Gamelan Alligator Joy

This interview with Gamelan Alligator Joy composers was conducted by email during March-May 2025.

Tony Reif: All of you have composed pieces for gamelan before, in some cases many pieces over three or four decades. Looking back and looking at the works here, do you think they are a departure or more of a continuation (of style, form, aesthetic, “message” or other things that concern you as a composer-musician)? How do you think about or characterize what’s new in these recent works in relation to your other music (including for non-gamelan ensembles)?

Sutrisno Hartana: As a composer, collaborator, practitioner of gamelan in Canada and as a Javanese born gamelan player/teacher, my current composition is inspired mainly by my musical journeys in cross-cultural activities in a global context. It includes concepts from both traditional and contemporary music – and in certain ways “improvisation” – in terms of musical arrangements, instrumentation, and the unique combination of musical elements taken from the Indonesian folklore arts. What’s new with this composition is the inclusion of various aspects of different Indonesian cultural traditions, allowing the listener to extend their own musical imaginary.

Sam Salmon: There’s a continuation of style and form. I’ve stayed in one patet (pelog barung), and repeating patterns are a mainstay. What’s new is the relationship between the patterns.

Mark Parlett: Not sure who said it – “it’s all one big piece, isn’t it?” There is curious truth in that for me. Over time, as anyone who has compositional leanings, regardless of medium, but especially in music composition, the personal and idiosyncratic gesture will emerge – over and over again. My feeling is that it is an aural snapshot of a quality that moves the composer – what they like to hear manifest within a composition. Sometimes it’s a quickly passing moment or movement, or sometimes it’s an idea that will sustain itself through the piece, and for me will even show up in another piece. In these recent pieces it feels like both a continuation and a departure at the same time. I seem to have an ongoing fascination with setting up performance parameters for musicians which, as a whole, will generate a sense of tension and surprise. I personally enjoy the state of the ‘unresolved feeling’ – a sense of suspension in my and other musical work.

“Peregrinations in Palindromnia” is a new study in strict rhythmic form with choice of variation, married with an extreme essentialism/minimalism of text – hyper haiku, if you will. The words are spoken 2 or 3 words at a time – this allows the listener to have a simple image to resonate with as the music plays for that section. Not music accompanying words. The ‘song’ part is a mediation on death, which seems like an ever-present spectre since the pandemic and a real presence in my life recently. I think I tend to have a general philosophical bent in the intentions of my lyrics going all the way back to the early days. Words in search of meaning.

“Dice Over Easy has more similarities to some of my past work, but again, I somehow feel compelled to look to draw from and give a nod to classical Javanese karawitan musical forms, and transform them. In one of the many sections of this piece, the ‘imbal-sekaran’ form (type of hocketing) is used but with different harmonic contours and rhythmic variation. Traditional but not traditional. New harmonic modes sounding on the gamelan instruments almost always has a more compelling aspect for those who are familiar with traditional gamelan modal practice.

Andreas Kahre: I would describe it as a matter of continuing by departing. My primary interest is in the relationship between sound and the listener, and in particular the listener’s experience of how their expectations shape their experience. To my mind, style and form are at best only superficially under the control of the composer, especially when working with new sonic material, or outside of one’s own cultural tradition. As to what is new, other than the choice of working with fingers rather than mallets, I would point to curiosity: How would an audience experience a gradual breakdown of a consonant ‘modal’ pitch set when presented in a fixed rhythmic structure? How does the listener process simultaneous continuity and discontinuity? As for the notion of an aesthetic, let alone a ‘message’, I would happily align myself with John Cage: “What is the purpose of writing music? One is, of course, not dealing with purposes but dealing with sounds. Or the answer must take the form of a paradox: a purposeful purposeless or a purposeless play. This play, however, is an affirmation of life–not an attempt to bring order out of chaos nor to suggest improvements in creation, but simply a way of waking up to the very life we’re living, which is so excellent once one gets one’s mind and one’s desires out of its way and lets it act of its own accord.” (John Cage, Silence: Lectures and Writings)

Michael O’Neill: Hmmmm. Continuation and departure seem like two sides of the same coin. It seems like you have to depart in order to continue. Unless you spend your whole life writing one big piece.

