Saturday 25 July 2009
Thursday 23 July 2009
Two disappointing performances in Yogya
There are two recognised centres of culture in Central Java, Yogya and Solo. Our original idea had been to go to Yogya, but at the last minute we changed our mind and went for Solo. Musically, this seems to have been the right choice. Fetching up at a small homestay frequented by gamelan musicians, we were immediately hooked into all the best classical music and wayang, none of it intended primarily for tourists.
Yogya is a different matter; here there is a well-rehearsed routine for capturing Western tourists and funnelling them into a series of attractions designed to sell Javanese culture. We started at the kraton, where our young tour guide was quick to identify our interest in wayang puppets; soon we were introduced to his father, who in turn put us in a becak to see a puppet maker. The puppet maker in turn encouraged us to meet him at the nightly two-hour tourist wayang held at the Sonobudoyo Museum.
We decided to give it a go, but what a sad and dispiriting event it was. A wayang is usually seven hours long, from nine pm to four in the morning. More crucially perhaps, as I'm now coming to realise, it is as much a social occasion as a performance. The tourist wayang was completely lacking in spirit not because it had been adapted and drastically shortened, but because this aspect was entirely missing. Also, at the risk of sounding like a semi-knowledgeable wayang snob, so many aspects were wrong.
There were chairs set up on both sides of the screen, the majority of them on the shadow side, where most of the audience were encouraged to sit. Not only that, but the sound system for the pesindhen and dalang was set up facing that side, making it very hard to hear from the musician's side. The audience was entirely made up of tourists, about three-quarters Westerners and the others maybe Japanese or Korean. It can be safely assumed that none of these people spoke Javanese, making any intelligible interaction between dalang and audience beyond simply the music and puppetry impossible.
About half-way through the piece I took up an invitation to go and sit in amongst the players onstage; this is not such an uncommon thing to happen. In broken Indonesian I said hello to the pesindhen and a few of the players, and even clapped along in a few places where I knew it was appropriate. With a mixture of trepidation and excitement, I realised that the goro-goro was coming up. This is the major comic interlude in a wayang; and I fully expected to become the butt of the dalang's humour, as commonly happens to Westerners at this point in the show. Nothing; of course there may have been a few sly jokes going on which I couldn't understand, but as far as I could see he completely ignored me.
As did all almost all the players; in fact, sitting in amongst the band, I realised how incredibly bored and jaded they all looked. These poor guys seemed to be serving out a life sentence of playing seven nights a week for uncomprehending audiences, and the music frankly reflected their boredom; lacklustre and sometimes pretty messy. They just couldn't be bothered, and under the circumstances I can't really blame them.
The night before that we had actually managed to find something off the tourist radar to go to, aimed more at a partly Indonesian and partly expat community of... arty types, I guess. This was Vincent McDermott's opera 'Mata Hari'. 'Can you make sure it's not actually... an opera!?', said Mags, and on enquiring it sounded an intriguingly similar kind of set up to Evan Ziporyn's 'A House In Bali', a band made up of half Western instruments and half gamelan instruments, with operatic vocal stylings combined with Javanese dance.
Not really the same kind of thing, though. One can appreciate how hard it must be to put on an event such as this, and I am prepared to make allowances; both bands were made up of capable but not particularly strong student players, while the production values were a bare notch above those of an amateur musical. I'll even forgive the fact that two of the principle singers apparently hadn't learned their parts yet, and were performing from music stands placed strategically and not so strategically onstage. The best aspect of the piece was probably the dance and choreography, particularly a quartet of male dancers who consistently drew the eye with a clever combination of modernistic and Javanese moves.
Opera sets itself up to incorporate all the arts, but in the end must stand or fall on the music, and McDermott's did not convince. The vocal writing was quite good (note to self; Indonesian is a grateful language for singers) but the instrumental material was tentative and lacking in drive and motion, often failing to support or carry forward the efforts of the singers. The programme made overt reference to the history and traditions of opera, so perhaps any criticisms on that ground are out of court, but... I feel more interesting work could have been made using the available forces by ditching any ideas of operatic-ness, or perhaps by being more playful or ironic with that tradition.
Wednesday 15 July 2009
Buying batik in Solo
At home in Scotland, I own one batik shirt. Well, I say batik; actually it is a kind of garish tourist model, short-sleeved polyester cotton with a big Garuda pattern printed on it, probably more suitable for an episode of Miami Vice than playing gamelan. Mags found it in a charity shop on Byre's Road, and lo and behold I found exactly the same shirt at a tourist stall in Ubud. Obvious what happened here, some West-ender on holiday in Ubud; 'Wow, that looks great!', then back to Scotland 'Hmm... maybe not'.
I really like the batik look, though. Around the South Bank Gamelan in London a lot of the players sport these as a kind of nonchalant 'yeah, I just picked this up in the market when I was studying in Solo' kind of look. So, one of my missions here had been to go to an actual batik market and actually haggle for an actual Javanese batik shirt.
Mission accomplished. Over the last week or so I've gradually worked my way down the price scale. At the top of the overpriced tourist scale is a shop like Batik Keris across the road from Cakra. Here you might easily be asked IDR 400,000 (£25) for a short sleeved shirt. A better prospect is a number of small boutiques in the Kauman area near Cakra. The one which was recommended by our Australian friend Melanie was Gunawan Setiawan. This is quite a well-known shop, and if you were to take up one of the five offers a day you get from taxi and becak drivers to take you to a batik shop, this is probably the one they would take you to. Very charming people, fixed prices.
Here I started to learn about the different qualities of batik. At the top end is purely hand-made batik, batik tulis, which means 'drawn', in other words the design is actually drawn by hand by an artisan in wax. Prices here can go way up! I went in with Mags to look at some kain sarong, basically just an oblong of material which men and women wrap around themselves to make a variety of skirt-like garments. Mags had picked out about eight or ten, but we got a bit of a shock when we went to the counter, somehow our order was north of £500! It turned out that one of these items alone, a beautiful detailed design in green and gold, was IDR 3,000,000 - £184 - entirely hand made. That one had to go back, unfortunately.
The only item I've bought in that shop so far was a shirt I picked out. This was still handmade, I think, probably a combination of 'tulis' and 'cap'. I think 'cap' again can mean a couple of different things; at the quality end of the marked it still means a hand-made garment, but one where some of the pattern has been applied using a sort of stamp rather than drawn. By luck the short-sleeved cotton shirt I picked out was 'sudah diskon', already discounted, down to IDR 100,000 (£6), normally shirts of this quality are between IDR 200,000 and 300,000 (£12 to £18). These are prices one would happily pay in the UK, I think, but are quite high by local standards.
Around the corner from Gunawan Setiawan are a number of other batik boutiques. Most of these seem to offer items even further down the quality scale. Here you get a kind of batik often sold to you as 'cap' or 'combination', but which I think is in fact entirely machine printed. But, these shirts look absolutely great; you will see a lot of Indonesian guys every day wearing batik shirts like this, where they count as formal wear, rather like a kilt; unless they are very upper class Javanese, they will usually be wearing this machine printed material.
The prices for a short-sleeved cotton shirt in this style are very reasonable indeed; at somewhere like Batik Soga or Mutiara Timun I was paying about 70,000 or less for one of these, about £4, which is an absolute steal really.
Can he go lower? Yes he can! Having got a sense of the quality and price, this morning I braved Pasar Klewer, which is I think one of the biggest clothing markets in Indonesia. It is about the size of the Savoy Centre in Glasgow, on two floors, but about four times as crowded. The batik stalls are about the size of two or three telephone kiosks, every one packed with a bewildering variety of patterns. However, as far as I could see, all of this was machine printed, none of the higher quality hand-made batik at all. Maybe I couldn't find it, but actually I suspect that this material is all cornered by the boutique shops.
So, at the first stall I picked out two cotton shirts. I lowered my voice when making the deal, as is done here, and initially I was told I think about 60,000 each. Although affordable, my previous experience made me think that by local standards these were not particularly high quality at all, and it was a rather inflated price. I offered half that, 30,000, she went to 40,000 and I settled on 35,000. At a second stall I paid the same price for a single shirt, again not the highest quality, but my favourite shirt I've bought so far, I'm wearing it now. I suspect if one wanted to be tough about it there might be quite a bit of room below that, but by the time you bargain someone down to £2.14 for a really unique garment which you're going to take home and treasure for years it's fine to call it evens, I think.
I really like the batik look, though. Around the South Bank Gamelan in London a lot of the players sport these as a kind of nonchalant 'yeah, I just picked this up in the market when I was studying in Solo' kind of look. So, one of my missions here had been to go to an actual batik market and actually haggle for an actual Javanese batik shirt.
