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Gamelan history and introduction
Gamelan music’s origins are somewhat uncertain. The skill required to make bronze drums existed on several islands on what is now Indonesia as early as the third century B.C. However, there is no evidence that these drums have any direct connection to the actual gamelan instruments. There is evidence that early Balinese and Javanese instruments began to appear at the latter end of the first millennium or the very beginning of the second millennium.

Although gamelan begins to appear outside of Southeast Asia in the 1800s, it is not until after World War II that gamelan really takes hold, especially in North America. Economic, cultural, and religious reasons have caused gamelan outside of Southeast Asia to be supervised most often not by Indonesian Natives, as often happens with other respective world musics, but by the ethnomusicologist who then instructs based on what they have studied. 

Gamelan is a rather flexible noun that is used to refer to the actual instruments and/or the players and the instruments.  Gamelan refers to a rather broad variety of ensembles which, although they share some similarities, have very significant differences. The three most common varieties in North America are Javanese, Balinese, and Sudanese. The Schubert Club Gamelan is Javanese in relation to its origins on the island of Java in Indonesia (see below).

The group observed for this study was the Schubert Club Gamelan (Kyai Medharing Madu). The Schubert Club is a musical organization in Minneapolis that has, among a large number of other projects, a Javanese Gamelan program.  The gamelan program started in 1995 with the arrival of a Javanese Gamelan that had been built for the organization.  The gamelan is named Kyai Medharing Madu (venerable flowing honey). The Schubert Club appointed Joko Sutrisno as the gamelan director. Since 1995 the gamelan program has expanded to include three adult workshops, two children’s workshops, an adult performing ensemble, as well as numerous residencies in area schools, colleges, and universities.

The participants

A survey was given over the course of three weeks to members of three different groups in the Schubert Club Gamelan program. There were twenty-one total respondents. First several demographic questions were asked:

• The median date of birth was 12/17/58 yielding a median age of 42.
• Over half were born either in Minnesota or Wisconsin. Only one person was born outside of the United States.  They were born in the Netherlands.
• Racially all respondents except for one who identified themselves as Asian, identified themselves as White/Caucasian/European. Ethnically, all respondents identified themselves primarily as western European except for one respondent who identified themselves as “mongrel American” and one who identified themselves as Chinese.
• The median number of years playing in the Schubert Club Gamelan was five.

Several questions were asked regarding previous musical experience:

• 17 of the 21 respondents had previous experience playing or singing in a western musical context.
• The mean year of study was 15, indicating a significant statistical correlation between playing or singing in a western musical context and playing in the Gamelan.
• There was a large variety of western musical mediums with no statistical significance regarding any specific instrument/voice.

Several questions were asked regarding personal experience with Indonesia:

• Only 5 respondents reported traveling to Indonesia.
• Of the 5, 4 respondents were familiar with Gamelan before traveling to Indonesia.
• All the respondents traveled to Java and Bali, with one person traveling additionally to Sumatra.
• Only 3 indicated actually studying Gamelan in Indonesia. 2 people indicated studying Gamelan in Java and 1 person indicated studying Gamelan in Bali and Java.

Several questions were asked regarding how the participants became involved in Gamelan music and the Schubert Club Gamelan in particular:

• For 6 participants the Schubert Club Gamelan was their first exposure to Gamelan music.
• For those who had had exposure to Gamelan music previously, about half gained that exposure university. Other answers included “parents grew up in Indonesia,” “Orff-Schulwerk Conference,” and “heard recordings when younger.”
• A question on how participants found out about the Schubert Club Gamelan yielded no statistically significant results.

When participants were asked what they found most appealing about playing in the Gamelan there were several common themes:

• Beautiful sounds

• Appeal of a new musical system

• Community

• Playing in a group

Participants were asked what they found most difficult about playing in a Gamelan ensemble:

• The most popular answer was having to memorize all the pieces/patterns.
• Other answers were varied and not statistically significant.

Participants were asked how playing in the Gamelan differs from what they expected:

• The most popular answer involved the idea that Gamelan was rather easy for them to start but as they progressed it became increasingly difficult as they began to understand the complexity of the music.

The final question sought to discover individual reliance upon written notation. When asked to describe their reliance on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being complete reliance on notation and 10 being no use of written notation, the mean result was 4.95.

Contact the Schubert Club Gamelan

Address
302 Landmark Center
75 West Fifth Street
Saint Paul, Minnesota 55102

Telephone
General: (651) 292-3267
Ticket office: (651) 292-3268
Fax: (651) 292-4317

Website: www.schubert.org

Email: schubert@schubert.org

Office Hours
Monday-Friday, 8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m.