No tree is untouched by the wind: aspects of composition and improvisation in Balinese gender wayang By Nicholas Ivo Walton Gray 2006 Submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London ProQuest Number: 10731331 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a com plete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest ProQuest 10731331 Published by ProQuest LLC(2017). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States C ode Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 Abstract This thesis is an examination of the music of the Balinese gender wayang, the quartet of metallophones (gender) that accompanies the Balinese shadow puppet play ( wayang kulit). The research focuses on processes of musical variation, the main means of creating new music in this genre, and the implications of these processes for the social and historical study of Balinese music, musical aesthetics, concepts of creativity and compositional methods. Firstly, it studies the processes of composition and variation-making in this unnotated tradition. Secondly, it examines the relationship between pre­ composition and spontaneous variation-making. Thirdly, it explores concepts of musical composition, variation, improvisation and creativity in gender wayang, which shed light on attitudes to these processes in Bali in general. These processes are examined in two main geographical areas: Sukawati in South Bali and, secondly, the contrasting area of East Bali, particularly the villages of Budakeling and Tenganan. Part 1 (chapters 1 to 3) describes the context of gender wayang within Balinese musical and ritual life and gives an overview of improvisation and composition in Balinese music. It also contains a review of existing literature on gender wayang (chapter 2) and an overview of relevant ethnomusicological theories of improvisation and composition (chapter 3). In part 2 (chapters 4 to 6), I examine compositional techniques in gender wayang in more depth, as well as aspects of regional variation, before analysing the processes at work in a spectrum from the more improvised to the more pre-composed, illuminated by players’ comments (chapter 6). Finally, in part 3 (chapters 7 and 8), I draw out and bring into focus certain themes raised by the processes described in the previous chapters, particularly those that relate to changing social contexts for the music. 2 Contents Preface 6 A note on spelling, transcriptions and tuning 7 Map of Bali 8 Table 1: The improvisation tocomposition continuum in gender wayang 140 Table 2: Differences in four-note cells between repetition, improvised version of “Katak Ngonkek” 164 Musical example 20 fold-out 147 Musical example 29 fold-out 162 Musical example 52 fold-out 220 Part 1: Concepts Chapter 1; Introduction 9 1.1 Scope of the study 9 1.2 Performance contexts: wayang and ritual 11 1.3 Bali soundscape 16 1.4 Composition in Bali 18 1.5 Improvisation in Balinese music 21 1.6 The instruments and tuning 23 1.7 Techniques and textures 25 1.8 Types of piece 28 1.9 The course of a performance 32 1.10 Learning 34 1.11 Fieldwork 37 1.12 My teachers and where they live 39 1.13 Conclusion 46 Chapter 2: A survey of existing literature on gender wayang 48 2.1 Some early sources 48 2.2 Colin McPhee 50 2.3 Other short studies 56 3 2.4 Lisa Gold 60 2.5 Brita Heimarck 68 2.6 Henrice Vonck 72 2.7 Literature printed in Bali 77 2.8 Conclusion 78 Chapter 3: Some key literature on composition, variation-making and improvisation 79 3.1 Continuity, variation, selection 79 3.2 Tune families and transformation 82 3.3 Orai-formulaic theory 84 3.4 The improvisation to composition continuum 86 3.5 Interactive approaches 88 3.6 Inner melodies and steady states 91 3.7 Cognitive approaches 94 3.8 Creativity: unconscious, conscious or self-conscious? 98 Part 2: Explorations Chapter 4: Compositional structures and techniques 101 4.1 A unique ensemble? 