The gerantang recording becomes a saga

After sinking a couple hundred US dollars on CD production and mailing materials, I dragged my goodies through Singapore airport security. My bold new acquaintance, writer Nick Krieger, followed along on the detour to Aneka Records in Tabanan and helped me up the trail to the little house in the orchard. And he witnessed the musicians' collective dissatisfaction with the quality of the products.

Let's have a listen (embedded for a limited time below): The Aneka sample is a couple clips from what they made, the Qian one is from my collection.

[EDIT 7/29/12: you can sample these contrasting qualities directly on our Bandcamp page; the unmastered is the final track]

I would expect a professional recording to show the crispness of kendang drums, vibrato of suling flute, hum of bass undurundur, all through distinct layers of polos and sangsi pemade (alto) and kantil (soprano) gerantang. Indeed, the playback at sound check sounded like a good balance. But then they added a dollop of reverb that smeared much of the precision and nuance of fine performance and tuning.

Crisp, clear, unadulterated 

As I await the sponsor's followup, I continue to assemble my collection of field recordings and my teacher looks into options for an unpaid recording session with just me and the big group. I do have enough small-group recordings to make a CD, so you early birds will surely get some treats in the mail. Although they are not laboratory-clean studio recordings, they bring the power of music in its social context. I'll keep y'all posted.

Joged: the sacred drag dance for babies' birthdays

In the past two weeks I finally got to see joged dances in family compounds. I say finally because Pak Terip is not only a bamboo specialist but the son of I Putu Togog, the inventor of the genre.

At the first joged, packed between rehearsals and performances at Undiksa for graduation and the fancy hotel, I was surprised how many men and women refused to dance when chosen. The first drag joged kept picking female partners. The cisfemale joged all got humped and nuzzled in inappropriate places by most of their choices, midst hilarious uproar. At the end of the night, the temple sash worn by each partner while dancing is tied around the father's waist and concluding blessings are given his three-month-old baby.

At the second, the dancing was marginally less offensive. Most of the young men, packed like sardines in the audience area, were morbidly afraid to partner when picked, running away, and some even refused to dance once onstage. At one special moment the head of the family danced and Putu signaled the group to play the Garuda-beating scene from Legong Keraton. Someone immediately threw leafy branches down from the road, which the dancers picked up to make great drama of beating each other's behinds and even the partner's groin. I continued to be impressed by evidence of how deeply ingrained the classical repertoire is in the Balinese public.

As a sex worker, I found it educational and thought-provoking. I struggled to balance the significance of sex workers and Western strippers against the overtly social, even sacred role of joged. Certainly the men seemed extremely entitled to the joged's bodies whereas the MTF drag bodies were unanimously shunned as undesirable. Yet there was no per-interaction cash exchange as there is with dancers in bars and clubs. The dancers were paid for performing by the host family.

Sanggar Seni Tripittaka during a recording session with Aneka Records last month.

Next 20 CD sales ship with free sampler

The deadline hovering at a week to finance Munduk's first professional recording of its suspended bamboo ensemble. The next 20 folks to click "Donate" to the right and send $12-20 will get not only the first copies of the CD but a gift of best picks from my field recordings. This sampler CD features lovely classical gender wayang and lelonggoran (a North Bali trompong genre) as well as competition-grade compositions by Putu Putrawan for gong kebyar. I'll throw in a topeng improvised mask dance as well, one not featured in the dance CD distributed in 2004.

If possible, transfer funds from a US checking account as a Gift to avoid merchant fees.

Public service announcement: Reyong tuning

This is how I Made Terip does it:

The appearance of tuned bunga ends up like this:
[photo coming soon]

Don't let yours turn out like this (thinned with a blade, or worse, a grinder):

These terompong keys from village Unggahan are going back in the forge. The blade damages the structural integrity of the key and increases the risk of cracks.

Gerantang CD financing update: 10% with two weeks to go

Keep it coming, folks! Click Donate to the right.

Orders to date from the campaign to raise $1000 to produce this bamboo music album recorded by Aneka Records:

Indonesia: $20
Singapore: $20
New York: $20
Washington, D.C.: $20
San Francisco: $20

Total: $100

New CD release: Munduk Gerantang, North Bali bamboo music

I'm thrilled to announce the first commercial release of Munduk bamboo music.

