Hi everyone, I’ve been very sick this week unfortunately so only a very short blog post from me.

Unfortunately I came down with some kind of illness on Monday and so I spent most of this week resting up. I was even worse yesterday but once again I seem on the mend (though I recall telling myself this every day this week…)

Some things I did get up to this week was seeing gamelan outside of the tourist context. If you’re not familiar with gamelan, it’s the traditional music of Bali (though it exists in Java and Sumatra also). In Ubud, where I’m staying currently, there are gamelan performances every night! I chuckled at a FaceBook post I saw the other day in which the poster said they gave up on the show halfway through, because it was “too foreign to their eyes and ears”.
I was invited to one performance by the owner of the Homestay I am at. This was great as it took place after a ritual but the event was open to anyone who knew it was on. It was great to see, and the audience was entirely Balinese (except for me), in complete contrast to the tourist shows, where there are no Balinese people in the crowd. The pieces were a mix of ones you would see at the tourist shows, but with slightly less production value and a much more informal vibe, with people sitting mainly on the floor, kids running around and playing, people smoking on the side, and food being served at the back. This was a stark contrast to the tourist shows, which are sit-down, stay engaged for the whole time affairs.

The other thing I went to this week was a rehearsal of Salukat, which is probably one of, if not the most, contemporary gamelan ensemble in Bali (in that their music often forgoes traditional styles). Salukat is run by legendary composer Dewa Ketut Alit, who was so kind and welcoming (and I actually didn’t put two and two together until after the rehearsal). Salukat’s gamelan uses its own tuning and the pieces, as mentioned, eschew traditional styles, instead developing new techniques. This is interesting for my research because eschewing traditional styles is something that is commonly done by Western composers writing in unfamiliar styles (that being styles they have not been raised in), but I still think there is a throughline between tradition and Alit’s work that is not necessarily present in Western compositions for the gamelan, but I need some more time to figure that out.

Stay safe and healthy this week!