American Gamelan and the Ethnomusicological Imagination

Elizabeth Clendinning's American Gamelan and the Ethnomusicological Imagination contributes new perspectives to a growing body of literature focused on the myriad ways gamelans have become entangled with North American ways of life. Its focus on the transnational dimensions of founding and maintaining a gamelan at an academic institution, specifically those that must be navigated to create artistic and cultural exchange that is equitable and sustainable, highlights the broader role that these institutions have played in shaping relations between Indonesian and American musicians. Despite what the title suggests, the book should not be mistaken for a comprehensive interrogation of the complex and diverse relationships that exist among Indonesian musicians, gamelan instruments (Javanese and Balinese), and American universities. It does not discuss the sounds that emanate from these connections, which have been the subject of considerable scholarly intrigue, owing in part to longstanding connections between North American and Indonesian compositional activity. Nor is it concerned with the epistemological consequences of power dynamics between Indonesian and North American institutions.Instead, Clendinning is interested in understanding the sociocultural and material dimensions of networks that have formed around gamelans while also highlighting their pedagogical value within the American institutions that support them. She sees the extent to which gamelans have become embedded within music programs as an opportunity to assess their efficacy in serving efforts to increase diversity on college campuses. Her conclusion: “participation in gamelan and world music ensembles more broadly is a powerful means for students to increase musical and cultural competence, engage in critical modes of self-discovery, and make rich interpersonal connections that can transcend age, race, gender, ethnicity, and national origin” (3). At a moment when conversations about diversity, equity, and inclusion are surfacing in hotly contested debates about the future of music education, these conclusions will support declarations that cross-cultural experiences provided by “non-Western” music ensembles can serve efforts to improve all three.Clendinning sets the stage for these inquiries with a survey of the interactions between Indonesian music and American culture that laid the groundwork for the introduction of gamelans to American universities. She shows us that these initial encounters shaped the way gamelans would be approached in higher education, including the aims to which exposing students to gamelan music would be directed. Citing the appearance of gamelans at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893, commercial recordings that circulated in the early twentieth century, a touring group featured on the Ed Sullivan Show in the 1950s, and the emergence of composers influenced by encounters with Indonesian music, she paints with broad strokes, situating these early forms of cultural exchange within their political zeitgeist, while also raising important ethical questions. Foreshadowing the transnational focus of the book, she also takes us across the Atlantic, connecting Mantle Hood's motivation to establish gamelans at UCLA in the late 1950s to witnessing a Dutch group while studying with Jaap Kunst in Amsterdam.Clendinning characterizes the acquisition and subsequent playing of gamelans at UCLA facilitated by Hood as a watershed moment with far-reaching implications for the way gamelan music, and the discipline of ethnomusicology, would be practiced as both spread throughout academic institutions in the United States. Hood's most enduring contribution to ethnomusicology, the concept of bimusicality, contends that hands-on experience with non-Western musics should be central to ethnomusicological inquiry. Although this was, and continues, to be fiercely debated, Clendinning shows us that it helped pave the way for the incredible number of gamelans now present at institutions of higher learning, even if their pedagogical aims have transcended Hood's initial ideas. Clendinning positions these aims on a spectrum that includes preprofessional groups modeled on the ambitions of conservatories, groups focused on experientialism, and ensembles satisfying the directives of liberal arts institutions. She then argues that the proliferation of gamelans, coupled with the variety of pedagogical goals to which they have been directed, is indicative of their malleability, which lends support to one of the book's primary conclusions: gamelans have been and continue to be valuable pedagogical resources within academic institutions.With this broader historical context established, Clendinning turns to the first Indonesian musicians who taught gamelan in the United States. This sets up one of the book's central figures, the Balinese gamelan pedagogue I Made Lasmawan. In setting the scene for Lasmawan's journey to, and within, the United States, she establishes links among politics, access to newly established conservatory education in Indonesia, and opportunities to disseminate cultural practices both in Indonesia and abroad. From this, she concludes that members within each successive generation who taught in the United States shared similar education, experience, and exposure to foreign culture. Despite subtle differences in these factors across generations, this cohort can be set apart from seniman alam (natural artists), who in addition to being excluded from the codification of cultural practices underway in Indonesia, were unable to hold full-time posts at the conservatory or teach abroad despite having specialist knowledge that often exceeded those with conservatory training. One stone Clendinning leaves unturned here is the fact that because degrees conferred by American universities were revered in this milieu, a feedback loop developed that intensified exclusion and resource-guarding in Bali, as those who went abroad returned home with monetary power and influence within a cultural elite determining the way performing arts were being taught in the institutions as well as who could teach abroad.The book's foray into world music ensembles in higher education is not entirely uncharted territory. In fact, the text is enhanced by its engagement with several formative, albeit shorter, works. Clendinning also builds on pre-existing frameworks involving ecosystem models that evaluate the sustainability of specific music practices, putting these to the task of identifying the challenges that gamelans face in North America. At times this inspires her to venture into providing readers—presumably those with a stake in a gamelan's sustenance—with practical advice. Clendinning also demonstrates that “musical lineages” have much to contribute to these models, as they reveal oft-overlooked “hidden” factors (49) that could affect our assessment of an ecosystem. In the case of gamelan music in the United States, she argues that lineages reveal positive outcomes extending to teachers as much as students, as well as to people whose participation transcends the institutions in which the music is practiced.The book's narrative and its conclusions are in