101 4.2 Pokok 104 4.3 Transposition 106 4.4 Variation form 109 4.5 Textural contrast 110 4.6 Modality 111 4.7 The melodic and rhythmic system of kotekan 113 4.8 Rhythmic flexibility 114 4.9 Relationship with vocal music 116 4.10 Dramatic representation 118 4.11 Referentiality 120 Chapter 5: What players say 122 5.1 Terminology 122 4 5.2 Regional identity 124 5.3 Discussions with musicians in Sukawati 125 5.4 Discussions with musicians in Tenganan 128 5.5 Discussions with musicians in Budakeling 131 5.6 Discussions with musicians in Abang 135 Chapter 6: What players play 141 6.1 Improvisation 1: spontaneous variations 142 6.2 Improvisation 2: malleable units 180 6.3 Pre-planned small variations within a piece 194 6.4 Adding, taking away, sharing and transforming short segments 211 6.5 Making new variation sections 216 6.6 Making new gineman 233 6.7 New versions of old pieces 236 6.8 New pieces 246 6.9 Summary 265 Part 3: Shifting boundaries Chapter 7: Sing ada kayu luput teken angin (no tree is untouched by the wind) 274 7.1 Teaching, learning, experience 274 7.2 Kinaesthetic and symbolic content 276 7.3 Performance contexts 277 7.4 Some shifting boundaries 280 7.5 Gender, improvisation and freedom 284 7.6 Where do new ideas come from? 287 Chapter 8: Conclusions and new directions 290 Appendix 1: Glossary 294 Appendix 2: Bibliography, list of field recordings and discography 300 Appendix 3: Tuning measurements 310 Appendix 4: Contents of the accompanying CD 311 5 Preface Acknowledgements I would like to thank all my teachers, fellow players and friends in Bali, who made my study of gender wayang possible, particularly: I Wayan Loceng, I Wayan Nartha, I Ketut Sukayana, I Wayan Suprapta, I Ketut Buda Astra, I Komang Wrespatika, I Wayan Sarga, I Wayan Warga, I Nyoman Gunawan, I Wayan Mudita, I Wayan Dasta, Ida Wayan Ngurah, Ida Wayan Oka Granoka, Ida Nyoman Sugata, 1 Nyoman Sutawa and family, I Made Kondra, Nyoman Kota, I Made Putu, I Wayan Jira, I Made Widastra, I Wayan Mustika, and many others. I would like to thank the late Dr Laurence Picken of Cambridge University for his inspiring suggestion, nearly two decades ago, that I should look into the nature of composition in Bali. I would like to thank my supervisor at the School of Oriental and African studies, Dr David Hughes, for guiding this study, Professor Richard Widdess and Dr Mark Hobart for many useful insights and comments and Ni Made Pujawati for teaching me Balinese. Thanks also to Lisa Gold and Henrice Vonck for their supportive comments via e-mail. Thanks to Margaret Birley at the Horniman Museum in London for the use of a TLA Tuning Set to measure the tuning of my instruments in cents. Thanks to Chris Comber for drawing the map. Much of the background to this study was made possible thanks to my initial study in Bali, from 1987 to 1989, on a Dharmasiswa scholarship from the Indonesian Department of Education and Culture, i also gratefully acknowledge the fieldwork grants from the University of London Central Research Fund and from the School of Oriental and African Studies, which enabled me to conduct fieldwork in 2002. 6 A note on spelling, transcriptions and tuning Where appropriate, I indicate Indonesian words by “I” and Balinese words by “B”. I follow the most commonly used romanisation of Balinese, which distinguishes between e and e, while Indonesian simply uses e for both sounds. I retain this distinction for personal names but not place names, where Indonesian forms are better known from maps (such as Denpasar and Tejakula). In Balinese, but not Indonesian, final a is pronounced as the a in the English “China”. In both Balinese and Indonesian, c is pronounced “ch”. Where I quote an author, I use the spelling and format used in the original text, thus: gender sometimes appears as gender or gender or gender, and wayang kulit as wajang koelit. Where Javanese forms are referred to, I use the Javanese versions: gendhing for gending and dhalang for dalang. There is some variation in the tuning of different gender wayang ensembles (see chapter 1, below). McPhee (1936 and 1966) expresses gender wayang tuning by the following Western notes: F#, G#, B, C#, and E. Gold (1992 and 1998) and Heimarck (1999 and 2003) prefer: F, Ab, Bb, C and Eb. I have opted for the form F, G, Bb, C and Eb, approximating the pitch of the lowest of my own instruments (the tunings of these are presented in cents in appendix 3). In the transcriptions, I have used bar lines more as a guide to the reader’s eye than to mark significant metric stresses. Where notating all the rests would confuse a transcription, I follow Tenzer (2000) in omitting them. Depending on clarity, most musical examples are notated with right and left hands on separate staves (marked R.H. and L.H.) with the stems of polos player’s notes downwards and the sangsih stems up. In other examples, again to clarify the point being made, the polos and sangsih parts are written on separate staves, with right hands stems up and left hands stems down.