Britons strike up love affair with sounds of Javanese gamelan
Britons strike up love affair with sounds of Javanese gamelan
By Helly Minarti
LONDON (JP): Peter Smith arranged rice-cakes, possibly bought
in London's Chinatown, and colorful flowers in a bamboo basket.
He put them in front of the gong at the back of a Javanese
gamelan set.
Smith was making the final preparation for a performance of
Island Hopping - a concert of Javanese and Balinese gamelan
instruments at Queen Elizabeth Hall, South Bank Centre, London.
The show featured The South Bank Gamelan Players and Lila Cita -
a Javanese and Balinese gamelan group respectively - whose
members are Londoners.
"It's a lorotan," whispered Smith. Lorotan is a Javanese word
that means "offering to fend off bad luck". "We're going to play
a sacred piece called Gadhung Mlathi, he explained the reason.
It is a piece rarely performed and then only with special
offerings to the Queen of the South Seas.
"It's an old composition, created about 200 years ago, but
very modern at the same time. It's such a nice piece, unique,
nothing like it. Quite remarkable," said Smith, the acting
artistic director of The South Bank Gamelan Players, who spent
three years studying the art of Karawitan (Javanese music) in
STSI Surakarta (Academy of Indonesian Performing Arts) in Solo.
The South Bank Gamelan Players is only one of around 50
gamelan groups scattered across Britain. Ninety four percent are
Javanese gamelan while the rest vary from Sundanese to Balinese.
"The trend is exploding," confirmed Andy Channing - the
artistic director of Lila Cita - a Balinese gong kebyar group
which also performed that night.
"Thirteen years ago when I first started (playing gamelan),
there were only a few gamelan in Britain, mostly in universities
such as Oxford, York or Durham," said Channing, who founded Lila
Cita in 1998.
Now, that early enthusiasm in the academic world has trickled
down to big arts centers such as South Bank Center (SBC), which
later introduced gamelan to community organizations and school-
children.
The Javanese gamelan set housed in SBC was a gift from
Indonesia in 1988. SBC has been giving gamelan courses ever
since.
"We have at least nine groups playing during weekdays and
three to five school groups on the weekend," said Smith, who also
teaches at SBC and several universities including Oxford.
Besides regular courses, SBC occasionally organizes workshops
where people can have a "gamelan taster class" before they
decide to enroll in the course.
"It was very exciting. I tried everything except the big gong,
since many of us queued for it," said Shizuka Yokomizo, who tried
a two-hour gamelan taster workshop.
Semi-professional
The group that performed last April is semi-professional and
belongs to the advanced class.
"Most are playing as a hobby, only five or six make a living
by teaching or playing gamelan. But it's a serious hobby since
many of them - at least 16 of 21 - have studied gamelan either in
Solo or Yogya for a year," explained Smith.
The SBC has a close link with STSI Surakarta where some of its
good players, including Smith, have been benefiting from
Darmasiswa - a scholarship from Indonesian Ministry of Education
and Culture for foreigners to study gamelan in Solo.
Some have extended their abilities by learning other styles.
Bradley Smith, who works for a computer company, also learned
Banyumasan style in addition to the classic Solo style.
It's very different. The drumming is more like Sundanese and
it's more folk music. For me they're a livelier and happier
tunes," he said.
Smith keeps coming back to Banyumas to hone his musical
skills. "I have friends there now. We're traveling around to see
concerts. And they always ask me to play on such occasions. It's
a scary thing - but very useful. Playing here in the South Bank
is nothing compared to that," said, Smith who also founded a
calung group - another form of Banyumasan music.
A large number of musicians started to play gamelan at
university. Robert Campion of SBC and Valerie Gunn of Lila Cita
are among that group.
"I saw people playing while I studied in Durnham University
and I really like it, especially after I visited Solo," said
Campion, now working both as composer and accountant.
Meanwhile, Gunn's first encounter with gamelan angklung (a
type of Balinese gamelan) was when she studied at Dartington
University in Devon. Now she joins Lila Cita to play gong kebyar
while working as a sound engineer.
"I can't wait to visit Bali," said Gunn who has been playing
for almost seven years. "It's always the time-money problem. I
don't want to go only for two weeks. I'd like to stay at least
for a year," she said.
Although, encouraging students to compose gamelan pieces, SBC
concentrates more on teaching the traditional style. "For me the
original way of playing Javanese gamelan is much more shocking,
liberating and distinct than any fusion influenced by western
music," said Peter Smith who first studied western music at York
University.
"There's nowhere else where so many people can play in
one group organically without preconception or structure, in the
way of western composition. There's no conductor; very
egalitarian. Twenty people can just sit and create the music,"
said Smith.
However, for some people, mastering the traditional style is
only a first step to creating their own composition, be it
traditional or contemporary.
Andy Channing, for instance, in addition to playing
traditional music for two Balinese gamelan groups, also writes
new (modern) pieces for gamelan. He even founded a special group
for this purpose, Alpha Betha, which recently released their
first CD.
Pop music
Furthermore, Channing has introduced gamelan to other venues
-- this time more into pop music. Joining and funding various
groups, including SBC, Channing has played in Edinburgh Festival,
Glastonbury Festival (the biggest pop festival in Britain) and in
London's clubbing scene, such as at the once hip Ministry of
Sound.
"It was a modern composition by an American composer for Mark
Morris (a reputable American choreographer) in Edinburgh and with
a jazz band in a club," said Channing.
Both SBC and Lila Cita rehearse once a week, and more
frequently when approaching a big show like the one in April that
was more an emotional anniversary.
"Ten years ago, we held a full week Island to Island event --
a festival of Indonesian music where we invited more than 50
musicians from STSI Solo to perform here," said Peter Smith.
Gamelan certainly continues to be cherished in Britain. If
there is one thing lacking, it is the absence of an Artist-in-
Residence for teaching gamelan.
"We used to have someone attached to the Indonesian embassy
for Javanese gamelan. But it has stopped since krismon (monetary
crisis)," said Smith. The SBC can't afford to replace such
facility.
Channing would also like to have a Balinese master for his
Lila Cita, but like SBC, can't afford to invite one. So far
though, he feels the need.
"What I do is to encourage the members to visit Bali, learn
the music and come back with more knowledge," he said. For the
future, founding a British Gamelan Foundation is being
considered, though it is unlikely to happen soon.
"Hopefully through such charity we can invite an Artist-in-
Residence who can teach throughout Britain," said Smith.
Britain has become one of the gamelan centers outside
Indonesia besides other countries in Europe and America. "London
is probably the only city outside Indonesia or even Jakarta where
people can play many kinds of gamelan types," claimed Smith.
Interest is definitely growing, despite some prevailing
problems. "We even sent a British gamelan teacher to Paris
recently since they would like to set up a group similar to the
one we have in SBC," said Smith, proudly. "So, Indonesia is like
our grandparents, and we are sort of the "parents" here who send
off people. Paris has just sent their first player to learn
gamelan in Java," added Smith.