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!
Monday 29 June 2009
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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