To me, V.I. and Mode of A. on Penumbra feel more like a continuation than a departure. It has pretty much all felt like continuation. The ‘Great’ departure was from working with Western classical musical instruments to gamelan instruments. When I made that move, with ‘Lessons of the Garden’, I carried Western classical—esp. ‘minimalist’—baggage with me: years of piano-playing, an analysis of Philip Glass’ Einstein on the Beach, a looping six note melody from Ravel, and an alternating left-hand/right-hand technique which Steve Reich uses in Piano Phase. But of course, a merging of the structure and techniques of gamelan music with W. classical forms, occurred. Everything since ‘Lessons’, including works with gamelan, seems to develop in one ever-expanding field of musical instruments and forms. Adding a new instrument (viola, bagpipes, piano, etc), and integrating it into my working gamelan knowledge, is not such a departure. Small departure-continuations.

TR: What was the genesis, impetus, or inspiration for your piece(s) here, and how did that initial concept grow and change in the process of developing and workshopping these works?

SH: When I am composing, sometimes my first draft differs from the final result because of many things, including (but not limited to): rehearsal processes, the involvement of guest artists, the availability of instruments, and the expansion of the initial idea to combine old and new concepts.

Living in Canada for over two decades, I am always grateful for the opportunity to share my expertise in gamelan. To my mind the era of new technologies and globalization has brought us to the point where Eastern and Western musical practices are quite drastically fostering a new model of hybridization. Surprisingly, many Javanese or Balinese back in Indonesia might not consider my piece here a real composition, but I am offering in my best signature what I call “persaudaraan musik global” – the global friendship of music. I’m speaking to listeners who might be interested in engaging their musical journey with this one.

SS: The impetus for “96 Tiers” is my love of 1970s process music. As we rehearsed, the piece’s dynamics were developed to allow it to breathe.

MP: In “Peregrinations in Palindromnia” I wanted to try to sonically articulate a state of mind one can get into on long walks in nature. We are all familiar with, when we can get there, a sense of the discursive mind ‘shutting off’ – never completely – and a noticing or mindfulness taking over. A regular interval or pulse of walking rhythm which has its own tempo variations – noting the soundscape evolving, stopping, sitting, reflection. As always, I most often use the choices offered by the musicians within the frameworks given, unless the material is notated.

AK: To my mind, composing – just like improvising or creating acousmatic work – begins not with ‘inspiration’ (I also share Cage’s dislike of the term) but with curiosity about the sound material at hand and a process of focus and exploration. In this case, an aspect of the materiality of gamelan, namely the use of mallets on the balungan instruments, constrains its expressive registers especially with regard to dynamics. Elaborating instruments can be very quiet, of course, but the ensemble as a whole operates mainly in a range between mezzo piano and fortissimo. From a drummer’s perspective, the relationship between the intensity of a gesture and the resulting loudness is a realm of constant exploration, and I wondered what timbral and dynamic range could be discovered by eliminating mallets and using hands, fingers and fingernails as implements, which turns the group into a hand drum ensemble. Aside from having to allow for varying degrees of skill in ‘finger drumming’, the biggest adjustment was the elimination of the rebab, which could not be balanced with the other instruments and was replaced by a suling as an obligato voice.

MO: Ventriloquial Investigations is a revisitation to an earlier piece, Uteralterance or the Interplay of bones in the womb, that included the first appearance of Seamus, a ventriloquial character/puppet who is part Irish, part shaman. We’re back in the cave, twenty-five years later, conversing on philosophical, playful, observational, stream of conscious-nal, wistful and nostalgic, topics. It grew a more elaborate setting (when performed live) with two scrims showing live-interactive projections, longer – with songs, etc.

Having weekly rehearsals is a wonderful way to develop a work – in the company of friends, bringing in scratch drafts of ideas, trying them out, throwing them out, and refining some in. Not overthinking or being disappointed when something doesn’t work, pleased when it does. Very often, a musical idea that was presented in rehearsal would suggest a topic for a dialogue. The dialogues, however, were worked out on my own, often working with Seamus, being spurred on by remembering how Charlie would answer Bergen’s questions – with the ‘wisdom of millenia’.