Yesterday Aneka Records set up a battery of mics in a pavilion at the high-end hotel on the hill midst the 12-piece bamboo gamelan in my previous post. Six hours, a box of wax paper-wrapped rice and meats, and a round of coffee later, there were two raw hours of classical and new pieces taped.

I've uploaded a rehearsal of Pak Terip's newest piece, also mentioned in the previous post, for your previewing (pre-auditioning?) pleasure. Obviously my equipment wasn't up to the acoustics of the space, but it gives an idea of the woody, soulful sound in dramatic pelog scale.

To finance the CD production we're offering the first copies at a sliding scale of $12-20, with free shipping for orders of 10 or more. The jacket will feature full color photos and complete credits. The pieces will be mixed and mastered under I Made Terip's supervision once we reach the $1000 production goal. Comment with questions or make your free-shipping orders directly by Paypal.

During lunch we were all startled by an explosive collision between a jackfruit and the tile roof. I have now witnessed a giant spiky fruit tumbling dangerously from its perch.

How an appraisal took 10.5 hours

Yesterday was one of the rainiest here, moderate to heavy with intermittent downpours. Every time it let up for a minute, Pak Terip called, "Qian! Ayo!" let's go! whereupon it would immediately pour again. He wanted to check out a gamelan that needs tuning in Pelapuan, a village down an assortment of winding and flooded roads.

He was in a strange mood. When I got up he had been at it with Kosil (background) and a couple other artisans making a new set of pelog scale gerantang (click for sound sample):

I asked if they were for himself as opposed to a commission, and he answered in the affirmative. Around midday he was done with the set of 14 keys he was working on, and sat thoughtfully in his pile of bamboo shavings playing phrases softly on the instrument beside him (above center), stopping to gaze in stillness or to take a drag from the cigarette resting on the chopping block. I asked if he was composing, but he didn't answer. When I tried to clean up his work area, he stopped me, protesting that he liked it.

Eventually he had the help string new keys on an old frame, scolding him for doing it too loosely. On the paired instruments he played a piece or two with Kosil before the latter got distracted fussing with a new suling. More solo ruminating on a playful melody that would race were he to play it through.

It was almost two when we finally trekked up to the road in light drizzle and waited some ten minutes for the driver to return to the parked jeep. One of the players, Datoex, from the sanggar followed along; "melali," he answered when I asked why, "just wandering." He was 20, a high school grad and unemployed aside from helping out with instrument making and playing gigs. He shared his cassava and rice cake snacks as the jeep wound its way through the awful weather and roads to an empty warehouse on terraced rice fields.

A woman armed with a giant umbrella greeted us as we waited on a covered raised platform. Eventually she brought coffee. We waited more than an hour before she appeared again, excusing the owner's absence for the rain. Pak Terip roused from his nap, made a phone call, and off we went to sit with 'a friend' in a neighboring house.

The driver, Datoex, and I hunched at one end of the table while Pak Terip chatted with the friend about alcohol, gambling, and some other topics I couldn't discern. Datoex and I joked under our breaths and shoved roasted beans in our nostrils for entertainment. We were two or three hours there before another friend arrived, chatted even more, and then caravanned with us back to the warehouse. It was long after dark.

The gamelan themselves were interesting: a septatonic metal angklung and new gong kebyar, and collection of cengceng, drums, and suling. The elephantine warehouse was the biggest acoustical mistake I've ever been in; I felt drunk or drugged at first, wondering why I saw my teacher damping keys but heard them ringing continuously. Then I couldn't help laughing at how out of tune the reyong was, and Pak Terip took advantage of my evident mirth to sell his services. After the necessary fuss about how much work was necessary, the men involved sat to examine the drums.

Then, the moment I live for: one man placed a bunch of suling before my teacher. He picked them up one by one, improvising circular-breathed phrases one after another. His breath filled the warehouse like sourceless light. Again and again, my breath caught. On a peculiarly flattened note goosebumps flashed like ice splashes up my left arm and side and the right side of my head but left my core body steaming (pardon the somatic minutia). My mind flashed to dreams of busking and playing restaurants and concerts in America.

I understand gigging takes more time than the actual engagement, but if I can help it, an appraisal to tune and fix gamelan in America will not take 10.5 hours.