 | This article includes a list ofgeneral references, butit lacks sufficient correspondinginline citations. Please help toimprove this article byintroducing more precise citations.(April 2009) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
American gamelan could refer to bothinstruments andmusic; the term has been used to refer togamelan-style instruments built byAmericans, as well as to music written by American composers to be played on gamelan instruments. American gamelan music usually has some relationship to the gamelan traditions ofIndonesia, as found primarily on the islands ofJava andBali in a variety of styles. Many American compositions can be played on Indonesian or American-made instruments. Indonesian gamelan can be made of a variety of materials, includingbronze,iron, orbamboo. American gamelan builders used all sorts of materials includingaluminum, tin cans, car hubcaps, steel, antique milk-strainers, etc.American gamelan may also describe the original music of American ensembles working with traditional instruments.
Dennis Murphy is often credited as being the first American to build instruments modeled on those of theJavanese gamelan, circa 1960. This work led to his doctoral thesis atWesleyan University, entitled "The Autochthonous American Gamelan". Murphy started a gamelan group with his instruments atGoddard College inVermont in 1967; that group later became the community-basedPlainfield Village Gamelan.
There have been other American builders of gamelan as well, on both the East and West coasts. Following Murphy's model wasBarbara Benary, who built the instruments still used today forGamelan Son of Lion. On the West coast, the airline industry made aluminum affordable, and this became the material of choice for several gamelan builders.Daniel Schmidt, a composer-builder, built an ensemble called "The Berkeley Gamelan" (independent of theUniversity of California, Berkeley) as well as the set of instruments that would develop intoGamelan Pacifica inSeattle.Paul Dresher also used aluminum.
Harrison worked withJohn Cage in the 40s on percussion compositions with found metal objects, resulting in alternate scaled music.Lou Harrison andWilliam Colvig, who met in 1967 in San Francisco, built a set of tuned percussion instruments that they called "an American gamelan" in order to differentiate it from Indonesian ensembles. It was first used in Harrison's workLa Koro Sutro in 1972.[1] These are now referred to as "Old Granddad", and Harrison wrote some pieces that can only be played on this set, includingLa Koro Sutro. Lou Harrison spent some time with a Javanese gamelan in 1976 (when Kyai Udan Mas, now at the University of California, Berkeley, was in residence atSan Jose State University). This inspired him and his partnerWilliam Colvig to build a gamelan modelled specifically on Udan Mas (in instrumentation, although not in tuning). For this he used aluminum primarily, although the "great gong" was eventually fashioned out of iron.
Colvig and Harrison built two large "double" gamelan (meaning that there were instruments in both the pelog and slendro tunings). The first wasSi Betty, named for the financial benefactorBetty Freeman. Si Betty was bequeathed toJody Diamond, and was in residence atHarvard University from 2007 to 2017; in 2018, Si Betty moved to Bucknell University in Lewisburg, PA. The second was named "Si Darius/Si Madeleine" afterDarius Milhaud and his wife, because it was while holding the Milhaud chair atMills College (where the gamelan still resides) that Harrison and Colvig had the support for its construction; a group there (as of 2008) is directed by Daniel Schmidt.Lou Harrison was well known for his compositions for gamelan; he was particularly adept at combining western instruments with his Javanese-style gamelan ensemble. (The scores for all of his gamelan works are published by theAmerican Gamelan Institute).