 16: Burat Wangi practice studio
Figure 17: Pak Wenten
Figure 18: Instrument close-up
Figure 19: Bronze keys close-up
Figure 20: Playing the pemade
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Figure 21: Interlocking melody
Figure 22: Watching the director
Figure 23: Watching the drummers
Figure 24: Reong players
Figure 25: Hiro and Anna
Figure 26: Julie
Figure 27: Drummers
Figure 28: Keys close-up
Figure 29: Notation
Figure 30: Spirit 1
Figure 31: Spirit 2
Figure 32: Spirit 3
Figure 33: Cultural artifacts
Figure 34: Playing the bonang
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Abstract
This master’s thesis project explores the centuries-old Indonesian musical genre gamelan
as it exists now in Los Angeles, primarily through the ensemble Gamelan Burat Wangi. I
present it as a multimedia package online at ehough.ascjweb.org/gamelan.
Burat Wangi, founded in 1972 at the California Institute of the Arts, is arguably one of the
best known gamelan performance groups in the United States. Instead of celebrating their
accomplishments in the last 40 years, however, this story takes a closer look at the inter-
personal relations within the group and the sense of community that grows out of learning
and appreciating this music together.
The website, which I built from scratch, contains the main feature story, live performance
video, photo gallery and interactive audio organology. The organology classifies each
instrument of Burat Wangi’s ensemble with technical information and hand-drawn black-
and-white illustrations. Viewers can click the images to see them fill in with color and hear
individual instruments play short audio samples, which I also recorded.
1
Finding Cultural Identity in Gamelan
On top of a hill glowing with golden fall colors, a rare spectacle in Los Angeles County, a
classroom glows with golden musical instruments and costumes shipped from 8,600 miles
away. Under the fluorescent lights inside, 17 focused students evoke the music and culture
of Bali, Indonesia, with the bright, exotic sounds echoing into the art studio courtyard at
the California Institute of the Arts in suburban Valencia.
CalArts is one of over 300 schools in the United States offering courses in the traditional
folk music of Indonesia called gamelan. Literally meaning to strike or hammer, the term
gamelan applies to three entities: the genre of music, the collection of instruments and
the group of performers. Every weekday, Bali native I Nyoman Wenten teaches gamelan
classes in the world music BFA program and the Balinese and Javanese music and dance
MFA program.
But on Saturday mornings, a particularly dedicated ensemble of students, graduates and
unaffiliated gamelan enthusiasts — some driving from as far away as Long Beach and
Claremont — gather in the classroom to rehearse as an active performance club, Gamelan
Burat Wangi.
This year marks Burat Wangi’s 40th anniversary as a group — four decades of rehearsing,
hosting music workshops and performing in large concert halls and arts festivals. While
2
the ensemble’s members have changed over the years, especially as CalArts students come
and go, its goals have not: to teach an appreciation and deep understanding of Balinese
music and to spread Balinese culture in Los Angeles and beyond.
Even removed from the context of its tropical island origins, and loosened from its con-
text in a university classroom, this ensemble creates a palpably passionate atmosphere,
joking and gossiping between stretches of extreme concentration. Instead of classmates,
they are a community. Instead of music lessons, these are social, spiritual and creative
gatherings.
Kebyar > The music
Burat Wangi, meaning “fragrant offering, ” was established as a performance group in
1972. They play in the gamelan kebyar — “flowering” or “lightning” — style unique to
Bali, developed in the early 20th century during Dutch domination. The music is appro -
priately lightning-quick and thunderous, blossoming into increasingly complex melodic
layers and rhythmic patterns.
Most instruments are cast from bronze, an alloy ancient Indonesians revered for using all
the natural elements in its creation. Large hanging gongs, smaller gong “pots” and parallel
bars like the keys of a xylophone are set in wooden frames, intricately carved and painted
with floral patterns and faces of Balinese spirits.
3
In the practice studio, they are arranged in a V , with rows of paired instruments facing
each other, two leading drummers in between, and the almighty gong at the crux. Each
player has easy sight-lines to the accompanying dancers, drummers and — most im-
portantly — their neighbors. Eyes constantly shift to the hands of the more experienced
players, attempting to mimic their rapid movements while the unyielding melody crashes
along.
“It’s all representative of nature and life in Indonesia, ” says veteran player Adam Berg, a
self-defined “Hinjew” Balinese-American who grew up between Bali and Santa Cruz. “If
you go there, it sounds like gamelan. ”