Mission accomplished. Over the last week or so I've gradually worked my way down the price scale. At the top of the overpriced tourist scale is a shop like Batik Keris across the road from Cakra. Here you might easily be asked IDR 400,000 (£25) for a short sleeved shirt. A better prospect is a number of small boutiques in the Kauman area near Cakra. The one which was recommended by our Australian friend Melanie was Gunawan Setiawan. This is quite a well-known shop, and if you were to take up one of the five offers a day you get from taxi and becak drivers to take you to a batik shop, this is probably the one they would take you to. Very charming people, fixed prices.
Here I started to learn about the different qualities of batik. At the top end is purely hand-made batik, batik tulis, which means 'drawn', in other words the design is actually drawn by hand by an artisan in wax. Prices here can go way up! I went in with Mags to look at some kain sarong, basically just an oblong of material which men and women wrap around themselves to make a variety of skirt-like garments. Mags had picked out about eight or ten, but we got a bit of a shock when we went to the counter, somehow our order was north of £500! It turned out that one of these items alone, a beautiful detailed design in green and gold, was IDR 3,000,000 - £184 - entirely hand made. That one had to go back, unfortunately.
The only item I've bought in that shop so far was a shirt I picked out. This was still handmade, I think, probably a combination of 'tulis' and 'cap'. I think 'cap' again can mean a couple of different things; at the quality end of the marked it still means a hand-made garment, but one where some of the pattern has been applied using a sort of stamp rather than drawn. By luck the short-sleeved cotton shirt I picked out was 'sudah diskon', already discounted, down to IDR 100,000 (£6), normally shirts of this quality are between IDR 200,000 and 300,000 (£12 to £18). These are prices one would happily pay in the UK, I think, but are quite high by local standards.
Around the corner from Gunawan Setiawan are a number of other batik boutiques. Most of these seem to offer items even further down the quality scale. Here you get a kind of batik often sold to you as 'cap' or 'combination', but which I think is in fact entirely machine printed. But, these shirts look absolutely great; you will see a lot of Indonesian guys every day wearing batik shirts like this, where they count as formal wear, rather like a kilt; unless they are very upper class Javanese, they will usually be wearing this machine printed material.
The prices for a short-sleeved cotton shirt in this style are very reasonable indeed; at somewhere like Batik Soga or Mutiara Timun I was paying about 70,000 or less for one of these, about £4, which is an absolute steal really.
Can he go lower? Yes he can! Having got a sense of the quality and price, this morning I braved Pasar Klewer, which is I think one of the biggest clothing markets in Indonesia. It is about the size of the Savoy Centre in Glasgow, on two floors, but about four times as crowded. The batik stalls are about the size of two or three telephone kiosks, every one packed with a bewildering variety of patterns. However, as far as I could see, all of this was machine printed, none of the higher quality hand-made batik at all. Maybe I couldn't find it, but actually I suspect that this material is all cornered by the boutique shops.
So, at the first stall I picked out two cotton shirts. I lowered my voice when making the deal, as is done here, and initially I was told I think about 60,000 each. Although affordable, my previous experience made me think that by local standards these were not particularly high quality at all, and it was a rather inflated price. I offered half that, 30,000, she went to 40,000 and I settled on 35,000. At a second stall I paid the same price for a single shirt, again not the highest quality, but my favourite shirt I've bought so far, I'm wearing it now. I suspect if one wanted to be tough about it there might be quite a bit of room below that, but by the time you bargain someone down to £2.14 for a really unique garment which you're going to take home and treasure for years it's fine to call it evens, I think.
Monday 13 July 2009
Dark thoughts
A couple of days ago I went through an experience which has left me thinking rather dark thoughts; kind of 'who am I, what am I doing here, and what is music anyway?' thoughts. The occasion was a rehearsal hosted by Kitsie Emerson for a performance here on the 18th of July. Kitsie's name has long been familiar to me from the gamelan mailing list, as an American living in Solo who organises the Pujangga Laras klenengan, a monthly series of gamelan concerts. For the concert on the 18th, she told us she wanted to attempt something which had 'never been done before'; a concert of classical Javanese music performed by an all-western group of musicians. 'Western groups have come here before, but they have always performed new pieces, "komposisi"' she said. Mags and I looked at each other, feeling very slightly disparaged, and thinking the same thing, I think; one of the things our group in Scotland does best is new music for gamelan.
At any rate, we agreed to take part. The other musicians involved seemed to be mainly American acquaintances of Kitsie's, including a couple of people from the New York group Kusuma Laras who we had already met here. A whole other set of misgivings revolved around our general lack of skill and experience in this music; most of the other western musicians seem to have already spent a significant amount of time either studying in Java or with Javanese musicians back home, something neither of us has done.
The evening started like something out of a spy movie, with an eight o'clock rendezvous somewhere near the entrance of the ISI campus, the gamelan college here in Solo. Text messages flew back and forth; who were we meeting, where were we going, were we in the right place? A woman who might have been Japanese or Korean turned up on the back of a motorbike, she and I managed a brief conversation together in Indonesian, she sped off again apparently knowing where she was going.
In due course Kitsie appeared and led our taxi off into the night. We pulled up ten minutes later, somewhere in the Jebres district I think, and were led into a room about the size of a basketball court on the top floor of a house. It was rather bare and stark, with glaring lighting and a ceiling made of what looked like asbestos panels.
Filling about half the room was a rather battered but servicable looking gamelan, and about fifteen Javanese men sitting around, variously at the instruments or not, chatting, smoking and joking amongst themselves, with one or two other westerners in place also. 'Now', said Kitsie brightly, 'Is there anyone here who hasn't learned Indonesian yet?' Mags and I looked sheepish, as did Anthony from the New York group. My standing joke in an Indonesian conversation these days is 'Saya bisa berbicara bahasa Indonesia, tapi tidak bisa menggerti'; 'I can speak Indonesian, but I can't understand it'. Kitsie duly made introductions in two languages.
Then, there was another language in the room, Javanese. Most of the westerners in this circle have done the Dharmasiswa programme, which is a funded opportunity for musicians to come to Java for a year. And, it would be safe to assume that all of these people can get by in Indonesian, which is after all reputed to be one of the easiest languages in the world to learn. On the other hand, Javanese is really tough. It exists in three different simultaneous variants, as I understand it, with different words being used for the same thing depending on the social standing and circumstances of the conversation. The pronunciation is a little more complicated than Indonesian, and there is no such thing as a 'Teach Yourself Javanese' book you can buy on Amazon!
I'll come back to this point about the language. So, Mags and I were ushered to a saron and demung respectively, and given some music. For people who haven't played gamelan, I should explain that in theory what we were given here should have been an easy task. In front of you is an instrument with seven keys, with (to simplify things a bit) the numbers 1-7 written on them from left to right. You are given an A4 sheet of paper with a big list of maybe a couple of hundred numbers written on it, and all you have to do is hit the corresponding number on your instrument at the right time.
Sounds like the kind of task anybody would be able to manage, without even any gamelan experience, huh? Not a bit of it. The music stops and starts unpredicatably, then jumps to another part of the page, then slows down so much that you lose track of where you are, then suddenly speeds up again and other numbers are inserted which aren't written on the page.
I'm writing this in a naive way; of course, as someone who has played gamelan music in some shape or form for over ten years, one might have hoped that some of that experience would be useful. But no; I was frequently completely lost, with no idea how to find my place or get back in again. A bit dispiriting.
Which brings me to the big personality in the room; Darsono 'gila'. I've mentioned my teacher Darsono before, but it's a common name, it seems; our teacher is Darsono 'cilik' (I think), 'young' Darsono, whereas this was 'mad' or 'crazy' Darsono. That seems to be a completely accurate translation; everyone I spoke to in English agreed that this Darsono was 'mad' or 'crazy'. Kitsie explained this a little further; what it means, it appears, is that within the Central Javanese tradition, he is one of the musicians how is prepared to go further than anyone else in... I don't know quite how to describe it, innovation? Making up new parts on the spot? Which, it seems, makes him 'crazy', but in a good way; he seemed to be very highly respected by everyone in the room.
For a lot of the rehearsal he was sitting directly in front of me, and it was immediately apparent that he is a master musician. As with my own teacher here, the top players are able to sit in the middle of a rehearsal, playing one part, singing another, whilst simultaneously being able to listen to everything else which is going on and immediately correct anyone who goes astray. It's an impressive performance, and I have the highest respect for musicians who have made such a thorough and deep study of their music.
