New plans and TWS fundraising

A Bali Arts Institute professor, Nyoman Windha, called Pak Terip a couple days ago to ask him to play a Western collaboration at the Arts Festival. Kosil is going home for good at the same time in early June, and since I'm something of an unwelcome pet of Terip's here I'm going to make passage home Stateside. The situation reminds me of Bob Brown's dog in Payangan, who was abused when he was home in California and ended up a fearful, cranky animal like most Balinese dogs.

Exception to my stagnant state of mind here: I finally decided to break out of my ground state of passivity and learn to make compound resonator keys, the building block of my teacher's bamboo instruments. 

Here is a prototypical example. The ones on the right I cracked in the process of hacking and sawing -- granted, the saw is way oversize for the job -- but the others are passable keys with compound tone! I didn't even cut myself, though my arm woke me last night with tendonitis pain and the pads of both thumbs are sore from handling the knife in unfamiliar ways. Terip took pity on my efforts after a couple of bad takes and coached me a little; his touch with the same knife shaped the bamboo like wax.

Which brings me to my fundraiser for The Walden School, a summer music camp that uses innovative and celebratory techniques to develop musicianship and composition practice. Kids who can't afford it can apply for a scholarship, which is where the money goes. My goal is $300, and once your gifts pass the $100 mark the Board will match everything I raise dollar for dollar!

What's the fun in giving this time? I'm going to make compound keys to standard -- no easy feat as all my examples have been just passable -- one a day. $10 sponsors one key. Pledge another $3 per tingklik key and I will attempt these flat, thick bamboo pieces best for temperate climates. If we make it to the tingklik keys it'll be good news for instrument making Stateside.

At the end of my project I'll record and post the scale produced as a thank-you. If you want, request a small key as a souvenir and I'll try to fit it in my suitcase. Thanks also to the Balinese who are donating scrap and sale quality bamboo for my project, and a big thank-you to my teacher.

The smell of CDs burning

Labels are printed, cases are coming out of their shrinkwrap, and Pak Terip and I are taking turns with the two power outlets on the extension cord to our room. There's a post office in the village proper. Y'all will have your shiny Munduk Gerantang CDs in no time.

You can sample and buy the first couple tracks that have uploaded on tripittaka.bandcamp.com ... eventually I'll have the bandwidth (no pun intended) to get that site up and running.

Still gifting orders with a free sampler CD from my all-genres field recordings. Click through and donate, according to your means, $12-20. Remember to include your address.

From Central Sulawesi

A desert-like breeze is welcome as it floods in the room's large house-shaped window. It carries the not unpleasant fragrance of burning coconut husks, apparently waste from a common industry here. The water here is darkly tinged with minerals, staining laundry yellow if one is not quick to dry it. I like the iron content for my thalyssemia, but a glance at the neighbor's kids suggests something else sinister in the environment.

I worried about numerous small, slender bugs in the bed the first morning but they didn't seem to be biting and Kosil assured me they were okay. On the other hand we are all covered in mild rashes. Mine healed in a week but fresh, flea-bite-like ones appear. Pak Terip bathes his skin in Bokashi fermented herbal oil day and night.

The first few days Pak Terip dozed in the daytime heat. Now they've stepped up practice, having us there from morning small-group practice until night. Of course the organizer, Pak Sadyana, buys us lunch, fat individual portions of rice and savory dishes arranged in a brown wax paper pyramid. Evening rehearsals are productive but dripping hot and plagued by mosquitos. Kosil mainly works the drummers while I take on one side of the gangsa and try errantly to help the trunk melody, jegog and calung. The guys seem a decent enough bunch, joking with each other and laughing when I made an egregious mistake that drew harsh words from my teacher.

The Balinese emigrants understandably vary. Some are at least as hospitable as the folks back in the Buleleng mountains, dropping in on us and offering to take us out to see sights and dine at their homes. One lent me his only laptop and modem when word got out that my Linux system wasn't working with the local mobile broadband options. The gamelan has invited me to perform with them at the festival in Yogjakarta come September, expenses paid. Of course I want to see this through to the end, so I again have incentive to raise those visa renewal dollars.

Cool things I saw on the full-moon holiday Purnama, when we played a family temple initiation ceremony (Dewa Yatnya) from morning until early afternoon and then prayed at the temple our host serves as treasurer:

• a very high platform, about two people-heights up, fully decked out in cloth and banten, the four corner poles extending up to full-height penjur.
• At the end of the sacred mask ritual Sidha Karya a household member cracked a raw egg and sprinkled it over offerings placed on the ground, then smashed a ripe coconut on the stony ground. Terip explained it symbolized gratitude to Mother Earth.
• A kumpul, traditional Balinese wood bell, tower decorated on all sides with Christian freizes. It's religiously very mixed here, though around the village everyone's Balinese.

Our host Komang recorded donations at the front of the Purnama congregation. At the end of the ceremony as everyone was leaving he took the podium and announced every household and the amount contributed. Many gave Rp 20. but several gave more. I remarked on this to Pak Terip who replied it's only the right way to practice transparency.

Don't worry, I still won't identify you and your contributions without your permission. 

PS No, we didn't feel the earthquake.  

CD production goes DIY

To those angels who stepped up to finance the Gerantang CD production: I've not forgotten you.

Far from it, I've worked with what we got and brought production home. Here it all is, purchased in Singapore and packed up again to head to Sulawesi with us tomorrow.

If you've seen me in person you know I seldom go anywhere without my handy notebook. That's the red one shown in my Network for New Music short vid. Yes, our CD production supplies are tucked like Klotski blocks between lube, gloves, safety shears, and my enema bag. Btw your CD comes with free queer unicorn glitter!

Stay tuned.