Each song is based on the simple, cyclical patterns of the large hanging gongs. From there,
a low and slow melody emerges from the jegog, bronze keys suspended over a wooden
frame with bamboo tube resonators. Complex rhythms flow from the reong, 12 small
gong pots placed horizontally on a frame. Several more keyed instruments embellish the
melody, each faster and more complicated as the pitch increases. Suling bamboo flutes add
more textural layers of improvisational sound.
The overall tempo and dynamics fluctuate wildly, following aural cues from the kendang
hand drums and visual cues from dancers. While each musician appears to play a different
melody, some at half speed and some at double speed, each pattern leads up to the same
simultaneous note, usually at the end of every measure. A set number of measures then
4
leads up to the largest gong, signaling the end of a cycle. The song starts over, moves to a
new section, or comes to a pulsating conclusion.
The intricate patterns of the music, since its creation, reflect the strong social community
within the group, with pairs of musicians on matching “male and female” instruments in
each octave playing alternating, interlocking melodies. Players count on each other’s sense
of rhythm and interact through subtle sounds, slight gestures and sidelong glances, creat-
ing a unique kind of bond.
These social communities, in turn, reflect the necessary intimacy of families and villages
in Bali, where geographic proximity and economy demand cooperation. Neighboring
families must coordinate planting cycles and irrigation systems to maximize rice produc-
tion. They are mutually dependent for their livelihood, a societal symbiosis.
“There you live with your family, your extended family — you know everybody and
everyone has responsibilities for daily life and not themselves, ” Berg says. “That’s why
gamelan is so communal in the first place. I think it’s so cool that you have to share
parts. ”
The musical emotion can rapidly change from solemn and meditative to joyous and turbu -
lent, as the tempo instantaneously doubles or quadruples with a single drum beat. How-
ever jolting the transitions sound to listeners, the frenetic melodies and movements seem
5
natural to musicians, always anticipating the transitions by interpreting signals indiscern-
ible to untrained ears.
It’s chaos, confined to a song. Burat Wangi captures all the intensity of Balinese life, with
the all-encompassing percussive sounds leaving students’ eardrums ringing.
“Old court gamelans sounded a lot more mellow, ” Berg explains. “ And when the courts
dissolved because the Dutch came through, a lot of villagers started making these kebyar
ensembles. So this kebyar music is much more representative of everyday villagers’ lives,
and that’s why it’s so crazy, like dunn da dun dun da dun! People here think Balinese are
just chill rice farmers, hanging at the beach. Balinese are crazy. ”
The chaotic sound is likely foreign to Western ears, with a five-note musical scale bear -
ing little resemblance to our diatonic do-re-mi. When notation is required, it’s a simplified
sequence of numbers — 1 through 5 — each digit representing a short pattern leading up
to that note.
But instead of using sheet music as a crutch to guide through ostinatos and segues,
most gamelan players learn by listening and depending on fellow musicians to fol-
low along. Students must train their ears to hear how their part fits with the rest of the
ensemble.
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“There’s something to be said about each one of us in our musicality when we learn some -
thing by ear and have truly memorized it and known it, as opposed to sight-reading it, ”
Berg says. “The music becomes alive at that point. ”
Besides the absence of written musical notation, the egalitarian nature of gamelan can be
a difficult adjustment for students trained in Western music, who are accustomed to vying
for first-chair positions and solos. While there is a progression of instruments that mem -
bers must prove themselves capable of playing, starting with the slow gongs and ending
with the polyrhythmic drums, there is a sense of equality and mutual respect among the
group — ideally.
“There’s people that come in, in all gamelan groups in the United States, that get good, and
then they get possessive, ” says Berg, who took his first gamelan lesson in Bali at age 8 and
has played in several California ensembles. “They don’t realize that what they’re learning
is one way of one area of Bali or Indonesia. Most of those people tend to lose the heart of
what gamelan really is. ”
Students only learn one way because, even though there are codified tuning systems, every
gamelan set is tuned slightly differently. The instruments are handmade, rendering each
ensemble unique. Each practices a regional style, with minor variations in pitches and
patterns. This collective singularity among the instruments and players, even in America,
adds to the communal nature of the weekly rehearsal.