On the other hand, he really is a big personality, and I found it a little disconcerting. Sitting there in front of me, as well as correcting my mistakes he was forever mugging at me, shouting 'rest!' when I leaped ahead, singing snatches of Beatles songs, and generally being quite loud and... perhaps deliberately kind of coarse in his manner? This is where the Javanese language thing comes in, every once in while he would crack some joke in Javanese and all the guys would laugh uproariosly; it would probable take five or ten years of living in Java and studying the language intensively to have any chance of even understanding the joke once explained. He reminded me of an ex-army guy I used to play beside in a military band, a really bright guy who in the same way took a certain delight in acting the bufoon, and particularly in gently needling at my middle class pretensions. I kind of liked him, and I kind of liked crazy Darsono as well. Kind of...
All these layers of cultural disconnection; the continual smoking, unfamiliar languages, different agendas. One of the reasons this easy-looking music was so impossible for us to get right is the degree of knowledge of the repertoire and genre which the local musicians shared. Anthony and I have on a couple of occasions discussed the analogy with jazz musicians, and I think it stands up very well. Jazz musicians build an entire universe around themselves, which again is based on an extensive knowledge of a particular repertoire and set of conventions. A jazz musician (a real one, not a dilletante like myself) could happily have walked into the bar here at the Novotel and sat in with the house band, calling 'Autumn Leaves' in the full confidence that everyone present would have listened to the same recordings, studied the same books, know more or less the same set of changes, and have more or less the same expectations as to the routine of the performance. For the musicians, individually and a group, it's an affirmation of their identity as 'jazzers', built upon anything between ten years to a lifetime of studying, memorising and thoroughly internalising an entire genre.
So with these Javanese musicians. The music is filled with vocal and instrumental cues which they just know, but which are entirely inscrutable to naive players such as myself.
Dilletante. I never really went all the way with jazz, and I don't think I'm ever going to go all the way with Javanese music. Or any kind of music, I think, except my own. One doesn't become a composer entirely by chance, I think. There is a particular kind of musician who, depending on how you look at it, is either too lazy to fully absorb an existing genre, or who, having got a certain way in, feels the need to... break away, do something different, make the music go my way. Secretly, in our own wee clique, we composers allow ourselves a certain measure of arrogance, we feel a little superior to the musicians who 'merely' reproduce a tradition; we feel that there is something we know that they don't, that there is a step of courage we have taken in putting forward something new, which guys who are just 'players' don't really understand.
Talking myself into the ground here, but... I've decided that I'm not going to allow myself to feel inadequate because I don't understand spoken Indonesian (or Javanese!), that I don't smoke, that I don't like to eat spicy ricy food all the time, and that a part of me finds this music sometimes long, slightly samey, locked in it's own genre and history. At some point I'm going to do my own thing again. With, perhaps, some even firmer convictions around my personal internal thesis that 'music is not sound'; to me, the sound of Javanese music is almost an epiphenomenon, an accidental byproduct of what is really going on, which is a set of social interactions confirming a certain group of people in a particular individual and cultural identity.
At any rate, we agreed to take part. The other musicians involved seemed to be mainly American acquaintances of Kitsie's, including a couple of people from the New York group Kusuma Laras who we had already met here. A whole other set of misgivings revolved around our general lack of skill and experience in this music; most of the other western musicians seem to have already spent a significant amount of time either studying in Java or with Javanese musicians back home, something neither of us has done.
The evening started like something out of a spy movie, with an eight o'clock rendezvous somewhere near the entrance of the ISI campus, the gamelan college here in Solo. Text messages flew back and forth; who were we meeting, where were we going, were we in the right place? A woman who might have been Japanese or Korean turned up on the back of a motorbike, she and I managed a brief conversation together in Indonesian, she sped off again apparently knowing where she was going.
In due course Kitsie appeared and led our taxi off into the night. We pulled up ten minutes later, somewhere in the Jebres district I think, and were led into a room about the size of a basketball court on the top floor of a house. It was rather bare and stark, with glaring lighting and a ceiling made of what looked like asbestos panels.
Filling about half the room was a rather battered but servicable looking gamelan, and about fifteen Javanese men sitting around, variously at the instruments or not, chatting, smoking and joking amongst themselves, with one or two other westerners in place also. 'Now', said Kitsie brightly, 'Is there anyone here who hasn't learned Indonesian yet?' Mags and I looked sheepish, as did Anthony from the New York group. My standing joke in an Indonesian conversation these days is 'Saya bisa berbicara bahasa Indonesia, tapi tidak bisa menggerti'; 'I can speak Indonesian, but I can't understand it'. Kitsie duly made introductions in two languages.
Then, there was another language in the room, Javanese. Most of the westerners in this circle have done the Dharmasiswa programme, which is a funded opportunity for musicians to come to Java for a year. And, it would be safe to assume that all of these people can get by in Indonesian, which is after all reputed to be one of the easiest languages in the world to learn. On the other hand, Javanese is really tough. It exists in three different simultaneous variants, as I understand it, with different words being used for the same thing depending on the social standing and circumstances of the conversation. The pronunciation is a little more complicated than Indonesian, and there is no such thing as a 'Teach Yourself Javanese' book you can buy on Amazon!
I'll come back to this point about the language. So, Mags and I were ushered to a saron and demung respectively, and given some music. For people who haven't played gamelan, I should explain that in theory what we were given here should have been an easy task. In front of you is an instrument with seven keys, with (to simplify things a bit) the numbers 1-7 written on them from left to right. You are given an A4 sheet of paper with a big list of maybe a couple of hundred numbers written on it, and all you have to do is hit the corresponding number on your instrument at the right time.
Sounds like the kind of task anybody would be able to manage, without even any gamelan experience, huh? Not a bit of it. The music stops and starts unpredicatably, then jumps to another part of the page, then slows down so much that you lose track of where you are, then suddenly speeds up again and other numbers are inserted which aren't written on the page.
I'm writing this in a naive way; of course, as someone who has played gamelan music in some shape or form for over ten years, one might have hoped that some of that experience would be useful. But no; I was frequently completely lost, with no idea how to find my place or get back in again. A bit dispiriting.
Which brings me to the big personality in the room; Darsono 'gila'. I've mentioned my teacher Darsono before, but it's a common name, it seems; our teacher is Darsono 'cilik' (I think), 'young' Darsono, whereas this was 'mad' or 'crazy' Darsono. That seems to be a completely accurate translation; everyone I spoke to in English agreed that this Darsono was 'mad' or 'crazy'. Kitsie explained this a little further; what it means, it appears, is that within the Central Javanese tradition, he is one of the musicians how is prepared to go further than anyone else in... I don't know quite how to describe it, innovation? Making up new parts on the spot? Which, it seems, makes him 'crazy', but in a good way; he seemed to be very highly respected by everyone in the room.
For a lot of the rehearsal he was sitting directly in front of me, and it was immediately apparent that he is a master musician. As with my own teacher here, the top players are able to sit in the middle of a rehearsal, playing one part, singing another, whilst simultaneously being able to listen to everything else which is going on and immediately correct anyone who goes astray. It's an impressive performance, and I have the highest respect for musicians who have made such a thorough and deep study of their music.
On the other hand, he really is a big personality, and I found it a little disconcerting. Sitting there in front of me, as well as correcting my mistakes he was forever mugging at me, shouting 'rest!' when I leaped ahead, singing snatches of Beatles songs, and generally being quite loud and... perhaps deliberately kind of coarse in his manner? This is where the Javanese language thing comes in, every once in while he would crack some joke in Javanese and all the guys would laugh uproariosly; it would probable take five or ten years of living in Java and studying the language intensively to have any chance of even understanding the joke once explained. He reminded me of an ex-army guy I used to play beside in a military band, a really bright guy who in the same way took a certain delight in acting the bufoon, and particularly in gently needling at my middle class pretensions. I kind of liked him, and I kind of liked crazy Darsono as well. Kind of...
All these layers of cultural disconnection; the continual smoking, unfamiliar languages, different agendas. One of the reasons this easy-looking music was so impossible for us to get right is the degree of knowledge of the repertoire and genre which the local musicians shared. Anthony and I have on a couple of occasions discussed the analogy with jazz musicians, and I think it stands up very well. Jazz musicians build an entire universe around themselves, which again is based on an extensive knowledge of a particular repertoire and set of conventions. A jazz musician (a real one, not a dilletante like myself) could happily have walked into the bar here at the Novotel and sat in with the house band, calling 'Autumn Leaves' in the full confidence that everyone present would have listened to the same recordings, studied the same books, know more or less the same set of changes, and have more or less the same expectations as to the routine of the performance. For the musicians, individually and a group, it's an affirmation of their identity as 'jazzers', built upon anything between ten years to a lifetime of studying, memorising and thoroughly internalising an entire genre.