Last ceremonies in Bali

My enjoyment of my last two ceremonies in Bali were marred by a thankfully painless but bothersome stomach bug and computer troubles.

A family temple in the village had its birthday odalan complete with gong kebyar. In the morning priests and the women who help them set out low spirit offerings and prayed before them. At about noon the cengceng section of the gamelan trapsed out and back in with one of the frequent circumambulations to invite the gods to arrive. Times of day are believed to be ruled by different spirits: morning for low spirits and afternoon for gods.

I ate white rice with salt and was passing out from faintness and fever by the time the dances started. Playing tenor suling was a mistake -- it requires much more air than the soprano. Three variously trained young girls performed a welcome dance followed by the bird courtship kebyar Cendrawasih. Then half-mask comic bondres started and I was trapped behind attentive audience members. I'm starting to get that there are words of wisdom as well as slapstick comedy in there.

When the sacred mask came out for final offerings around 6pm I managed to slip out.

The next day was a little better: I filled up on coconut water right from the fruit before helping set up instruments in a family compound. This funeral was odd in that it culminated in a burial at the cremation grounds. It was also a little odd because the appropriate offerings hadn't arrived so the seka waited almost two hours before we could play. At this point I decided I was ready for a course of Immodium and maybe Cipro and wished there were time for someone to run an errand to town.

In the afternoon the seka went home to be replaced by the Banjar Pasut angklung and four laid-back men from Padang Bulia playing rare gambang with my teacher. I'd never seen my teacher's instruments before: he crafted the keys from thick bamboo instead of traditional wood but the sound is unmistakably gambang. I spent hours studying the parts and composition as they played and I am still puzzled.

One man doubled on the bronze sarong melody instruments. Two on one side played the extremely asymmetrical gambang kotekan, interlocking pattern while two on the other side played a kotekan more like the kind of ornamentation reyong does, on soprano kantil instruments. As for the septatonic scale for pieces in pentatonic modes, the keys are laid out three in the left hand and four in the right. If you haven't seen gambang before, you'd notice first the mallets branched much like four-mallet vibraphone playing. The 3 + 4 key groupings are octavated 3 3' 4 4' so each player plays octaves with each stroke. But the octaves aren't tuned consistently -- I'll have to ask Pak Terip.

Photos may come, but after a long time -- I asked an attentive European photographer to send some when she gets home.

Mic broken

I noticed while recording angklung at yesterday's ceremony the recording levels were displaying super low to zero. To my horror this morning I found nothing was recorded because my mic is only registering a quite hum, like a bad electrical connection.

Goodbye, 6-year-old SONY mic. But it could be weeks before I get to a store to buy another. Wish me luck. Maybe this is the Muse's message to me that I'd better shift focus to that cremation composition (see previous post) rather than recording others' works.

Ngaben: your thoughts on death and grieving

I woke up and immediately noticed the LEDs were out on my laptop. Damn, I'd fallen asleep during a lightening storm and left the machine unplugged. It was still dark but a glance at my indiglo watchface  warned me just before it squeaked to life. As I reluctantly roused myself I was afraid I'd have to wake the neighbor to drive me, but as dawn softly lit the usual haze it felt warm and I headed down to the village alone, on foot.

Today we honored Pak Putu Sumarjaya in his Bali Hindu cremation ceremony (ngaben). He was Made Terip's first cousin and a respected and liked musician. They traveled abroad together to teach and headed the village gamelan together until 2002. He supported my teacher through last year's grievous times but succumbed rapidly in a struggle with stomach cancer. He was one of a few experienced musicians to volunteer to teach the women's gamelan -- one of my memories of him was watching him, great eyeglasses glinting, carry on the cengceng part in Pak Terip's new composition just a couple months ago. He was not much over 60.

His wife Ibu Laheni was run ragged with grief, supported by son and daughter, through the ceremony. I gave her my meager gift of 54,000 Indonesian Rupiah in a small envelope I'd bought the day before for the occasion -- six times nine, the yin and yang numbers. My teacher had advised me to dispense with the usual gift of two kilos of sugar for cash to help with hospital and cremation expenses. She said only that Pak Putu was dead, thanked me, and directed me to the refreshments.

The family compound was compact in the middle of the village such that the angklung was packed onto a stoop like sardines. A few of us squatted or sat on filthy concrete steps and the alleyway. The weather stayed perfect, though, clearing at noon just enough to dry the rain-soaked road, but not to burn the pallbearers.

Every time, the hours-long ceremonies afford me plenty of time to reflect on death and mourning. This time was more personal -- the widow had been especially kind to me in rehearsal, in casual meetings on the road, and at last month's birthday ceremony for her grandson. As I waited with over a hundred others for the bulk of mourners to proceed from the family compound to the street, as I gazed on the bamboo platform on which Pak Putu's coffin would be carried, and as I watched his remains and offerings go up in smoke at the cremation grounds, I felt the familiar fear weigh down my body. Every Balinese knows with a certainty I can only imagine that their death will be honored this way. While I live, I will mourn every Balinese I love, when they pass away, in a ceremony much like this. And that will, more likely than not, include my teacher.

The dead require nothing, but the grief of the living requires this much labor from this many people. Examining my teacher's collection of beautifully copied lelambatan melodies yesterday, I hovered in uncertainty that all these pieces were in living memory. Pak Terip, paging through them in their broken stitching,  admitted here was a tricky one he hadn't gotten yet. Are the dead to be remembered like this, lovingly collected records with an organic syntax known only to a diminishing number who knew them well?

In the comments please honor someone you loved or respected who has passed away, or for whose future passing you are already emotionally preparing yourself. You don't have to include a name. What I'm looking for is your piece of the truth.