no small way influenced by what has been selected for discussion. Early in the text, Clendinning provides a bird's-eye view of what is to come by invoking a distinct narrative form associated with painters in the Balinese village Batuan. This style is marked by a “crowded” or “busy” aesthetic, wherein individual scenes distributed throughout the canvas appear isolated and disconnected unless apprehended from a suitable distance, at which point they fade from view and a greater narrative supported by the context they establish comes into view. We are told that, in similar fashion, the book will proceed by “examining the individual scenes that, when taken together, illuminate broader interpretations of more globalized contexts” (19). The greatest challenge arising from such an endeavor is the scope of the canvas involved, which consists of countless institutions, hundreds of gamelan ensembles, and presumably thousands of people interacting for nearly a century in a transnational space that includes North America, Bali, and Java. Quite unlike a Batuan-style painting, wherein the artist controls the narrative, reality is contested, and agency is spread across countless actors on an ever-growing canvas without a frame. As Clendinning points out, “[e]very American gamelan program has its origins in a different time, place, and situation, and so each ensemble has its own specific identity and story” (49). This truism should give us pause, as it has implications for how we interpret the Batuan-esque image on display, and it may leave some readers asking how to reconcile the unique experiences of individuals and communities with the broader conclusions we are asked to draw from engagement with only a selection of them.The number of individuals, institutions, and transnational communities discussed in the book is indeed limited, considering the sheer number of gamelans in the United States. This stems in part from Clendinning's reliance on “selective comparative biography” (13) to construct the narrative and support its conclusions. Although readers should resist the temptation to extend her conclusions to some imagined American “gamelanscape” (à la Kevin Dawe, after Arjun Appadurai), one of the book's greatest successes is its ability to situate selected biographies within broader historical and sociopolitical contexts. In doing so, Clendinning teases out some of the major currents that have shaped the lives of those who have made much of the gamelan music currently played in the United States possible. At times agency and ingenuity in the face of external pressures rise to the surface of the investigation, while at other times Clendinning points to institutional inequities that many have had to endure to sustain the sheer number of gamelans in the United States. Rather than interpreting these stories as normative or representative of other people's experiences, Clendinning provides us with the opportunity to see how globalized currents have shaped the individual stories that are presented to us.Many of the conclusions in the book are supported by the remarkable, and indeed exceptional, story of I Made Lasmawan. Like his village's ability to steer clear of the violence that erupted across Indonesia in 1965, Lasmawan has skillfully circumnavigated the turbulent power dynamics that emerged when Indonesian musicians who taught gamelan in the United States while pursuing higher degrees returned home. The fact that Lasmawan did not pursue a higher degree abroad, but instead found ways to live in the United States continuously for most of his adult life, freed him from needing to deal with those vying for power and prestige at the Arts Institution (Institut Seni Indonesia, Denpasar) in Bali. It is no coincidence that four key players in the tumultuous events that transpired during the 2008 election of its rektor (director) had higher degrees from American universities and one of them was eventually dealt punitive measures for neglecting responsibilities in Indonesia while teaching abroad. The result has been a deep rift that many in Bali and North America still navigate with caution. While Clendinning tells us that the narrative presented in the book weaves together stories that are “simultaneously . . . normative and exceptional” (16), one wonders how we are to know what normative is if poignant and well-known examples like this are absent from the discussion.Furthermore, Lasmawan's ability to navigate inequities in the United States with an impressive entrepreneurial spirit distracts Clendinning from delivering on some of the critical lines of inquiry she introduces. The fact that adequate renumeration was not provided by a single institution meant countless hours on the road and traveling across state lines to teach at several. Many Americans surely benefited from this—as did many Indonesians—but the fact that it was necessary warrants reflections about what universities did, and continue to do, to satisfy their thirst for diversity. Clendinning brings attention to the benefits of these enterprises but only tangentially interrogates the sacrifices and lack of agency involved. Despite even the most earnest intentions, these have not been inherently harmonious interactions. They have had unintended consequences and required continuous renegotiation as those involved have had more time to reflect. Although it would not be productive to rebuke individuals or institutions that were courageous enough to enter such unprecedented arrangements, in hindsight even outcomes that appear worthy of celebration can offer valuable lessons if we are willing to engage with the oversights and missteps that happened along the way. It is certainly vital to bring attention to the successes of such cultural exchange, particularly to fend off those “building walls” to keep others out (4)—the book's bête noire—but it is also necessary to acknowledge mistakes so we can imagine how things could be better.Clendinning's American Gamelan and the Ethnomusicological Imagination is an impressive introduction to the complex and often awkward places gamelans find themselves in North American academic institutions that will stimulate discussion and introspection. Its survey of formative interactions among gamelan instruments, ethnomusicology, American culture, and higher education also contributes important historical context to an ever-growing body of literature exploring this music in the United States. More important, it encourages others to explore the many transnational networks that are not discussed, and with an eye toward doing precisely what Clendinning intends: “documenting specific types of collaboration and exchange that have occurred with gamelan ensembles in the past to promote more impactful, equitable, and enjoyable forms of teaching, learning, and music making in the future” (14). As many North Americans are in the midst of re-evaluating their relationship with this music, Clendinning offers comfort and some cause for self-congratulation, but it is important not to let this overshadow her most admirable goal: “[to] encourage fuller considerations of gamelan in an international context and provide frameworks for more stories to be shared” (22). I eagerly await the sequels inspired by this invitation.