So with these Javanese musicians. The music is filled with vocal and instrumental cues which they just know, but which are entirely inscrutable to naive players such as myself.
Dilletante. I never really went all the way with jazz, and I don't think I'm ever going to go all the way with Javanese music. Or any kind of music, I think, except my own. One doesn't become a composer entirely by chance, I think. There is a particular kind of musician who, depending on how you look at it, is either too lazy to fully absorb an existing genre, or who, having got a certain way in, feels the need to... break away, do something different, make the music go my way. Secretly, in our own wee clique, we composers allow ourselves a certain measure of arrogance, we feel a little superior to the musicians who 'merely' reproduce a tradition; we feel that there is something we know that they don't, that there is a step of courage we have taken in putting forward something new, which guys who are just 'players' don't really understand.
Talking myself into the ground here, but... I've decided that I'm not going to allow myself to feel inadequate because I don't understand spoken Indonesian (or Javanese!), that I don't smoke, that I don't like to eat spicy ricy food all the time, and that a part of me finds this music sometimes long, slightly samey, locked in it's own genre and history. At some point I'm going to do my own thing again. With, perhaps, some even firmer convictions around my personal internal thesis that 'music is not sound'; to me, the sound of Javanese music is almost an epiphenomenon, an accidental byproduct of what is really going on, which is a set of social interactions confirming a certain group of people in a particular individual and cultural identity.
Saturday 11 July 2009
Photos from Bali
Finally managed to get enough time on the really rather slow internet connections around here to upload a couple of photos from Bali. Maybe more to come from Solo in a wee while; video out of the question until I get home, I think. (Click on the slideshow above to see bigger versions.)
Tuesday 7 July 2009
Buying gamelan instrumets
In possibly one of the most exciting and enjoyable days of my entire life, today we went with our teacher Mas Darsono to see gamelan maker Mas Cokrik and talk about buying some instruments. A ten-minute taxi ride from Cakra Homestay brought us to a rather quieter part of the city, where we were welcomed into Mas Cokrik's front room. We chatted over our shopping list, with Mas Darsono helping translate.
After a while we popped across the road to his storeroom, where he started by pulling out a couple of really great looking ciblons, one in particular really heavy, from nangka wood, the best, and a little hard to get these days. We looked at the various spare parts we needed, then he brought out a set of gender keys, for which I think he will make the casing. Basically, he is at the final end of the making chain, doesn't do the bronze work, but puts the instruments together and, crucially, tunes them.
So, my mission now is to find somewhere I can burn .mp3 files to CD so that he can hear our tuning; I never thought that would be so hard or I would have done it before I left!
Wouldn't be right to discuss the prices in public, I think, but we readily agreed to the price which he suggested, which seemed a good deal from our end and is presumably a good deal from his end also. To round the day off, we hopped on the back of a couple of motorbikes driven by the two guys and went to see the gong factory. Who had stopped forging for the day, so we're going back there on Thursday.
I'm gonna spend every day of my life now buying gamelan instruments; this rocks!
(Oh, Mags is a little better, but need to wait and see. If headache reccurs tomorrow, back to the hospital I think.)
(Oh, oh and, I've memorised the ladrang drumming for Wilujeng, and I nearly managed to get through the whole thing from memory today in a play-through.)
Monday 6 July 2009
Solo life
So, panic over, hopefully; that is, the mild medical panic we had yesterday morning. Mags was feeling a bit off colour overnight, and woke in the morning about five with a raging headache andslight fever which wouldn't shift. A trip to the emergency department of the local hospital produced a diagnosis of 'common cold', plus a slightly dubious prescription of paracetamol (fair enough, but we'd tried that already), amoxicilin (antibiotic; hmm, maybe) and... prednisolone? A steroiod? As an 'anti-inflammatory'? I was desperately trying to get some alternative medical advice, but it was 0300 in the UK and I couldn't figure out how to get the phone number for the NHS 24 hour hotline as the normal directory enquiries short numbers don't seem to work when you are abroad, and I couldn't leave Mags to go and check online. Then my Indonesian phone ran out of credit...
Eventually we were able to get in touch with some doctor friends in the UK, and also tried adding some ibuprofen and co-codamol into the mix; finally by about 1600 the headache finally abated. So, two tips for travellers, bring emergency medical advice phone numbers with you, and if you want paracetamal/codeine tablets bring them with you as well, 'cos you don't seem to be able to get them over the counter here. Oh, and costs for medical treatment here were very low, to see the emergency doctor was 20,000 IDR (£1.22), the three medicines 50,000 (£3).
Food. On the one hand, you are never more than about five metres away from someone selling food in Solo. All up and down the street you see establishments varying in size from a room with a dozen chairs in it down to two guys with a charcoal brazier, a couple of buckets, and a carpet. Some of the smallest places seem to survive just by cooking one dish, the guys with the charcoal brazier will have chicken on skewers, sate sauce and rice, and nothing else. Slightly larger places the regular deal is they portion you out some rice, and then there are a selection of dishes which, being foreign and all that, you point to.
Before I came here I had read a few reports that the food here was, umm, monotonous? Maybe you just have to know how to order; I do have to say that after a while I'm feeling kind of the same thing. For sure, the best food is to be had at the smaller establishments, paying a bit more for one of the bigger air-conditioned restaurants doesn't seem to add much in the way of variety or quality. Last night on the way home I was tempted into the McDonalds... There are some very nice dishes here, I always get the one with the spicy papaya leaves. Oh, and another huge hit with me is the tea, which is a kind of sweet jasmine-ey flavoured tea served black and generally with sugar, but equally good without. Excellent cold.
Around the corner from Cakra Homestay is the wonderfully named Urgent, a 24/7 store selling drinks, snacks and basic everyday stuff, with about half the space devoted to a bunch of internet booths. The place has got a kind of young feel, the staff all look about nineteen and are perfectly happy to have a go at English. The customers are also young Indonesians, or Westerners like myself. You feel quite trendy in there, drinking a can of iced Nescafe Moccha while the Indonesian pop music blares out. Connection seems pretty much fast and reliable, but no wifi, so you have to use their Windows XP boxes. Very inexpensive in our money, I don't even know how much it is, might be about 4000 IDR per hour, which would be, er, 24 pence!
The other place which looked great at first was blonjokue; aircon, pretty much Western style coffee cakes and snacks menu, plus free wifi for life once they give you the password. Unfortunately, this is often so slow as to be unusable, I think they must be on a dialup or something, plus https doesn't seem to work. The menu must seem absurdly expensive to local people 9000 IDR for a coffee whereas the usual price would be about 2000 IDR. (I must be going native, because 9000 already sounds to me like a crazy price to pay for coffee; 55 pence!?)
And that's another thing; poverty. Gradually I realise more and more that many of these happy, kind and generous people really have very little in the way of material goods or money in comparison to someone like myself. There are a lot of becak drivers here; basically a big Dutch style bicycle with a side-by-side seat for two passengers at the front. For a typical five-minute journey, you might haggle them down to about 7000 IDR from an asking price of 10,000; we're dealing in sums under a pound here.
Gradually I've been realising; these guys sleep in their becaks. Basically, I reckon all they have in the world pretty much is the clothes they stand up in and the bike; and I'm not entirely certain that all of them even own their own bikes.
Saturday 4 July 2009
Two wayangs
Two contrasting wayang on two nights. On Thursday we were in Boyolali to see Pak Jungkung Darmaya do 'Banjaran Karno'. The occasion was some sort of civic anniversary, with the screen and band set up under a medium large pendhopo, surrounded by what seemed to be a street festival in progress. We were ushered in and welcomed by our host for the evening, very formally dressed in tight high necked coat with shiny buttons, sarong and keris. Might have been something in the nature of the local mayor? We were encouraged to sit right at the front of the stage, but after a moment or two some sort of delicate protocol was negotiated, and we were moved just a little to one side. Of course, the spot we had taken was for the really important people; I'm guessing here, but I reckon local bigwigs and politicians, some guy who gave a speech who looked like he might have been a minor tv personality.
Huge-looking screen to my eyes, with puppets arrayed to either side. A big bright green double gamelan, six pesindhen, many of the instruments amplified. More or less on the dot of eight, an hour before the wayang, they kicked in - really kicked in - with a gangsaran. Big, big, strong sound with the amplification, plus guys throwing big heavy demung mallets down from over head-height. For the next thirty minutes or so they played continuously, very engaging and powerful. The most amazing moment was when in the middle of another gangsaran the whole band suddenly jumped around ninety degrees and went bang straight from slendro into pelog without missing a note; quite a gag. Also, a big addition to the sound of the band was the bass drum and cymbal with a second drummer, who consistently throughout the night played all the big hits simultaneously with the dhalang's foot and the main drummer. Big.
