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Posted 04/26/02
Dartmouth is hosting an Indonesian musician to teach, collaborate and perform this term who specializes in the gamelan, a traditional orchestra unique to the culture of Indonesia. Kuwat, who, like many Indonesians, uses only one name, is featured in a new course, Asian and Middle-Eastern Studies 18, "The History and Culture of Indonesia." Teaching the course is Jody Diamond, Visiting Associate Professor of Music and Asian and Middle Eastern Languages and Literatures. The course has two students: Eva Marune '05 and Zachary Goldstein '02. Kuwat teaches music on the college level at STSI Surakarta, or Sekolah Tinggi Seni Indonesia Surakarta, a national arts university on the island of Java. A gamelan is a group of instruments. One of the instruments of a bamboo gamelan called calung, which is Kuwat's specialty, looks roughly like a large pan pipe, laid horizontally on a frame, and each pipe is struck with a mallet to sound a note. A full calung ensemble consists of four bamboo pipe instruments, one pair of drums, and two gongs sounded by blown bamboo tubes. Gamelan can be made of iron or bronze or other materials. The bamboo variety is very popular in Java, but rare in the United States. Of the roughly 100 gamelan in the country, about three are made from bamboo. The royal gamelan, traditionally played in the Javanese courts, were made of bronze. Because bamboo is easy to find and easy to work with, it was widely used in certain areas. Only a few regions have bamboo gamelan: the island of Bali, and the Javanese regions of Banyuwangi (eastern Java), Banyumas (Central Java), and Sunda (West Java).
Certain pieces of music, which were played for court rituals, like a coronation or funeral, were considered court property and were forbidden to be played outside the palace. Since Indonesia became an independent nation, separate from the Netherlands in 1945, those ceremonial pieces, some of which have only two or three notes, are now played at weddings, university graduations and other formal occasions. Kuwat has written a book, which Diamond is translating, titled Continuity and Connections: Bamboo Music of Banyumas, about the history and development of bamboo music in Banyumas.
"The gamelan has a lot of uses," Kuwat said. "Originally, the gamelan was related to Hindu ceremonies, which was combined with Javanese mysticism and Buddhism. There's a progression of religious influences in Java: first Javanese animism or mysticism, then Buddhism in the eighth century, then Hinduism in the 13th and 14th centuries, then Islam in the 17th.
Christianity was later brought to certain areas by the Portuguese. In Java, the rituals of all those religions use the gamelan; there are ceremonies for all occasions. In some cases the music is the same, and just the text is changed to fit the religion." No two gamelan are tuned alike: the builder tunes the instruments together as a unique set, rather than to a uniform tuning standard. The tuning system in Java is different from the western system, and so is the notation, which uses numbers instead of notes on a staff. At a meeting in early April the AMES class practiced the music of the gamelan. Kuwat described the experience of teaching American students a form of music that is foreign to them. "The students are very, very different, because their backgrounds are different," he said in the language Indonesia, with Diamond interpreting. "In Java, the students start studying gamelan when they're 10 years old. They hear it on the radio, they have recordings, and they go to performances. For students here, it's the first time they've even heard gamelan. To introduce students to gamelan you have to go very carefully, because you're starting from zero.
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