TR: These days, how are you thinking about your artistic relationship with gamelan traditions (Javanese and Balinese), with Western music (from contemporary classical to jazz, improvisation, whatever), and in some cases with other non-Western traditions?

SH: My composition combines both traditional and contemporary approaches. While many gamelan lovers enjoy classical pieces and do as much as they can to try and maintain that tradition at the level of its normative golden era, the younger generation have more options to choose from. I think success depends not only on a listener’s interest and ability to absorb the message carried by the composition, but also how deep the musical narrative or concept of the composition is, and what it offers the listener’s intuitive perspectives.

SS: I’m seeing parallels between say, srepegan and simple pop songs like the Ramones’ “Blitzkrieg Bop” in that they both adhere to prescribed formulas.

MP: After many decades (since the 70s?) of this ongoing evolving emergence of what is coined as ‘world music’ – a box which is problematic and positive at the same time – the issues of what makes a good piece of music remain the same. For me any ‘fusion’ (don’t like the word) music that is worthy almost always works, if it does, when there is an actual mutual understanding of each other’s tradition – on a technical level. From the intention of string players to actually work on their tuning/intonation when faced with another musical tradition; how to execute a rhythm where the syncopations are felt in a completely different way, and internalize that; that more ‘spirit and heart’ may be demanded from you, other than just coldly executing what you already know; a different mode of listening which involves hearing the composite and not just focusing on your part. Many things. My criticism of this ‘bringing together of musical traditions’ (a sometimes shallow marketing ploy) is that it can only really work when there is rehearsal time, and the workshopping of the material to deal with issues of timbre and tuning and the composer’s intent. It’s never been enough for me to just have this rainbow jamming aspect to the world music thing. For my ears it is occasionally successful as a spontaneous happening – and that’s not always guaranteed.

AK: No differently than I thought about it forty years ago, and completely differently at the same time. I am as committed to exploring and experimenting with what I have learned over forty years of playing Gamelan, Persian and South Asian music, albeit mainly from the vantage point of an improviser and sound artist rather than as an acolyte. At the same time, the aspirations of ‘multiculturalism’ that brought musicians and audiences from many different traditions together have long since fallen into disfavour, and I am told that these past involvements may now just as likely be viewed as deplorable instances of cultural appropriation. Even the shift I made fifteen years ago toward soundscape composition would not necessarily pass muster as the (very interesting) critique of recorded sound as a tool of colonization is gaining momentum. Following this logic, I shall leave the field to AI music agents like Udio, confine myself to playing chorales from the St. Matthew’s Passion on a Bavarian krummhorn, and hope that the world will be a better place for it.

MO: Recently, after tabla master Zakir Hussein died, I heard that George Harrison had told Zakir not to let his grounding in Indian classical music be cast aside, not to switch and become just another drum kit player (as if…).

Well, my attraction to gamelan began with Balinese shadowplay music: gender wayang. My partner and I purchased a gender wayang set on our first trip to Indonesia. I’ve learned, practised and played for more than thirty years. I have always felt, accepted the fact, that I’m not capable of the technical proficiency of Balinese players. And I really miss playing piano, my first instrument. I have a growing feeling of being drawn back into the realm of Western classical music, of missing the music, the social camaraderie, and the piano. So when the opportunity arose to write music for gamelan and a great pianist – Rory Cowal – in the case of “Mode of Attunement”, I jumped at it.

It feels like my intercultural music-making compass, which, while I was learning and playing strictly traditional Javanese and Balinese music was pointing way East, has gradually drifted westward. I think the needle’s now west of Madagascar, …and Ireland. Other factors, other than a longing for a stronger connection to W. classical music, have drawn the needle west: reduced accessibility to, and dwindling membership in, larger gamelan groups and sets (Gamelan Madu Sri, GAJ); a concentration on smaller gamelan sets – gender wayang and Beledrone (our intercultural ensemble instruments); and writing for these smaller sets.