This was showy, populist gamelan. When we got the limbukan, kind of as expected all the action in the play stopped completely for about an hour to make way for a three-man comedy troupe, who mugged gamely, borrowing instruments from the drummer to horse around with. Some of it was even funny without understanding any of the several languages in use. For the climax of that section they played a Sundanese style piece (one of the comics seemed to be Sundanese) with the drummer absolutely rocking out...
We didn't make it all through the evening, in fact we didn't even make it to the goro-goro. I felt slightly uncomfortable, slightly on display; they had a couple of TV cameras giving live relays to other parts of the space, and we were frequently on camera trying to look as if we knew what was going on.
Wayang number two, a bit of a contrast. Mangkunegaran palace, Pak Bambang Suworno doing 'Wahyu Makutarama'. This was in a sort of side wing of the palace, entering through an obscure side gate. The only people who seemed to be there were musicians, their wives or cronies; the dhalang apparently teaches at ISI, and many of the players were students of varying ages. It had been described to us as 'latihan', a rehearsal, but there was no starting and stopping or discussion, they seemed to just perform the wayang. I've been talking with Anthony here about comparisons with jazz, and again this was kind of the equivalent of a jazz crowd; all the people who were there were cognoscenti of some sort.
Including our wee group of foreigners; however in this case I felt much more at home, largely I think as we were in the company of a couple of very experienced and respected players in the form of Kitsie Emerson and Rachel Hand, and I think it was taken for granted that we were obviously gamelan nuts as well if we were even there. Much smaller scale, slendro instruments only, much smaller and more informal setup. In tone the thing seemed to be more classical, far less populist. This dhalang is noted for his extremely precise and detailed puppet work, and even to a novice like myself this came across. At one point I even broke what felt like some sort of taboo, and went to watch the thing from the shadow side. Really fantastic, the detail in the puppets themselves, plus the clarity and accuracy of some of the moves; from that side one was sometimes at a loss to figure out how the effect was created with just two hands.
Some sort of dance performance there tonight I gather, plus rumours of another wayang going on somewhere at the same time. Ladrang drumming to memorise, then going to look at instruments to buy on Monday. Long days, happy days!
Huge-looking screen to my eyes, with puppets arrayed to either side. A big bright green double gamelan, six pesindhen, many of the instruments amplified. More or less on the dot of eight, an hour before the wayang, they kicked in - really kicked in - with a gangsaran. Big, big, strong sound with the amplification, plus guys throwing big heavy demung mallets down from over head-height. For the next thirty minutes or so they played continuously, very engaging and powerful. The most amazing moment was when in the middle of another gangsaran the whole band suddenly jumped around ninety degrees and went bang straight from slendro into pelog without missing a note; quite a gag. Also, a big addition to the sound of the band was the bass drum and cymbal with a second drummer, who consistently throughout the night played all the big hits simultaneously with the dhalang's foot and the main drummer. Big.
This was showy, populist gamelan. When we got the limbukan, kind of as expected all the action in the play stopped completely for about an hour to make way for a three-man comedy troupe, who mugged gamely, borrowing instruments from the drummer to horse around with. Some of it was even funny without understanding any of the several languages in use. For the climax of that section they played a Sundanese style piece (one of the comics seemed to be Sundanese) with the drummer absolutely rocking out...
We didn't make it all through the evening, in fact we didn't even make it to the goro-goro. I felt slightly uncomfortable, slightly on display; they had a couple of TV cameras giving live relays to other parts of the space, and we were frequently on camera trying to look as if we knew what was going on.
Wayang number two, a bit of a contrast. Mangkunegaran palace, Pak Bambang Suworno doing 'Wahyu Makutarama'. This was in a sort of side wing of the palace, entering through an obscure side gate. The only people who seemed to be there were musicians, their wives or cronies; the dhalang apparently teaches at ISI, and many of the players were students of varying ages. It had been described to us as 'latihan', a rehearsal, but there was no starting and stopping or discussion, they seemed to just perform the wayang. I've been talking with Anthony here about comparisons with jazz, and again this was kind of the equivalent of a jazz crowd; all the people who were there were cognoscenti of some sort.
Including our wee group of foreigners; however in this case I felt much more at home, largely I think as we were in the company of a couple of very experienced and respected players in the form of Kitsie Emerson and Rachel Hand, and I think it was taken for granted that we were obviously gamelan nuts as well if we were even there. Much smaller scale, slendro instruments only, much smaller and more informal setup. In tone the thing seemed to be more classical, far less populist. This dhalang is noted for his extremely precise and detailed puppet work, and even to a novice like myself this came across. At one point I even broke what felt like some sort of taboo, and went to watch the thing from the shadow side. Really fantastic, the detail in the puppets themselves, plus the clarity and accuracy of some of the moves; from that side one was sometimes at a loss to figure out how the effect was created with just two hands.
Some sort of dance performance there tonight I gather, plus rumours of another wayang going on somewhere at the same time. Ladrang drumming to memorise, then going to look at instruments to buy on Monday. Long days, happy days!
Thursday 2 July 2009
Lessons
I've now had two lessons with Mas Darsono. He's a very nice guy, quiet, laughs a lot, has worked/studied in the States and has fluent English. More importantly in this context perhaps is that he is a fluent and experienced teacher. Anecdotaly, it can be tricky learning from some of the older generation of gamelan musicians, who may not have a good sense of what to teach a Western player, or how to break it down. So we chatted, I played him a couple of things I half-knew, and he was polite enough to say 'good - ok', although actually it was far south of ok, I think.
So he took me back to the basics, but also covering some new ground; lancaran drumming, starting in irama tanggung and transitioning to lancar, using a piece with which I was only vaguely familiar as a model, Tropongbang (Pl 5). I don't know whether this is the way he always works, or whether he took a judgement call on where I seemed to be coming from, but he started out by writing out the whole thing, drumming and balungan, rather than teaching me orally. This was a mild shock to the system; in Bali we got absolutely classic aural teaching, going over and over sometimes quite complex tunes, gradually trying to figure out the syncopations just by listening and following.
So, after a moment or two I got my head back around Javanese notation - rhythmically it is kind of written, not backwards exactly, the strong beat is at the end of the bar - I was succesfuly sight-reading the tricky syncopated rhythm for a gongan of lancaran in tanggung, but quite unable to do it without looking at the dots! Overnight I went and did the homework, memorised the whole thing including the balungan, and came back the next day able to concentrate on actually listening to the balungan (which Darsono played), and leading the transitions correctly. This morning I did a little slow motion practice to try to clean up my articulation at key points.
The plan next is for me to tackle ladrang, specifically Wilujeng; this makes a whole lot of sense as Mags is learning that piece on the gendèr, so in theory we might be able to play it together sometime.
In other news; there is some politics around the use of the gamelan room here at Cakra. The owner has been trying to impose an oddly illogical fee for using the gamelan during a lesson; but not for practice. Together with Anthony from the New York group, we are supposed to be having a meeting with the owner over this, and the feeling is that we are going to try to take some sort of a stand. Everyone here including the staff seems to think this is a ridiculous idea, especially as the Cakra is apparently very highly priced by local standards, and not really that amazing in terms of facilities. The argument is that we are effectively already paying a gamelan surcharge on our room rates...
(Hmm. Anyone know if it possible to type an ellipsis in Windows as a single character, rather than as three dots? How?)
Great experience this morning; dawn tour round the area of the kraton from an expat Australian guy called Randall, who gave us a complete cultural and historical rundown of Java from the beginning of written records up to the current election. Seriously! The guy was amazingly knowledgeable; most memorable point has to be the buffalo he showed us which is an official, titled member of the royal family, and who produces... holy poo?
Oh, and did I mention that tonight we're all going to a wayang in Boyolali? Bring. It.On!
So he took me back to the basics, but also covering some new ground; lancaran drumming, starting in irama tanggung and transitioning to lancar, using a piece with which I was only vaguely familiar as a model, Tropongbang (Pl 5). I don't know whether this is the way he always works, or whether he took a judgement call on where I seemed to be coming from, but he started out by writing out the whole thing, drumming and balungan, rather than teaching me orally. This was a mild shock to the system; in Bali we got absolutely classic aural teaching, going over and over sometimes quite complex tunes, gradually trying to figure out the syncopations just by listening and following.
So, after a moment or two I got my head back around Javanese notation - rhythmically it is kind of written, not backwards exactly, the strong beat is at the end of the bar - I was succesfuly sight-reading the tricky syncopated rhythm for a gongan of lancaran in tanggung, but quite unable to do it without looking at the dots! Overnight I went and did the homework, memorised the whole thing including the balungan, and came back the next day able to concentrate on actually listening to the balungan (which Darsono played), and leading the transitions correctly. This morning I did a little slow motion practice to try to clean up my articulation at key points.