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When the group harnesses these communal ties, every variation of the melody from each
instrument precisely interlocks, creating an integrated, singular sound from up to 30 play-
ers. It’s in the same spirit as Indonesia’s national motto, inspired by the unity of its 17,000
islands, Bhinneka Tunggal Ika: “many, yet one” — bearing strong resemblance to our own
E Pluribus Unum: “from many, one. ”
Desa kala patra > Cultural adaptation
In this unified mindset, the performers in Burat Wangi channel their Balinese counter -
parts from across an ocean. But besides Berg and most of the dancers, who meet in the
same room earlier Saturday morning, the group is almost entirely white Americans. It’s
almost an aural-visual disconnect, to hear such foreign, unfamiliar music coming from
white people in T-shirts, jeans and backward baseball hats.
But the Americans in Burat Wangi are part of a long tradition of Western fascination with
gamelan music, which was introduced to Europe in 1889 at the World’s Fair in Paris and
to the United States in 1893 at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Compos-
ers Claude Debussy and Erik Satie began incorporating structural elements of Javanese
gamelan into their own works after these initial exposures.
In the 20th century, avant garde composers like John Cage, Steve Reich and Philip Glass
also took influence from Indonesia. Composer James Tenney, whose daughter Adrian now
plays in Burat Wangi, experimented with integrating gamelan instruments into Western
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art music. While Californian composer Lou Harrison exposed the West to Javanese music
through his own reinterpretations, Canadian Colin McPhee was the first composer to
study Balinese music in depth.
As general interest in the music and culture grew through these composers and the avail-
ability of Indonesian recordings, Americans began traveling to the main islands, kickstart-
ing Bali’s current economic dependency on tourism.
“Many of these individuals were attracted to the Asian arts in general, and Indonesian
music in particular, because they seemed to embody both a spirituality and a sense of
permanence that they felt was missing from modern Western expressions; the connec-
tion of the arts to people’s daily lives was another attraction,” writes ethnomusicolo-
gist Henry Spiller, who started Sundanese gamelan ensembles at Kenyon College and
UC Davis.
The first university gamelan performance program was founded in 1958 at UCLA by
Mantle Hood, who established the scholastic practice of ethnomusicology and invited In-
donesians to teach classes. According to author Judith Becker, Hood wanted his students
to be “bi-musical, ” like being bilingual, with the ability to understand foreign music by
learning to perform it. This teaching system was powerful enough that many of his stu -
dents went on to start gamelan ensembles of their own.
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While the majority of gamelan instructors in the United States are like the majority of
students, white Americans, a few are Indonesian natives, like Burat Wangi director “Pak”
Wenten, who has taught on both sides of the Pacific.
Wenten believes Americans are attracted to gamelan as a contrast to the Western classi-
cal mentality, in which one masters a single instrument well enough to play in a rigidly
structured orchestra. Even a group like Burat Wangi does not demand complete mastery.
Because there are so many instruments with overlapping parts, beginners can play along
with advanced students.
But teaching gamelan to beginners in this setting — a classroom, in California, in the
21st century — requires different methods than in Wenten’s native land. Balinese children
grow up learning the stories behind each song and dance and the history of gamelan from
their families, so these basic contexts do not need to be established in a scholastic setting.
“Here, you have to explain, ” Wenten says. “The beginning is very important, how you
grab the student to become interested to learn, not just musically but your culture as well,
because it going to be take and give. The more you know the culture, the more you love to
play!”
Y et even with the best intentions and the deepest understanding of Balinese culture from
these Americans, the musical culture of gamelan takes a transformation. Instead of hear-
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ing gamelan in outdoor pavilions, where the sharp sounds are softened by open air, most
U.S. concerts are in university concert halls where the sound, bouncing off walls and seat -
ing, may be abrasive to audiences.
In Indonesia, concerts can last all night, straight through until dawn, with single songs po-
tentially drawn out for hours as players explore incremental improvisations in the melody.
Attendees move around the performance area to view the gamelan from all angles, even
adding in their own rhythmic cries. Here, concerts are seating room only, standard quiet-