But, I could never let go of working with Balinese gender wayang, We’ve invited a string trio to work with Gamelan Turtle Bliss—a gender wayang-based group, which, for me, turns out to be a way of winding back to W. classical music. Halfway back, …in both places at once.

TR: This group has always had an interest in expanding into novel hybrid, intercultural forms of performance, particularly multi-media music theatre, exemplified here by Grotto: Ventriloquial Investigations – but also with combining words and music in unexpected ways, as in “Peregrinations in Palindromnia”. How does that work – I mean, the weaving together of poetic narratives that suggest or convey meanings that music alone cannot?

MP: Well, for me it would be impossible to separate my love of lyrics, text, libretto, spoken word, slam poetry, sonnets…I mean, it’s all utterance…conveyance. The word or instrument as vehicle/medium/tool – it works as it works when it works. Specifically in PiP there are two anchoring compositional devices that I employ and you can notice, if you notice. The first one is that over many years of attending poetry readings and book launches, I’ve often been overwhelmed intellectually and emotionally by the volume of beautifully articulated phrases or paragraphs when delivered by the author – meaning, there is not enough time for resonance, to just sit in and let the meaning soak in. It’s often too much. I love haiku. The idea was to take this notion even further. Distill things down to a few words. The second device is that the language delivered in the first movement is delivered exactly in reverse in the last movement – actually palindromically. It’s another curious layer to notice.

MO: The first gamelan that I heard was in a wayang, a shadowplay. The very first sound, a resonant tone or chord or something, was shocking, delightful and mysterious. After that, I don’t remember the sound of the gamelan all that much. Focus shifted to the characters, many of whom were animals. Striking in the way they moved – very animal-like, whichever animal they were, like a bird fluffing its feathers. And the voices, in an unknown (to me) language, and sometimes in English, were also very memorable, unusual. Each so distinct.

Many of my (our) early experiences with gamelan were interdisciplinary – gamelan with dance or wayang. And many of our projects along the way have included wayang, dance, or poetry.

For me, Ventriloquial Investigations’ move into multi-media theatre with gamelan arrived in small steps – Plato’s ‘cave scene’, two people (shadows) in a cave, having a dialogue, always seemed like a shadowplay to me. Seamus, the puppet, seemed like an interesting development of wayang, using a Western form of puppetry. And an obvious step to realizing the ‘Plato’ scene as a wayang was creating the cave with projections and two scrims. And then to project ‘visual thinking’. Then transmogrify the philosophy from Plato to Wittgenstein. But V.I. is less about conveying meanings, more about enriching a theatrical experience, in conjunction with music.

TR: In different ways, several of these pieces (includidng “Let N = N” and “Bahureksa”) focus on performative aspects that can’t be fully represented in an audio recording. How well do you think our recordings engage listeners’ imaginations, allowing them to approach the essence of meanings that inhere in a live performance? Who would your ideal listener be?

MP: That’s a tricky one. For anyone who knows me, my life as an artist has been, and still is, as an interdisciplinary performer. I love to see integrative performance and passion from the physical execution of a discipline. I’ve always been curious as to the inner narrative, or ‘cinematicness’ of what’s going on behind the eyelids of humans when we encounter a beautiful piece of music. Or more interestingly, three different people can have different neurological responses to the same piece of music – or hear or describe completely different snapshots of emotions or stories, or interpret lyrics in a totally different manner from another person. I don’t think the notion of an ideal listener is a thing. There is curiosity, and openness, or not, of imagination. Art and the ability to comprehend it are made in the same workshop. People can get intransigent, and often enough don’t allow themselves to let go into the sound palette and just receive the beautiful imagery that gamelan-based music can induce. I think the pieces on this record allow for a multiplicity of emotions and thoughtscapes.