The plan next is for me to tackle ladrang, specifically Wilujeng; this makes a whole lot of sense as Mags is learning that piece on the gendèr, so in theory we might be able to play it together sometime.
In other news; there is some politics around the use of the gamelan room here at Cakra. The owner has been trying to impose an oddly illogical fee for using the gamelan during a lesson; but not for practice. Together with Anthony from the New York group, we are supposed to be having a meeting with the owner over this, and the feeling is that we are going to try to take some sort of a stand. Everyone here including the staff seems to think this is a ridiculous idea, especially as the Cakra is apparently very highly priced by local standards, and not really that amazing in terms of facilities. The argument is that we are effectively already paying a gamelan surcharge on our room rates...
(Hmm. Anyone know if it possible to type an ellipsis in Windows as a single character, rather than as three dots? How?)
Great experience this morning; dawn tour round the area of the kraton from an expat Australian guy called Randall, who gave us a complete cultural and historical rundown of Java from the beginning of written records up to the current election. Seriously! The guy was amazingly knowledgeable; most memorable point has to be the buffalo he showed us which is an official, titled member of the royal family, and who produces... holy poo?
Oh, and did I mention that tonight we're all going to a wayang in Boyolali? Bring. It.On!
Monday 29 June 2009
Solo
After our week in Bali, we've now come to Solo (Surakarta) for three weeks. Solo and Yogyakarta fifty miles away are widely regarded, at least by the Central Javanese, as the twin cultural centres of the country if not the nation. Our arrival in Yogya was a bit of a culture shock after Bali; all of the heat, motorbikes, insects, fumes and unfamiliarity of Indonesia with none of the tourist-paradise feel.
The trip to Solo looked easy; the train station was right beside the exit to the airport, and the fare was only IDR 7000, that's about 50p. Which was fine until the train actually pulled up, four or five tiny yellow carriages about the same size as a Glasgow underground train, pretty much completely packed with people. We took one look and turned tourist, went for the taxi instead. According to the receptionist at our hotel, we should only have paid about IDR 150,000 for this instead of the IDR 200,000 agreed. On the other hand, there appeared to be some sort of official taxi police at Yogya airport who agreed the fare our driver was asking was fair.
Ended up giving him a bit extra for his efforts when we got to Solo anyway; the hotel was impossibly difficult to find! I had an address and even walking directions, but still our driver had to go round and round in circles asking several policemen and local people, and even phoning the hotel itself on my phone with no luck. Turns out there are three streets called 'Jalan Cakra'...
Cakra Homestay itself is an oasis of calm amidst the chaos of shops and traffic which surrounds it. A sort of compact two-story compound, with a pool and some other buildings in the centre; dark smoky wood, decaying wrought-iron work. The room is small, rather basic, rather full of insects. The cockroach I threw out last night was... huge. Really.
More importantly of course, is the gamelan resident in the hotel, which is what makes this place a magnet for foreign players and students. Last night we witnessed our first performance here. The gamelan itself is in a side room, with a double door and a few windows opening onto a corridor. Inside the room were the players; this was described to us as a 'community group', a group of local musicians who meet twice a week to play just for the enjoyment of it, 'not professionals'. The majority were older people, perhaps retired players? There were also a number of young to middle aged people in the group, and I was told that there were four 'teachers' there tonight, meaning I assume expert professional players.
They played from about 2000 to 1100. Most of the material was beyond me; I think they played about four gendhings over the course of the evening, one of them perhaps forty minutes long, extended multi-section compositions, sometimes very slow, often ending with quite loud and lively music. The players seemed to grow into it as the night went on; by the end of the evening our attention was fixed on a very elderly drummer who when seated at the drums literally seemed transformed again into a handsome young man.
Our stay here coincides with a visit by a group from Galloway who are buying their own set of instruments under the guidance of the well-known London musician Peter Smith. At the end Peter introduced us to one of the younger players, Darsono, 'one of the foremost gamelan players of his generation'. So rather scarily, we are going to have a go at getting lessons from him this afternoon!
The trip to Solo looked easy; the train station was right beside the exit to the airport, and the fare was only IDR 7000, that's about 50p. Which was fine until the train actually pulled up, four or five tiny yellow carriages about the same size as a Glasgow underground train, pretty much completely packed with people. We took one look and turned tourist, went for the taxi instead. According to the receptionist at our hotel, we should only have paid about IDR 150,000 for this instead of the IDR 200,000 agreed. On the other hand, there appeared to be some sort of official taxi police at Yogya airport who agreed the fare our driver was asking was fair.
Ended up giving him a bit extra for his efforts when we got to Solo anyway; the hotel was impossibly difficult to find! I had an address and even walking directions, but still our driver had to go round and round in circles asking several policemen and local people, and even phoning the hotel itself on my phone with no luck. Turns out there are three streets called 'Jalan Cakra'...
Cakra Homestay itself is an oasis of calm amidst the chaos of shops and traffic which surrounds it. A sort of compact two-story compound, with a pool and some other buildings in the centre; dark smoky wood, decaying wrought-iron work. The room is small, rather basic, rather full of insects. The cockroach I threw out last night was... huge. Really.
More importantly of course, is the gamelan resident in the hotel, which is what makes this place a magnet for foreign players and students. Last night we witnessed our first performance here. The gamelan itself is in a side room, with a double door and a few windows opening onto a corridor. Inside the room were the players; this was described to us as a 'community group', a group of local musicians who meet twice a week to play just for the enjoyment of it, 'not professionals'. The majority were older people, perhaps retired players? There were also a number of young to middle aged people in the group, and I was told that there were four 'teachers' there tonight, meaning I assume expert professional players.
They played from about 2000 to 1100. Most of the material was beyond me; I think they played about four gendhings over the course of the evening, one of them perhaps forty minutes long, extended multi-section compositions, sometimes very slow, often ending with quite loud and lively music. The players seemed to grow into it as the night went on; by the end of the evening our attention was fixed on a very elderly drummer who when seated at the drums literally seemed transformed again into a handsome young man.
Our stay here coincides with a visit by a group from Galloway who are buying their own set of instruments under the guidance of the well-known London musician Peter Smith. At the end Peter introduced us to one of the younger players, Darsono, 'one of the foremost gamelan players of his generation'. So rather scarily, we are going to have a go at getting lessons from him this afternoon!
Thursday 25 June 2009
Evan Ziporyn's new opera
By a fortunate combination of circumstances I was last night able to attend the dress rehearsal of Evan Ziporyn's new opera 'A House in Bali' here in Ubud. I'm not quite sure about the etiquette of critiquing a piece on the day of its premiere, so I'm not going to say that much about it, except that I think this is going to turn out to be a really wonderful thing. My artistic radar starts to ping whenever I see big, ambitious cross-cultural collaborations such as this one, bringing together New York post-minimalism, Western opera, and about four or five different forms of Balinese dance, drama and music into one great melting pot.
Except that this is not a melting pot piece at all, rather the opposite; this is a piece which puts cultural clash at it's heart, both in terms of subject matter and more crucially in terms of the music, where Ziporyn very conciously and brilliantly collides two virtuosic, rhythmic, hi-speed ensembles, a gong kebyar directed by Dewa Ketut Alit and the New York post-minimalists the Bang on a Can All-Stars. The pacing and overall shape of the opera seems very good, but without any synopsis and without having read the book the experience was a bit hard to figure out what was going on.
The piece premieres today and tomorrow here in Ubud, sold out but maybe stand by tickets available. The American premiere is in California in September; if it were to come to the UK I would go and see it again.
Except that this is not a melting pot piece at all, rather the opposite; this is a piece which puts cultural clash at it's heart, both in terms of subject matter and more crucially in terms of the music, where Ziporyn very conciously and brilliantly collides two virtuosic, rhythmic, hi-speed ensembles, a gong kebyar directed by Dewa Ketut Alit and the New York post-minimalists the Bang on a Can All-Stars. The pacing and overall shape of the opera seems very good, but without any synopsis and without having read the book the experience was a bit hard to figure out what was going on.
The piece premieres today and tomorrow here in Ubud, sold out but maybe stand by tickets available. The American premiere is in California in September; if it were to come to the UK I would go and see it again.
Balawan and Batuan Ethnic Fusion
Last night I went to see Balawan with his group Batuan Ethnic Fusion at Café Bunuté. I'd previously stumbled upon him when surfing YouTube for 'Indonesian Music', as you do; this crazy talented young superfast Bali guitarist with the double-necked double-handed hammer style, often in duet with a couple of guys playing kotekan riffs on a small saron-type instrument.