please etiquette, one intermission, no longer than a movie.
Along with the shifts in performance settings and conventions, Wenten admits that the
meaning of the music also changes when performing gamelan in the Western world.
“Of course, we have to adapt — what we call in Bali desa kala patra, so adapt wherever
and whenever you need it to, ” he says. “Desa is place, kala is time, patra mean feeling. So
you have to adapt this according to place and time. It’s not rigid, like oh, we have to do this.
Like in Bali, the art is like a snowball — it keep rolling and get bigger and influence by
many different culture. So that very important to adapt is, desa kala patra. ”
This cultural appropriation might seem false to an outsider — a second wave of coloniza -
tion, except instead of the Dutch claiming Indonesian land, Americans are claiming their
art. But Tyler Y amin, an MFA student who appears to be the de facto director of this
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ensemble, assisting veteran players and correcting even Wenten, believes the most devoted
musicians are exempt from accusations of artificial imitation.
“Most of the time, Balinese really like it when foreigners actually take a liking to their
culture and respect it, which not very many people do, ” says Y amin, who has traveled to
Bali five times since he started gamelan at CalArts. “Even a lot of people who come to play
gamelan never make the leap. So when someone’s actually really into it in the right way,
then Balinese people are really accepting. ”
When people are into it the right way, it’s a pure kind of human identity, propelled not by
naive nationalism but by true desire to understand a culture. This propulsion leads to what
ethnomusicologist Mark Slobin calls “affinity groups, ” communities of people who reject
their default ethnic backgrounds or mainstream cultural trends — or never learn them to
begin with — and construct their own identities from alternative cultures and art forms.
These affinity groups are especially prevalent in the United States, where young people
grow up as second, third, fourth or further generations of immigrant descendants, inevi-
tably losing pieces of their hereditary cultural identities. Ethnic detachments can become
even stronger in California, where over 5 percent of individuals identify as being more
than one race. The greatest population of multiethnic individuals in the state, now over
200,000, is in Los Angeles.
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L.A. is a fitting setting for these groups, not only as a society of ethnically confused and
discontented citizens, but as a city that itself has ambiguous identities, a hundred misno-
mered neighborhoods haphazardly connected by freeways. The city has long been re -
garded as a place without a centralized community or unified culture, unlike its East Coast
equivalents.
But there is arguably one unifying aspect: Where the East Coast takes societal and artistic
influence from across the Atlantic in Europe, the West Coast looks across the Pacific to
Asia, and L.A. is no exception. Gamelan affinity groups growing out of CalArts and other
local universities are proof.
And so these devoted Angelenos in Burat Wangi start to identify with the faraway culture
through their love of gamelan. They cook Southeast Asian food, learn bits of the language,
mail-order their own instruments to play at home, compose their own pieces, integrate
gamelan instruments and structures into other musical projects, open their minds and
ears to other regions of the world.
Through adaptations to current place and time, gamelan musicians continue a centuries-
old tradition, creating their own culture that is constantly influenced by past and present
elements.
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Banjar > Family community
The weekly Burat Wangi rehearsal is broken into two periods, with a potluck lunch in
the middle. After breaking for roasted duck, curried chicken, a huge pot of rice and three
cakes — someone realized that with about 50 musicians and dancers, they end up cel-
ebrating birthdays at each practice — two young girls take over the dance floor.
The older, age 8, is currently the youngest dancer ever trained by Burat Wangi. With the
requisite fluttering fingers and darting eyes, she seems confident in the intricate dance
steps, which are based on the precise and somewhat unnatural movements of traditional
Indonesian shadow puppets. Her pigtailed little sister absentmindedly imitates the jerky
gestures while eating a sandwich. At the end of the song, she flops into the lap of a musi -
cian.
“I saw you dancing!” he exclaims, proud of his daughter’s interest in this art form.
This familial connection is not uncommon. Even in the United States, the gamelan fam -
ily tree is expansive, rooted in melodies that are equally tangled. Wenten is married to
his dance director, Nanik Wenten, who is the daughter of renowned Javanese gamelan
