| BRIEF DESCRIPTION
Music of the Sundanese (West Javanese) gamelan will be presented live, with a system in place that will create a projected moving image that responds to the music. The system will have a much finer degree of discernment than the usual light show, because every note of the entire ensemble–about 64–will be measured separately in real time, and each can then be mapped independently onto any sort of desired visual element or parameter. Thus I can create visual displays that are very “high resolution”, with regard to specific elements in the music—far beyond anything that could be acheived by processing the composite sound of the ensemble.
The goal of the project is to visually depict the inner structure of gamelan music, by showing how all of the parts interrelate, and how the overall scheme works. This is the reason for the laborious “high-res” approach.
The same treatment will be used for for Steve Reich’s violin phase, a minimalist composition from 1967; transposed to the gamelan instruments.
BRIEF TECHNICAL EXPLANATION
Piezoelectric sensors are attached to each note of most instruments in the ensemble; these send a signal when any note is struck. The information stream generated will be processed by custom circuitry designed by Peter Elsea, which will output a multiplexed MIDI signal to a computer running Max/MSP. In Max, visual elements are programmed to respond to each note
Graphics are being developed using a custom gamelan sequencer in Max/MSP, which takes place of the real gamelan for development purposes.
FEATURES OF INTEREST
Gamelan music, while loved by many in the West, is misunderstood or ignored by many more. To the average Western listener, gamelan may not qualify as “music” at all, as it seems to lack the melodic, harmonic, and dramatic-trajectory features that we consider to be the core of musicality. Ethnomusicological scholarship (Becker) suggests that this is because the cultural impetus to create gamelan music comes from very different sources than that of Western music. Where Western music tends to take us on a dramatic or pesonally-felt emotional journey, Indonesian music takes us into a structural or temporal experience, in ways that express, re-iterate, and continue the construction of key aspects of the Indonesian world view. Paradoxically, even though this music is so structurally derived and oriented, it may seem amorphous to Westerners unfamiliar with it. In the words of eminent ethnomusicologist Jaap Kunst:
Such a great princely gamelan is apt to confound the listener who hears and sees it for the first time: the grouping of the orchestra and the manner of playing the instruments appear completely arbitrary, and only gradually does one become aware that each instrument actually performs its own fixed task within the ensemble. (1973, 1:247) (Kunst in Miller)
The "fixed tasks" that Kunst observed were the actions of musicians engaged in an essentially communal tradition of music-making, in which beneficial participation in the overal process of making music is valued much more than the individual virtuosity that we in the West privelege, with our soloist tradition and "Star System." Noted Central Javanese gamelan Master Sumarsam, teaching at Wesleyan, on this:
“The gamelan ensemble can be characterized as music based on communal expression. The melody of a single instrument cannot be conceived as separable from the whole sound of the ensemble... the feeling of unity, communality, or totality is based on the interactions or interrelationships among the instruments in the ensemble. This is the most important concept of the gamelan ensemble.”
(Sumarsam) (also see Burman-Hall, Spiller, Weintraub)
Seeing great value in this approach, both philosophically and personally in my practice of this music over some years, and wishing to share my love of this music with a wider audience, I reasoned that the inherent structural qualities that may not be heard might more easily be seen, and thus appreciated, in our very visually oriented culture.
This is first motivation of project.
(emergent phenomena; audience as author; demo alt perception of reality, by extension alt construc. of reality)
Support for project on campus: Will Winant, Undang Sumarna, Linda Burman-Hall, Peter Elsea, gamelan players, percussionists
IMAGERY & THEORY
(specific imagery) (spiro derivative but appropriate) how many? 3-4 w/dif qualities
Primary desire is illustrative and educational; the art is less in the image itself than in the act of bringing understanding to an audience, of revealing the structural underpinnings of something unperceived (bringing the unperceived to conciousness) as publicly as possible--in the hope that this will inspire people to make new connective creative leaps of their own. Clarity of the structure desired above ornament--modernist--also demonstrating the cultural context in which the musical forms under discussion originated--why the cross-cultural and -temporal comparison of traditional SE Asian music with an instance of mid 20c minimalist art musicis crucial to the thesis, as the similarities and differences of the forms will be very revealing.
Balance of theoretical and “artistic” is important. Here I (uncharacteristically, with regard to my usual position in the DANM spectrum) fall more toward the “theoretical” side.
Although-pointed out by committee-too literal could be unsatisfactory (even boring?)
(cultural sensitivity important to pqe & music dept)
POSSIBLE EXTENSIONS OF PROJECT
-2nd cohort students interested in continuing: no.e, Tyler
-no.e’s Indonesian contact saw the project at DANM fest--possibility of taking project to gamelan fest in Indonesia? A good representation of DANM; a DANM project propegated into the outside world.
-sequencer, a byproduct, can be developed into a music education/practice tool, made available to other University gamelan programs, community groups (the instructional value of the system was enthusiastically endorsed by Linda Burman-Hall, UCSC Gamelan program director, who saw the June 10 concert debut, and requested video of the system for her class next year).
-Will Winant’s interest in sequencer; send to Steve Reich?
-device can take any kind of input & output; useful in DANM’s Performative tech & Mechatronics
THE THESIS PAPER
In the paper, I will describe the rationale, realization, and usefulness of the project, expanding on the points made above. I will compare the two types of music used, with references from ethnomusicology, critical theory, cognitive science, and other disciplines; and I’ll compare my project with existing related works. I will include a section with suggestions for extensions of the gamelan project, and further applications of the new system that Peter Elsea has designed. Illustrations, diagrams, and video documentation of the system at work, and of its output, will complete the thesis.
Credits: Conception, visual design, software development, & production by Darryl Ferrucci. Custom MIDI hardware design by Peter Elsea. Core sequencer Max patch by Daniel Massey. Mentoring: Ralph Abraham, Peter Elsea, Norman Locks. Presented in collaboration with the UCSC Sundanese Gamelan Ensemble (Undang Sumarna, Director); and the UCSC Music Department, with the assistance & support of DANM faculty & staff. Provisional (and possibly final) title “Gamelan Lumina” by Peter Elsea—a tribute to the famous Lumina of Thomas Wilifred.
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by Darryl Ferrucci