The gig itself was free; obviously as it was a café they were expecting to make money from food and drinks. They looked a bit askance at me, one guy on his own who was obviously intending to nurse one cup of coffee all night, and shoved me at a table at the back, but that's ok, kind of expected.
For the first couple of numbers there was very little in the way of 'ethinic fusion'; what we got instead was a jazz trio of guitar bass and drums. The first number was the blues 'Stolen Moments', in a kind of rock/jazz style, with quite an original arrangment of the tune. Balawan's facility with the two-handed hammer style is quite astonishing, flying around bebop and post-bop licks without ever touching the pick. The next number again was done in quite an original way, it wasn't until Balawan started singing that I was able to pin the tune as 'Nature Boy'.
Yes, singing; and quite a nice light, high voice he has too, which he used on this number in a passage of George Benson-style unison scatting along with his solo. Again, original thinking on the next arrangement, which was a clever blend of a Coltrane minor blues (the name of which escapes me) played on a horn sound with (presumably) a midi pickup on the guitar, combined with 'It's Allright With Me', which again Balawan sang.
Finally we got the ethnic fusion; out came the three 'traditional' musicians, one playing mainly ceng-ceng, while the other two mostly played kotekan on a small (diatonically tuned?) two-octave saron-thing. This was obviously original material, kind of prog-jazz plus crazy high speed melodies on the saron-thing. (As a gamelan nerd I was interested to note that the very fastest material was executed as a straight on-off imbal, rather than syncopated interlocking part.)
I was getting seriously worried about the bad-taste quotient when Balawan kicked off the next song with... a sitar sound. But, once again, he's got a real knack for putting things together in a way which catches you out, this turned out to be a version of 'Summertime'. And, when he got around to soloing, it was evident that he studied or at least listened closely to sitar music, because he was actually playing sitar-type licks; which makes it ok, I guess.
There was more; jazz standards, more original jazz-o-tekan pieces, including a number which went from kecak to an extended duet between Balawan on sampled wadon sounds duetting with an actual wadon drummer. Towards the end, the gig went a bit more crowd-pleasing, with Bob Marley numbers, 'Route 66', 'St Thomas'. I left around about the time they were playing 'Quando Quando Quando'.
Overall, several different ways of looking at this. The guy is obviously so naturally talented, and has obviously also studied and internalised a vast range of musics; there is nothing he cannot play, there is nothing he cannot hear. He also seems to have a refreshing lack of sense of taste or appropriateness, which allows him to put things next to one another in quite unexpected ways. He has no limits, he just does as he pleases, and it's always a great thing when a creative musician feels able to do that.
On the other hand, there is that kind of fundamental problem with the guitar, the way it puts too much power in the hands of one person - in this case both hands, with a fistfull of notes in both. With a gig like this you have to be prepared to endure a large amount of, to use a technical term, widdling. I kind of liked it.
The gig itself was free; obviously as it was a café they were expecting to make money from food and drinks. They looked a bit askance at me, one guy on his own who was obviously intending to nurse one cup of coffee all night, and shoved me at a table at the back, but that's ok, kind of expected.
For the first couple of numbers there was very little in the way of 'ethinic fusion'; what we got instead was a jazz trio of guitar bass and drums. The first number was the blues 'Stolen Moments', in a kind of rock/jazz style, with quite an original arrangment of the tune. Balawan's facility with the two-handed hammer style is quite astonishing, flying around bebop and post-bop licks without ever touching the pick. The next number again was done in quite an original way, it wasn't until Balawan started singing that I was able to pin the tune as 'Nature Boy'.
Yes, singing; and quite a nice light, high voice he has too, which he used on this number in a passage of George Benson-style unison scatting along with his solo. Again, original thinking on the next arrangement, which was a clever blend of a Coltrane minor blues (the name of which escapes me) played on a horn sound with (presumably) a midi pickup on the guitar, combined with 'It's Allright With Me', which again Balawan sang.
Finally we got the ethnic fusion; out came the three 'traditional' musicians, one playing mainly ceng-ceng, while the other two mostly played kotekan on a small (diatonically tuned?) two-octave saron-thing. This was obviously original material, kind of prog-jazz plus crazy high speed melodies on the saron-thing. (As a gamelan nerd I was interested to note that the very fastest material was executed as a straight on-off imbal, rather than syncopated interlocking part.)
I was getting seriously worried about the bad-taste quotient when Balawan kicked off the next song with... a sitar sound. But, once again, he's got a real knack for putting things together in a way which catches you out, this turned out to be a version of 'Summertime'. And, when he got around to soloing, it was evident that he studied or at least listened closely to sitar music, because he was actually playing sitar-type licks; which makes it ok, I guess.
There was more; jazz standards, more original jazz-o-tekan pieces, including a number which went from kecak to an extended duet between Balawan on sampled wadon sounds duetting with an actual wadon drummer. Towards the end, the gig went a bit more crowd-pleasing, with Bob Marley numbers, 'Route 66', 'St Thomas'. I left around about the time they were playing 'Quando Quando Quando'.
Overall, several different ways of looking at this. The guy is obviously so naturally talented, and has obviously also studied and internalised a vast range of musics; there is nothing he cannot play, there is nothing he cannot hear. He also seems to have a refreshing lack of sense of taste or appropriateness, which allows him to put things next to one another in quite unexpected ways. He has no limits, he just does as he pleases, and it's always a great thing when a creative musician feels able to do that.
On the other hand, there is that kind of fundamental problem with the guitar, the way it puts too much power in the hands of one person - in this case both hands, with a fistfull of notes in both. With a gig like this you have to be prepared to endure a large amount of, to use a technical term, widdling. I kind of liked it.
Wednesday 24 June 2009
Impressions of Bali, three days in
It's a complex mix, here; different worlds co-existing. On the surface, as a Westerner, is tourist Bali; walking around the centre of Bali and being politely accosted every few yards with a call of 'Taxi?', or 'Transport?', past shop after shop selling clothes, bamboo wind chimes, carved nick-nacks, fruit, paintings. Again, if you make eye contact it's 'Good morning, how are you?' and, again, being very politely shown something you might want to buy.
It's fine, but it's tiring. Walking down the main street in Ubud is tiring anyway. The pavement, where it exists at all, it is narrow and uneven, with frequent gaping holes which would drop you straight into the sewer below. It also tends to be blocked by parked cars, motorbikes, sleeping dogs and building works. Often you end up walking on the road, jostling for space with motorbikes and cars squeezing by with inches to spare.
Once you get tired of all this, again you are never more than a few yards away from a large and well-appointed restaurant catering mainly to tourists. The prices here are possiby vastly inflated by local standards, but affordable in Western terms; perhaps 30,000 IDR for a typical dish, which is only about £1.80 at the moment. There are many hotels, pensions and guesthouses; ours is very nice, with a delighful view over the paddy fields, a small swimming pool, and a basic but ok room with a fan. Our hotel does internet access for 15,000 IDR per hour, under a pound, I've also spotted a few places which seem to do it for free. (I saw one guy rather oddly and ostentatiously sitting on the pavement across the road from a café with a MacBook Pro, obviously snarfing their wifi for free...)
Everyone speaks basic English, at least enough to offer you a taxi, or sell you something. There is no problem with things like getting a sim card for a phone, or getting money from and ATM, or even booking an internal flight, which we did very painlessly just by walking into a tiny one-man office and enquiring.
Anytime you do want to buy something - a gift, a taxi ride, a hotel room - you have to barter. Well, I suppose you don't have to, you could just pay the price asked, but it is expected. I don't much like it. Today I plucked up courage to go into a shop and show some interest in a batik shirt. Surprisingly, perhaps, there was a written price label of 195,000 IDR, £12, which would probably have been a fair price for the garment in the UK. I tried it on and it genuinely didn't fit, so I turned it down. At which point, the guy dropped his voice very quietly, as one does when bartering, and offered me a 'discount' to 175,000 IDR.
And so it goes; I didn't take this one any further. I was sitting next to an Indonesian couple the other night at a performance, and I was able to overhear a barter for a tube of mosquito repellant between two Indonesians. It was all over in about two seconds, they just did it so quickly and naturally... maybe I'll get used to it.
Overhear. Yes, spending the time in the run up to our trip here memorising more or less the whole of 'Teach Yourself Indonesian' has been extremely worthwhile. To my relief I found that my pronunciation was good enough for people to follow, that my stock of phrases was quite useful, and that in simple everyday transactions I can more or less follow what is being said. Which brings me on to...