composer and performer “Pak Cokro” K. P . H. Notoprojo — the three of them founded
Burat Wangi together. The current ensemble has resulted in one marriage and a handful of
couples, including Y amin and his girlfriend, Jessica Ross.
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“I mean, I’m not with you because you play gamelan, ” she says to him. “We’re doing some-
thing together. ”
“I think gamelan just attracts the kind of people who end up clicking, ” he replies.
The sense of family within gamelan groups extends, however, beyond blood and romantic
relations. Everyone shares responsibilities of providing food and drinks, transporting the
instruments for performances, carpooling to CalArts. They celebrate together and mourn
together. One morning, Wenten solemnly began the practice session by announcing one
member was absent because his brother had just passed and suggested they send flowers
to the family as a group.
This kind of connection reminds Berg of the cooperative nature he grew up around in
Bali, which is hard to find in a city as sprawled and disjointed as Los Angeles.
“The sense of community is something they get every week by coming, ” Berg says. “It’s my
banjar. It’s my extended family. ”
One member goes further to say that their musical community teaches the practice of
being a good citizen. Another says that even though the music can be abrasive, focusing
all her energy on playing leaves her calm and uplifted by the end of practice, getting her
through the rest of the stressful week.
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Ancient Indonesian kings used gamelan, with its cyclical, meditative patterns, to preserve
cosmic order in the universe, fighting the preexisting universal chaos. Now, chaos of life in
Los Angeles may not be as overwhelming as the void of outer space. Musicians are more
likely concerned with preserving their own daily routines than the order of the cosmos.
But the practice of gamelan, on whatever scale, in whatever decade or century, is just as
musically and emotionally harmonious.
“It’s just cleansing, ” Berg concludes. “It’s like church for people, or synagogue. That’s what
it is to me, personally. It’s one happy, constant thing in your life in this crazy-ass city. ”
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When there’s a shaggy dragon spirit dancing on stage, reflecting like a disco ball across the
theater, it doesn’t matter if you’re Indonesian or American, Hindu or Jewish — you’re go-
ing to be entranced.
Such was the audience at the Luckman Fine Arts Complex for the mebarung “battle”
between two California-based gamelans, ensembles playing the traditional folk music
of Indonesia, as part of the World Festival of Sacred Music on Oct. 8. In this corner was
Burat Wangi from CalArts.
The Video: Barong Dragon Dance
Figure 1: Barong dragon dance Y outube video screenshot
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o95OCI5CdXM
Video credit: Louis Morton
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The audience was so intently focused on the two dancers within the dragon costume that
when they took a sudden threatening step forward, the first few rows jolted back in their
seats and the whole hall gasped.
When the dragon appeared to scratch its own butt, one had to wonder, how traditional
is this dance move? Is this still sacred? But if this silliness engages a whole theaterful of
people in collective laughter, echoing the centuries-old communal nature of gamelan
groups and music, then it really doesn’t matter. This is sacred in its own way.
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The Sounds: Audio Organology
In musical terms, organology is the study of musical instruments and their classification.
This organology project presents all the instruments in Gamelan Burat Wangi, a tradition -
al Balinese collection, with audio examples of each. Click an instrument to hear a short
demonstration played by Tyler Y amin.
The bronze in these instruments is an alloy of 10 parts copper and three parts tin. Unless
otherwise noted, all wooden components are from jackfruit trees.
ugal (oo-GAWL)
• Idiophone
• 10 bronze keys suspended over wooden
frame with bamboo pipe resonators, wooden
mallet
• Considered the leader, playing embellished
melody, placed at center of all keyed instru-
ments
• In Balinese, “ugal” also means “first-born”
child, hence the instrument’s prominent
position
Figure 2: Ugal
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pemade (puh-MAH-day)
• Idiophone
• 10 bronze keys suspended over wooden
frame with bamboo pipe resonators, wooden
mallet
• Usually four in one ensemble, following the
basic pattern of the ugal in interlocking pairs
• “made” translates to “second born, ” making
it next in line behind the ugal
kantilan (kahn-TEE-lahn)
• Idiophone
• 10 bronze keys suspended over wooden
frame with bamboo pipe resonators, wooden
mallet
• Highest pitched of the three melodic keyed
instruments, plays same notes as the pemade
Figure 3: Pemade
Figure 4: Kantilan