AK: Until the advent of electronic instruments and recently AI, music was an inherently physical practice that recording can’t capture and, I would argue, doesn’t need to. ‘Fidelity’ is nice, but also a matter of consensual illusion. When Thomas Alva Edison was espousing the virtues of the Phonograph, he held events that attracted thousands of spectators and hired performers to sing along to wax cylinder recordings, where they adapted their vocal performance to match the recording. Audiences were convinced of Edison’s claim that the fidelity of these recordings could never be surpassed. 90 percent of my students are convinced that MP3 recordings sound better than any other format, and the compact cassette is back with a vengeance. Recordings appear to operate in a parallel dimension, as signifiers of meaning that is unique to each listener – whether in live performance or in any recording medium. I am reminded of something Marcel Duchamp said: “Society takes what it wants. (…) The work of art is always based on the two poles of the onlooker and the maker, and the spark that comes from the bipolar action gives birth to something – like electricity. But the onlooker has the last word, and it is always posterity that makes the masterpiece. The artist should not concern himself with this, because it has nothing to do with him.” Duchamp was referring to visual art, of course, but starting from his premise, it might be fair to turn the question around and ask ‘Who would the audience’s ideal composer be?’

TR: Many might consider most of this music to be quite “serious”, in tone and in the sense that it’s the opposite of popular music (even if some popular musics may have had an indirect influence). Well of course – for all kinds of reasons it’s never going to be popular, but maybe this is a false dichotomy, because it seems to me that there’s a fair bit of playfulness, (deadpan?) humour, even some light grotesquerie and strangeness mixed into at least some of these works, no matter how seriously they also are meant to be taken. Are these things you think about when writing/composing, or is it all just part of what is a largely intuitive process?

SS: I’ve always tried to adopt a lighthearted approach to composition and to keep things relatively simple.

MP: I think the first impression a first-timer gets when encountering gamelan, Balinese or Javanese, is that the ear is at once intrigued and resistant at the same time – the evocativeness of the sound of struck bronze is initially one of wonder and there is a type of ‘transcendent’ feeling in the resonance of the soundscape. Those aspects still remain with me after being at this for almost 40 years. So on an aural ‘Western’ level it evokes a more ‘serious’ mood – even though this may not be the intended case. Also, these tuning systems are unlike ‘Western’ equally divided chromaticism, so gamelan almost never evokes levity, as most folks are just trying to find some sold aural ground to relate to. As a composer who is particularly interested in sonic forms which elicit feelings like unresolvedness, surprise, parallel and disparate emotional tensions, multiple interpretations and different meditations on lyrics, rhythmic complexity, etc., I think that one has to be a bit of an insider to find and hear true playfulness, which can only truly translate when witnessing players performing this live. The idea of expressing musical humour in gamelan is a challenge. The closest I’ve come in my compositions is occasional ‘catchiness’ – something hopefully we all can get into.

AK: I am enjoying the question’s implied dichotomy between composing ‘what is to be taken seriously’ as distinct from what is, to paraphrase, ‘playful, humorous, and even mixes in some light grotesquerie and strangeness’. Preferring unbridled grotesquerie and strangeness as I do, I have had to learn to accept – but never been able to understand – that these are viewed as opposites, and that a term like ‘whimsy’ can be the death knell for any creative output, from graphic design to music. Fortunately for me, this group has sat still for some of my, um, zany antics, whether in the dialogue for Semar’s Journey with a urine-drinking shaman, or the Maxillofacial Surgeons on a Nile River cruise in EAR | NOSE | THROAT. Fortunately for them, perhaps, LET N=N is more subdued and focused on transgressing merely musical boundaries. Which leaves the question what one thinks about while composing, and whether thinking about things while composing is the same as composing, or rather constitutes a para- (or even pata-?) compositional activity. ‘Popular music’ is an equally thorny proposition to consider, unless it can be measured in streams and conversion rates, while ‘serious music’ is distinguished, like any moral high ground, by the fact that money flows away from it? Where does any of this leave room for luxuries such as an ‘intuitive process’, I wonder. Finally, when it comes to the question whether art should be viewed as a game between artists and audiences, or between producers and customers, and as an improviser I am overwhelmingly concerned with the former, I think it is fair to quote Morton Feldman: “The composer makes plans, music laughs.”

An Interview

Gamelan Alligator Joy