Indonesian Bali. We went down to breakfast quite early the other morning, slightly catching them on the hop, I think. The only person around was Made Lodeh; maybe in her early twenties, freindly smile and manner, but only just so much English. She was dressed in jeans, t-shirt and trainers. A little while later after getting our breakfast, she reappeared, but this time in traditional Balinese costume. It was only then I really noticed that most of the staff here dress this way whenever they are on duty. It had kind of snuck under my conciousness; the costume, along with a particular kind of diffident manner, it's all a subtle part of what makes tourist Bali so attractive.
But then there's jeans and t-shirt Bali, Indonesian Bali; you come back in the evening and spy the same hotel guys sitting around and watching idoru on YouTube. Or, wander through the downtown Peliatan and see the motorbike workshops, electrical shops, mobile phone shops and even what looked to me like a very non-tourist batik shop, maybe where you would go to buy your hotel costume.
Then, Balinese Bali. The other curious obstruction you meet when trying to negotiate Ubud main street is little square packets made of palm leaves or something, with a little bit of rice, or some incense or some coconut in them. Clumsy tourists stomp all over them (including me, once), but they are offerings, and they are made freshly every day in their thousands. Most mornings I spot a woman who seems to be doing the rounds of the local shrines and temples, kind of watering the offerings and refreshing the offerings which have been left there. When you do become aware of them, it's like you are reminded of a spiritual presence every few steps, of a kind of duty to some kind of order beyond the everyday.
I don't quite get it all; either what is going on here or my own responses to it. And, where do we locate the Balinese performing arts in this, particularly the music which we have come here to absorb? Are the tourist performances we have been to see 'authentic' or 'folkloric', 'the real thing' or 'artificial', or possibly all of that at the same time.
Speculations for another post, when I get a chance. Mags is not very well today, so we're kind of taking it easy, may or may not go out to a show tonight. Mid afternoon, pretty hot now, may go for a lie down or possibly another swim in the wee pool.
It's fine, but it's tiring. Walking down the main street in Ubud is tiring anyway. The pavement, where it exists at all, it is narrow and uneven, with frequent gaping holes which would drop you straight into the sewer below. It also tends to be blocked by parked cars, motorbikes, sleeping dogs and building works. Often you end up walking on the road, jostling for space with motorbikes and cars squeezing by with inches to spare.
Once you get tired of all this, again you are never more than a few yards away from a large and well-appointed restaurant catering mainly to tourists. The prices here are possiby vastly inflated by local standards, but affordable in Western terms; perhaps 30,000 IDR for a typical dish, which is only about £1.80 at the moment. There are many hotels, pensions and guesthouses; ours is very nice, with a delighful view over the paddy fields, a small swimming pool, and a basic but ok room with a fan. Our hotel does internet access for 15,000 IDR per hour, under a pound, I've also spotted a few places which seem to do it for free. (I saw one guy rather oddly and ostentatiously sitting on the pavement across the road from a café with a MacBook Pro, obviously snarfing their wifi for free...)
Everyone speaks basic English, at least enough to offer you a taxi, or sell you something. There is no problem with things like getting a sim card for a phone, or getting money from and ATM, or even booking an internal flight, which we did very painlessly just by walking into a tiny one-man office and enquiring.
Anytime you do want to buy something - a gift, a taxi ride, a hotel room - you have to barter. Well, I suppose you don't have to, you could just pay the price asked, but it is expected. I don't much like it. Today I plucked up courage to go into a shop and show some interest in a batik shirt. Surprisingly, perhaps, there was a written price label of 195,000 IDR, £12, which would probably have been a fair price for the garment in the UK. I tried it on and it genuinely didn't fit, so I turned it down. At which point, the guy dropped his voice very quietly, as one does when bartering, and offered me a 'discount' to 175,000 IDR.
And so it goes; I didn't take this one any further. I was sitting next to an Indonesian couple the other night at a performance, and I was able to overhear a barter for a tube of mosquito repellant between two Indonesians. It was all over in about two seconds, they just did it so quickly and naturally... maybe I'll get used to it.
Overhear. Yes, spending the time in the run up to our trip here memorising more or less the whole of 'Teach Yourself Indonesian' has been extremely worthwhile. To my relief I found that my pronunciation was good enough for people to follow, that my stock of phrases was quite useful, and that in simple everyday transactions I can more or less follow what is being said. Which brings me on to...
Indonesian Bali. We went down to breakfast quite early the other morning, slightly catching them on the hop, I think. The only person around was Made Lodeh; maybe in her early twenties, freindly smile and manner, but only just so much English. She was dressed in jeans, t-shirt and trainers. A little while later after getting our breakfast, she reappeared, but this time in traditional Balinese costume. It was only then I really noticed that most of the staff here dress this way whenever they are on duty. It had kind of snuck under my conciousness; the costume, along with a particular kind of diffident manner, it's all a subtle part of what makes tourist Bali so attractive.
But then there's jeans and t-shirt Bali, Indonesian Bali; you come back in the evening and spy the same hotel guys sitting around and watching idoru on YouTube. Or, wander through the downtown Peliatan and see the motorbike workshops, electrical shops, mobile phone shops and even what looked to me like a very non-tourist batik shop, maybe where you would go to buy your hotel costume.
Then, Balinese Bali. The other curious obstruction you meet when trying to negotiate Ubud main street is little square packets made of palm leaves or something, with a little bit of rice, or some incense or some coconut in them. Clumsy tourists stomp all over them (including me, once), but they are offerings, and they are made freshly every day in their thousands. Most mornings I spot a woman who seems to be doing the rounds of the local shrines and temples, kind of watering the offerings and refreshing the offerings which have been left there. When you do become aware of them, it's like you are reminded of a spiritual presence every few steps, of a kind of duty to some kind of order beyond the everyday.
I don't quite get it all; either what is going on here or my own responses to it. And, where do we locate the Balinese performing arts in this, particularly the music which we have come here to absorb? Are the tourist performances we have been to see 'authentic' or 'folkloric', 'the real thing' or 'artificial', or possibly all of that at the same time.
Speculations for another post, when I get a chance. Mags is not very well today, so we're kind of taking it easy, may or may not go out to a show tonight. Mid afternoon, pretty hot now, may go for a lie down or possibly another swim in the wee pool.
Monday 22 June 2009
Uma Sari
Well, here we are in Bali; that's Mags by the paddy field outside our hotel, Uma Sari in Ubud. Very pleasant here early in the morning, lively chorus of birds at dawn drowning out the frogs, some sort of bulbul, I think. Breakfast is banana pancakes and fruit, then in a bit we're going to walk along to Pondok Pecak for a scary ride on the back of a motorcycle to a gamelan lesson.
Last night saw a kecak at Pura Dalem, arranged and choreographed by I Wayan Dibia, who we studied kecack with in Bali. Very enjoyable, a lot of it quite recognisable from his teaching.
Can't stay long here... Bali is lovey, wonderful, but rather tiring having to barter for absolutely everything you buy, and always wondering just how much one might have overpaid.
Saturday 20 June 2009
Friday 19 June 2009
Dubaity
Anything I'd write here now would just be a fairly routine account of six hour flight delays, missing connections, overnight stays in anonymous international hotel chains, and mild cultural disorientation. So, instead, here's a recording of a cool sound, somebody wheeling their bag along a moving walkway in Glasgow airport;
You can just make out a recorded voice saying 'You are approaching the end... of the moving walkway'. I prefer the one in Amsterdam Schiphol, which says a chirpy 'Mind your step!'.
You can just make out a recorded voice saying 'You are approaching the end... of the moving walkway'. I prefer the one in Amsterdam Schiphol, which says a chirpy 'Mind your step!'.
Tuesday 16 June 2009
Blogging Indonesia 09
I've set this up as a place to record the trip Mags and I are making to Indonesia over the summer of 2009. We're going to be in Bali, Central Java and Sunda, exploring the culture, in particular the music, and generally absorbing as much as we can.
At the moment Mags is in Bali already, and I'm flying out to join her tomorrow, Thursday, arriving on Friday. This is where we're staying while we're in Bali; www.usmari.com. From 29 of June we'll be based at the Cakra Homestay in Solo (Surakarta).
I'm not sure how much internet access I will have; when I can't manage to blog here I hope to be microblogging via sms at twitter.com/tedthetrumpet.
At the moment Mags is in Bali already, and I'm flying out to join her tomorrow, Thursday, arriving on Friday. This is where we're staying while we're in Bali; www.usmari.com. From 29 of June we'll be based at the Cakra Homestay in Solo (Surakarta).
I'm not sure how much internet access I will have; when I can't manage to blog here I hope to be microblogging via sms at twitter.com/tedthetrumpet.
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