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kendang (ken-DONG)
• Membranophone
• Wooden drum with cow skin heads, raw-
hide tension straps, wooden beater
• Must follow signals from dancers then sig-
nal rest of the players, so only played by most
advanced performers
trompong (TROM-pong)
• Idiophone
• 10 bronze pots, wooden frame without
resonators, long padded beaters
• Played by one person, with some freedom
to improvise
Figure 5: Kendang
Figure 6: Trompong
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jegog (jeh-GAWG)
• Idiophone
• Five bronze keys suspended over wooden
frame with bamboo pipe resonators, cloth-
covered beater
• Plays basic slow melody
calung (CHA-loong)
• Idiophone
• Five bronze keys suspended over wooden
frame with bamboo pipe resonators, wooden
mallet with rubber padded head
• Follows same pattern as jegog
Figure 7: Jegog
Figure 8: Calung
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Figure 9: Reong
reong (REE-ong)
• Idiophone
• 12 bronze pots, wooden frame without reso-
nators, beater sticks covered with knit yarn
• Normally played by four players at once,
shifting between on- and offbeat parts
ceng-ceng (CHENG cheng)
• Idiophone
• Five small bronze cymbals attached to a
solid wooden base, played by striking with
two handheld cymbals
• The ceng-ceng player is usually considered
the apprentice drummer
suling (soo-LING)
• Aerophone
• Bamboo end-blown flute
• Three sizes in varying octaves play together
with freedom to improvise melodies
Figure 10: Ceng-ceng
Figure 11: Suling
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kempli (kem-PLEE)
• Idiophone
• Single bronze pot suspended in wooden
frame, cloth-covered beater
• Plays steady quarter notes
klenang (kluh-NONG)
• Idiophone
• Single tiny bronze pot set in a wooden
frame, padded beater
• Alternates with the kempli
Figure 12: Kempli
Figure 13: Klenang
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Figure 14: Kempur and gong
Figure 15: Kemong
kempur (kem-POOR) and gong (GONG)
• Idiophones
• Largest bronze gongs hung in wooden
frames, cloth-covered beater
• Sets basic rhythmic structure, played by
one person, usually elders
kemong (keh-MONG)
• Idiophone
• Smallest bronze gong hung in wooden
frame, cloth-covered beater
• One person usually plays all three hanging
gongs
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Figure 16: Burat Wangi practice studio
Caption: The bronze instruments are handmade
in Bali, using all the natural elements to create this
sacred musical style.
Figure 18: Instrument close-up
Caption: All instruments are extremely ornate, with
designs specific to the geographic region in which
they were created and played.
Figure 19: Bronze keys close-up
Caption: Bronze keys are suspended over bamboo
resonators and struck with mallets made of wood.
Figure 17: Pak Wenten
Caption: I Nyoman Wenten, right, founded the
group in 1972 along with his wife, dance director
Nanik Wenten, and her father, Pak Cokro K.P .H.
Notoprojo.
The Photos
Golden Beats: Burat Wangi Rehearsal
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Figure 20: Playing the pemade
Caption: After striking a note, players must mute
the key so it doesn’t continue ringing, so both hands
move at a seemingly impossible rate.
Figure 21: Interlocking melody
Caption: Jessica and her boyfriend Tyler, who met in
gamelan class, demonstrate the interlocking melo-
dies on a single instrument.
Figure 22: Watching the director
Caption: Few players get ‘solos, ’ since the music is
communal in nature, but Pak Wenten takes the lead
here.
Figure 23: Watching the drummers
Caption: Metallophone players watch for cues from
the drummers and the young dancer in the back-
ground.
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Figure 24: Reong players
Caption: The reong is a series of small gong kettles,
suspended on cables over the wooden frame.
Figure 25: Hiro and Anna
Caption: Hiro and Anna, left, met in gamelan class
and are now married.
Figure 26: Julie
Caption: Julie is a music teacher at Scripps but plays
with as many gamelan ensembles as she can manage.
Figure 27: Drummers
Caption: Tyler and Adam face off on the kendang
drums, the instrument requiring the highest level of
experience and skill.
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Figure 28: Keys close-up
Caption: Gamelan instruments use a different tun -
ing system than we are accustomed to in Western
music, with only five notes per octave.
Figure 29: Notation
Caption: Musical notation is seldom used, but when
necessary it simply denotes numbers, each repre-
senting a whole pattern of notes.
Figure 30: Spirit 1
Caption: A majority of Bali is Hindu, so the music
and dance includes much imagery of demons and
spirits, even carved into every instrument.
Figure 31: Spirit 2
29
Figure 32: Spirit 3 Figure 33: Cultural artifacts
30
At the beginning of 2007, I timidly entered the UC Davis Gamelan Ensemble practice
room for the first time. I was midway through my junior year of college, feeling bored
with all my English classes and in need of a new challenge.
It had been many years since I gave up playing music, fruitlessly paying for guitar les-
sons and scheming up bands that would never be. I gladly resigned to my position as a
“behind-the-scenes girl, ” organizing concerts, hosting a radio show, working stage light-
ing and sound, writing about music and generally promoting those who could do what I
could not.
About the Writer
Figure 34: Playing the bonang
Photo credit: Craig Fergus
31
But something about gamelan music, which I heard first on CDs at my radio station, pos -
sessed me to try again. Immediately, the mysterious red and gold instruments crammed in
this off-campus studio intrigued me.
The first few weeks were tough, as I tried to regain a steady sense of rhythm and math -
ematically memorize the sequences of numbers we used as notation. It wasn’t until a
friend told me, “Don’t think about it like patterns and equations — just think about what
it sounds like, ” that the music clicked for me. I learned to trust my ears and my classmates,
and I learned to finally enjoy playing music.
I continued playing with the Davis ensemble for three years after I graduated — and when
I briefly lived in Olympia, Wash., and Okinawa, Japan, I found gamelan groups to play
with there, too. Now in Los Angeles, I practice with a Javanese ensemble at the Indonesian
consulate.
My obsessions with gamelan as a musical genre and the joy of playing with a commu-
nity have been mutually perpetuating. I can’t tell which of the two aspects I enjoy more
because, as they should be, they are inseparable. Gamelan is community. Gamelan is my
community.
32
Glossary of Terms
aerophone: an instrument that creates sound primarily through vibrating a body of air,
such as a flute or trumpet (one of the four categories in the Hornbostel-Sachs musical
instrument classification system)
affinity groups : communities bound together not by ethnicity but by attraction to par-
ticular cultural practices, such as music (Source: Koskoff)
banjar: cooperative groups of family and/or neighbors in a community
bronze: strong metal alloy combining copper and usually tin which ancient Indonesians
believed to have supernatural qualities (Source: Spiller)
colotomy: term used specifically to describe the rhythmic structure of gamelan, with
gongs of varied sizes marking set intervals of time
desa kala patra: literally, “time, place, feeling”; Balinese saying for adapting to current
surroundings
diatonic: musical scale consisting of five whole steps and two half steps, the standard
Western C-D-E-F-G-A-B notes
33
ethnomusicology: the study of social and cultural aspects of music and dance in local and
global contexts, not limited to so-called “ethnic” music of foreign countries (Source: Pegg)
gangsa: collective term for the ugal, pemade and kantilan
gamelan: literally, “to strike or hammer”; the genre of music, the collection of instru-
ments, and the group of performers
idiophone: an instrument that creates sound primarily through its own vibration, such as
most percussion besides drums (one of the four categories in the Hornbostel-Sachs musi-
cal instrument classification system)
kebyar: literally, “flowering” or “lightning”; style of gamelan music unique to Bali and
developed in the early 20th century, characterized by frantically quick melodies
membranophone: an instrument that creates sound primarily through vibrating a
stretched membrane, such as most drums (one of the four categories in the Hornbostel-
Sachs musical instrument classification system)
metallophone: a musical instrument consisting of metal bars that are struck to produce
sound, commonly seen in gamelan ensembles, such as the Balinese gangsa; Western ex-
amples include vibraphone and glockenspiel (subsection of idiophone)
34
multiethnic: identifying as two or more races, a category first seen on the U.S. Census in
2000
ostinato: phrase of music, either rhythmic or melodic, that is repeated throughout a piece
Pak: Indonesian title of respect for males, equivalent to Mister or Father
pokok: literally, “tree trunk, ” referring to the base instruments jegog and calung
polyrhythmic: using two or more conflicting rhythmic patterns simultaneously
tuning system: defines what notes to use when playing music, designated either by the
musical notations or the bounds of the instrument
35
Bibliography
Becker, Judith. “One Perspective on Gamelan in America. ” Asian Music. Austin: University
of Texas Press, 2010.
Koskoff, Ellen, ed. Music Cultures in the United States. New Y ork: Routledge, 2005.
Sorrell, Neil. A Guide to the Gamelan. London: Faber and Faber Limited, 1990.
Spiller, Henry. Gamelan: The Traditional Sounds of Indonesia . Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO,
Inc., 2004.
36
Appendix A: Website Homepage Screenshot
37
Appendix B: The Sttory Page Screenshot
38
Appendix C: The Video Page Screenshot
39
Appendix D: The Sounds Page Screenshot
40
Appendix E: The Photos Page Screenshot
41
Appendix F: About Page Screenshot
42
Appendix G: Glossary Page Screenshot

Abstract (if available)

Abstract This master’s thesis project explores the centuries-old Indonesian musical genre gamelan as it exists now in Los Angeles, primarily through the ensemble Gamelan Burat Wangi. I present it as a multimedia package online at ehough.ascjweb.org/gamelan. ❧ Burat Wangi, founded in 1972 at the California Institute of the Arts, is arguably one of the best known gamelan performance groups in the United States. Instead of celebrating their accomplishments in the last 40 years, however, this story takes a closer look at the interpersonal relations within the group and the sense of community that grows out of learning and appreciating this music together. ❧ The website, which I built from scratch, contains the main feature story, live performance video, photo gallery and interactive audio organology. The organology classifies each instrument of Burat Wangi’s ensemble with technical information and hand-drawn black-and-white illustrations. Viewers can click the images to see them fill in with color and hear individual instruments play short audio samples, which I also recorded.

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Asset Metadata

Creator Hough, Elisa Jennifer Dulay (author)

Core Title Finding cultural identity in gamelan: a multimedia look at Balinese culture in Los Angeles through Gamelan Burat Wangi

School Annenberg School for Communication

Degree Master of Arts

Degree Program Specialized Journalism (The Arts)

Publication Date 05/07/2012

Defense Date 04/02/2012

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag art,Bali,Burat Wangi,CalArts,culture,gamelan,Indonesia,Los Angeles,Music,OAI-PMH Harvest

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Page, Tim (committee chair), Kun, Joshua D. (committee member), Yang, Mina (committee member)

Creator Email bibdigits@gmail.com,ehough@usc.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c3-34413

Unique identifier UC11290622

Identifier usctheses-c3-34413 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-HoughElisa-802.pdf

Dmrecord 34413

Document Type Thesis

Rights Hough, Elisa Jennifer Dulay

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA