Bali 1928: Gamelan Gong Kebyar Music from Belaluan, Pangkung ...

Bali 1928: Gamelan Gong Kebyar
Music from Belaluan, Pangkung, Busungbiu
2 Introduction
6 A Sketch of the Time Period of these Recordings
11 Emergence of Kebyar
29
The Balinese Gamelan
Recordings from Bali, 1928: a track–by–track discussion:
33 Gamelan Gong Kebyar of Belaluan, Denpasar
46 Gamelan Gong Kebyar of Pangkung, Tabanan
50 Gamelan Gong Kebyar of Busungbiu, Northwest Bali
57
List of Silent Archival Films
58
Acknowledgments
61
References Cited and Further Readings
*
Glossary on Separate PDF File1

1 The spellings in this article follow modernized Balinese orthography of dictionaries
such as Kamus Bali Indonesia, by I Nengah Medera et.al. (1990). Although this system
was proposed as early as 1972 it has been applied irregularly in writings on the arts, but
we have chosen to adhere to it so as to reflect a closer relationship to actual Balinese
aksara ‘letters of the alphabet, language’. For instance, many words with prefixes
frequently spelled pe or peng are spelled here with the prefixes pa and pang.
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Introduction
These historic recordings were made in 1928 as part of a collection of the
first and only commercially–released recordings of music made in Bali prior
to World War II. This diverse sampling of new and older Balinese styles
appeared on 78 rpm discs in 1929 with subsequent releases for international
distribution. The records were sold worldwide (or not sold, as it happened)
and quickly went out of print. It was a crucial time in the island’s musical
history as Bali was in the midst of an artistic revolution with kebyar as the
new dominant style of music. Gamelan groups were having their older
ceremonial orchestras melted down and reforged in the new style. Intense
competition between villages and regions stimulated young composers to
develop impressive innovations and techniques. Andrew Toth has written of
these landmark recordings:
Representatives from these companies [Odeon & Beka] were sent
in August of 1928 to extend their coverage to Bali. Five of the
ninety–eight existing matrices (sides) made at that time were
included by the well–known scholar Erich M. von Hornbostel in
an early anthology of non–Western traditions, Music of the
Orient; this collection was the first exposure to Indonesian music
for many people, the public as well as potential
ethnomusicologists.
A third of the Odeon/Beka recordings appeared in Europe and
America, but the majority had been intended originally for local
sale in Bali. For this reason the information on the labels was
printed in Malay, the lingua franca of the archipelago, and in
some cases even in Balinese script. The ambitious plan to develop
an indigenous market was a complete failure, however, since few
Balinese were interested in this new and expensive technology–
especially when there was a world of live performances
happening daily in the thousands of temples and households
throughout the island. McPhee was the only customer to purchase
these 78 rpm discs in an entire year from one frustrated dealer; his
collection contains most of the copies that are still preserved to
this day, for the agent later smashed the remaining stock in a fit of
rage (McPhee 1946:72).
Fortunately the recordings were made under the guidance of
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Walter Spies, the painter, musician and long–time resident whose
intimate knowledge of Balinese culture was so freely given and so
often benefited the work of others (Rhodius 1964:265; Kunst
1974:24). Although limited by the medium to being three–minute
excerpts, they consequently are remarkable examples of a broad
range of musical genres—vocal as well as instrumental—and
many outstanding composers, performers and ensembles of the
period who are now famous teachers of legendary clubs—I
Wayan Lotring, I Nyoman Kaler, and the gamelan gong of
Pangkung, Belaluan, and Busungbiu. These invaluable sound
documents of the musical and family heritage of the Balinese
include styles of vocal chant rarely heard today; Kebyar Ding, a
historically important composition that has been relearned from
the recordings by the present generation of musicians, whose
fathers and grandfathers made the original discs; and records of
renowned singers that are considered even sacred by their
descendants, who keep tape copies in the family shrine.
No new material was released in the West during the ensuing
depression and war, while only reprints of the old 78’s were
issued on different labels and in several anthologies.2
Much has come to light in the way of discs and information since Toth’s
account. During the 1980s and 1990s Philip Yampolsky was able to locate
101 matrices (sides of the 78 rpm discs) at various archives in Indonesia, the
U.S. and Holland. Yampolsky shared this information with Arbiter and
myself, facilitating our worldwide effort to access and reissue each and
every 78 disc. The process of gaining permission from each archive and
visiting most of the collections has taken us eight years. While seeking out
private collections we found another Odeon disc from the original set,
unlisted by both Toth and Yampolsky, on an auction list from a rural Texas
town. And a search through the shelves of the UCLA collection yielded an
unpublished disc listed by Toth. This brings our collection to 104 sides of
three minutes each to be released on five CDs. Although it seems clear,
judging from a 1932 Beka catalogue, that Odeon and Beka recorded a
considerable amount of music in addition to these, a decision may have been
made not to publish any more once they realized the lack of a market. The
recording masters were aluminum plates, most likely stored at the Carl

2 Toth 1980:16–17
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Lindstrom factory in Berlin (the parent company), which was bombed
during World War II. According to McPhee many were destroyed “during
the Hitler regime,” possibly melted down for the war effort. However,
another perspective precedes the war. In 1937 Béla Bartók wrote:
“It is well known that these companies are also busy recording the folk
music of exotic countries; these records are bought by the natives, hence the
expected profit is there. However, as soon as sales diminish for any reasons,
the companies withdraw the records from circulation and the matrices are
most likely melted down. This happened with one of the highly valuable
Javanese record series of Odeon, as quoted in the bibliography of Musique et
chansons populaires of the League of Nations. If matrices of this kind
actually are destroyed, it represents vandalism of such nature that the
different countries ought to enact laws to prevent it, just as there are laws in
certain countries prohibiting destruction or marring of historic monuments.”3
Eighty years after the recording sessions, as we acquired the records and
transferred them to CD, our research team visited the oldest knowledgeable
artists—many in their 80s or 90s and one at the age of 100—in villages
whose musicians and singers were recorded in 1928—and often the children
of those artists, now in their 70s. We would bring a boombox and play a CD
of music that no one had heard for eighty years. While some of the repertoire
has endured, much of the style and aesthetic has changed and many
compositions have been forgotten. Some families would give us photographs
of the artists of 1928. Another photo, acquired at the New York Public
Library, led to our discovery of one of the two living artists known to have
participated in the 1928 sessions. Our team visited this ninety–one year–old
woman, Mémén Redia (formerly Ni Wayan Pempen), who was a solo singer
at the age of ten or eleven for Kedaton’s jangér group (CD#5). Mémén
Redia described the recording session in detail and still remembered all the
lyrics, correcting our earlier transcriptions. She recalled the recording taking
place in the open air, on the ground and under a tataring ‘temporary
structure of bamboo’ and kelangsah ‘woven coconut leaves’ near the village
center. She suggested that some of the other recording sessions might have
been at a balé banjar ‘central hamlet building’ open on three sides with

3 Bartók 1992:294. Bartók’s interest extended into his concert repertoire: he and his wife
performed McPhee’s transcriptions for two pianos, ‘‘Balinese Ceremonial Music,” at
Amherst College in 1942 (Oja 1990:153,179). One of those pieces is Buaya Mangap
(Tabuh Telu) on Track #10 of this CD.
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brick or mud wall and floor, and a roof of woven coconut leaves or thatch
with bamboo and coconut wood beams. According to the Beka Record
Company catalogue of 1932 all of their recordings were made in Denpasar,
Bali except for two made in Lombok, but we think it somewhat unlikely the
recording expedition went all the way to Lombok to record twelve minutes
of music. Many older–generation Balinese we visited refer to the old records
and record players collectively as orgel rather than the Indonesian piringan
hitam ‘black plates’, perhaps because the record players might have been
thought of as related to Dutch orgel pipe organs, being a machine that
produces music.
Among the discs on this volume are several that the young Canadian
composer Colin McPhee (1900–1964) heard in New York when Claire Holt
brought them back from Bali in 1930.4 On listening to the 1928 Odeon
recordings, McPhee and his wife, anthropologist Jane Belo, were inspired to
embark on a visit to Bali the next winter which grew into a research
expedition to consume them for almost eight years and lead to his major
work of scholarship, Music in Bali and her work with Margaret Mead and
Gregory Bateson as well as her own books including Trance in Bali.
After four years in Bali, McPhee wrote an article, “The Absolute Music of
Bali,” for the journal Modern Music, positing: “what inspires the musician
with wonder and envy, is the satisfactory raison d’etre of music in the
community. The musicians are an integral part of the social group, fitting in
among ironsmiths and goldsmiths, architects and scribes, dancers and actors,
as constituents of each village complex. Modest and unassuming, they
nevertheless take great pride in their art, an art which, however, is so
impersonal that the composer himself has lost his identity.”5
While McPhee’s ideal of Balinese music was “impersonal,” with

4 ‘‘Then in 1929, I think it was, we were given in New York City the opportunity to hear
the first recordings of Balinese music, which had been made by Odeon under the
direction of Walter Spies. The records we heard were brought to us by Claire Holt and
Gela Archipenko (wife of the sculptor) who had just returned from a visit to Java and
Bali...We decided to go the following winter...That was in 1930–1...”
Belo: Traditional Balinese Culture: 1970:xviii. But according to the New York Public
Library’s Guide to the Holt, Claire, 1901–1970. Papers, ca 1928–1970,
(http://www.nypl.org/research/manuscripts/dance/danholt.xml), Holt’s first trip to
Indonesia was in 1930.
5 McPhee 1935:163
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compositions unattributed to specific composers, this became less the case in
the course of the 20th century. Even in the early 1930s, McPhee quotes the
composer I Wayan Lotring: “Ké–wah! It is hard to compose! Sometimes I
cannot sleep for nights, thinking of a new piece. It turns round and round in
my thoughts. I hear it in my dreams. My hair has grown thin thinking of
music.”6
A Sketch of the Time Period of these Recordings:
In 1928 Bali was part of the Netherlands East Indies (now the Republic of
Indonesia) but Bali’s rajas had not been entirely conquered until 1908.
Kebyar emerged around the turn of the 20th century in North Bali’s Buléléng
region, which came under Dutch control beginning in 1849 after forces loyal
to the Balinese king of Lombok and allied with the Dutch killed the
celebrated military leader and chief minister of Buléléng, Gusti Ktut Jlantik,
along with the king of Buléléng and the king of Karangasem, East Bali. At
the time Bali had eight kings and their own internecine struggles for power
allowed the Dutch to play one kingdom against another. Economic control
was the goal but Dutch efforts to morally justify their conquest centered on
the Balinese slave trade (which Holland had long benefited from) and widow
sacrifice associated with royal cremations. One by one the kingdoms
collapsed under Dutch attack: Lombok in 1894, Badung (Denpasar) in 1906
and Klungkung in 1908.
Each fell in “a traditional way to signal the ‘ending’ of a kingdom, and
indeed the word puputan means ‘ending’. The puputan was both a sign to
other kings of an end, and a way to achieve liberation of the soul by death in
battle.”7 Adrian Vickers continues, “…the Dutch moved on the capital of
Denpasar. On the morning of 20 September the king, his family and
thousands of armed followers all dressed in white and ready to meet death in
battle, marched out to meet the Dutch. Each of the leading warriors ran
amuk in turn, marching on as if bullets would bounce off their bodies. The
Dutch opened fire on ‘women with weapons in their hands, lance or kris, and
children in their arms’ who ‘advanced fearlessly upon the troops and sought
death’...surrender was impossible: ‘where an attempt was made to disarm
them this only led to an increase in our losses. The survivors were repeatedly
called on to surrender, but in vain’. The king, his family and followers

6 McPhee 1946:162
7 Vickers 1989:34
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advanced relentlessly, killing themselves and any Dutch troops who came
within range as they went. The Dutch later tried to cover up the death toll,
but while it was fairly light on the Dutch side, well over 1000 Balinese were
killed.”8
We can speculate about all of the factors that fed an artistic explosion in the
period following the collapse of the kingdoms. I Nyoman Catra speculates
that the profusion of creative experimentation was akin to medicine helping
heal the trauma of social upheaval and colonial occupation. The dismantling
of the power and wealth of the many regional kingdoms led to a kind of
decentralization/democratization of the arts as they spread out to the banjar
‘hamlets’. Puput ‘the end’ also implies the beginning of something new.
And along with the fashions and technology associated with modernity
brought in by the Dutch came the small but steady stream of European and
American travelers on cruise ships to this island paradise beginning in the
1920s. The Bali Hotel opened in 1925 within hearing distance of Gong
Belaluan’s rehearsals at their balé banjar and soon became a hub of artistic
accommodations to the tastes of international audiences. At the same time
Balinese innovations continued to be driven by indigenous tastes and
passions—both of artists and their local audiences.
Interestingly, during this same period of time on the other side of the planet,
post–war marching bands were inspiring a revolutionary music genre
incorporating new dimensions of rhythmic and melodic complexity,
improvisation, mixing and experimentation with earlier genres. Musical
instruments discarded after the Civil War were taken up by former slaves
whose newly–won freedom led to the invention of jazz which, like kebyar,
became a musical force for the next century.
Various manifestations of Balinese modernism are exemplified by the
emergence—most likely in the teens—of jangér. One clear influence on
jangér was Komedie Stamboel, the Malay–language European–influenced
theater which first appeared in Surabaya, Java in 1891.9 Seemingly
innocuous and lightweight to foreigners10 but well–loved by most Balinese
to this day, jangér humorously blended traditional dramatic themes with

8 Vickers 1989:35, and, within single quotes, a participant’s report from the chief of staff
of the expedition, from Nordholt 1986:5
9 See Achmad, 2006:31 and Cohen, 2006:21
10 Covarrubias, 1937:251–255
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catchy songs performed by girls in traditional costumes along with a kecak
chorus of boys in western costume including short trousers, epaullettes and
silly moustaches. Jangér (on CD#5) fused musical elements from Sang
Hyang trance ritual, Malay pantun sung poetry, and cakepung palm–wine
drinking songs with gamelan gaguntangan, most commonly used to
accompany arja dance opera, as well as gamelan tambour which included a
rebana drum of Arabic origin; their adaptation of the saman and saudati
style of hand and arm movements and postures performed in Muslim Sufi
rituals and other dances in Aceh, North Sumatra, became a signature element
of jangér’s male kecak dancers. All this came together in jangér with
elements of classical légong dance and wayang wong dance drama based on
the Ramayana epic, as well as circus acrobatics inspired by visiting troupes.
Curiously, revivals of jangér over the course of the 20th century have
recurred in times of political and social turmoil.
In the 1920s gong kebyar and related dances were starting to be seen and
heard across both North and South; the compositions recorded in 1928 from
Belaluan, Pangkung, Busungbiu and Kuta represent a revolutionary shift in
musical and choreographic aesthetics. Cak (kecak) would only appear as a
distinct dance drama—evolving into the Ramayana “monkey chant,” as it is
known to international audiences—four years later, although its chorus
traditionally accompanied Sang Hyang trance rituals, and jangér, its sister
genre with kecak chorus, was already popular. I Ketut Marya (1897 or
1898–1968), spelled Mario by Covarrubias and other westerners, had just
recently created his Igel Trompong (Tari Trompong) and Igel Jongkok, the
dance later known as Kebyar Duduk. Of the first written account of kebyar
McPhee relates, “According to the Regent of Buléléng, Anak Agung Gdé
Gusti Djelantik, who told me in 1937 that he noted the date in his diary at
the time, the first kebyar music was publicly heard in December 1915, when
several leading North Balinese gamelans held a gamelan competition in
Jagaraga...”11
Juxtaposition and re–interpretation were essential to I Wayan Lotring
(1898–1983), a master of Balinese modernism and leader of the gamelan
palégongan12 in the coastal village of Kuta. His brilliant compositions
startled and inspired musicians throughout the island. Lotring was a superb

11 McPhee 1966:328
12 Palégongan is the gamelan genre accompanying légong dance but its repertoire
includes diverse dramatic and dance styles as well as purely musical works.
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player of gendér wayang, the virtuosic quartet of ten–keyed metallophones
that accompanies wayang shadow–puppet theater (heard on CD #3). But his
major musical innovation centered on palégongan, the gamelan associated
with légong, the elaborately choreographed court dance. One hears in
palégongan a more fluid and lyrical style than in gamelan gong. But Lotring
introduced rhapsodic melodic fantasies and subtle rhythmic shifts of
phrasing often inspired by other traditional genres. His Gambangan,
Gegendéran, and Gegénggongan compositions (also heard on CD#3) were
modern visions inspired by musical elements within these traditional forms.
As far back as history recalls, there has been great competition in Balinese
arts, reflecting a cultural attitude of jengah, a strong instinct of “not wanting
to lose,” which motivates the accepted practice of taking the
accomplishment of a rival and changing it in one’s own way while
improving on it. In kebyar’s early days, groups might send a spy to climb a
tree within hearing and hopefully sight–range of a rival village’s rehearsal in
order to memorize their latest innovations in preparation for an upcoming
competition. Very serious adversarial relationships existed between rival
jangér ensembles as well, such as those of neighboring Kedaton and
Bengkel, where conflicts were expressed politically, aesthetically, and by
employing spiritual magic against one another.13 While competition has
fueled creativity, Balinese arts have also flourished as a result of generous
cooperation between artists of different villages and regions. For example,
during kebyar’s early developmental phase, musical leaders from the
northern village of Ringdikit came to Belaluan, South Bali, to exchange
repertoires. As a result Belaluan’s kebyar was infused with the North’s
revolutionary style and Ringdikit acquired knowledge of légong music and
dance.14 Even earlier, notable légong masters from more southern regions
taught in the North, such as I Gentih from Kediri, Tabanan, who taught the
female leko (nandir is the male version and both were accompanied by
bamboo rindik) dance in Jagaraga,15 and whose student Pan Wandres turned
it into kebyar leko and later into kebyar légong, subsequently adapted into
Teruna Jaya by his student, Gdé Manik of Jagaraga. Ni Nengah Musti
(1934–) from Bubunan and later Kedis learned kebyar légong from Pak
Gentih and tells us she did not hear that term used even around 1940. Instead
it was referred to simply as Légong Lasem or Légong Kapi Raja ‘Monkey

13 I Madé Monog, personal conversation 2007
14 Covarrubias 1937:210
15 Pandé Madé Sukerta, personal communication.
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King’ (a version of the Subali–Sugriwa story within the Ramayana16)
depending on the narrative enacted. She also informs us that I Gentih was
the teacher and Pan Wandres the dancer for whom he created kebyar légong.
In 1922 Gong Pangkung’s leader and composer I Wayan Gejir (1880–1943)
came to Belaluan with Marya, who was born in Belaluan but moved to
Tabanan at around the age of ten soon after the puputan Badung. Together
they taught a seminal composition for dance called Kebyar Jerebu originally
created in 1922 in the village of Kutuh by Gejir in collaboration with I
Wayan Sembah of Kedis17 which was recorded by Odeon but never released
and is now long–forgotten.18 In Belaluan a warm friendship developed with
Belaluan’s musical leader I Madé Regog, who McPhee described as
“sympathetic and brooding.”19 Upon the birth of Wayan Gejir’s first child
back in Tabanan he named her Mregog so that his own name would become
Pan Mregog (father of Mregog), to honor their close friendship by having a
name closely resembling but not exactly the same. On the 1928 records we
can hear many themes echoed between Pangkung and Belaluan, such as
Tabuh Longgor I and Kebyar Ding III.
It is also worth noting with regard to the recordings of 1928 that a great
many links existed between participating artists. One example is Ida Boda
(Ida Bagus Boda) of Kaliungu, Denpasar (1870–1965) who grew up in the
Geria Gdé ‘Brahmana compound’ in the village of Batuan when it was still
part of the kingdom of Negara, Sukawati. Ida Boda, whose singing is
included on our CD #2, was one of the foremost légong masters and taught
all over Bali, including Busungbiu, whose kebyar music shows clear légong
influence. Boda often danced topéng mask theater with the musicians of
Belaluan on a gamelan angklung on loan from Banjar Bun (heard on CD
#4), performed the Cupak drama with the batél ensemble of Kaliungu (heard
on CD#3), and taught the jangér group in Bengkel, rivals to Ketadon (CD
#5). Among his légong students were I Nyoman Kaler, Ni Ketut Reneng and
I Wayan Beratha, who would later become the musical leader of
Sadmerta–Belaluan. The music captured on this collection of recordings
attests to a generous cross–pollination in Balinese arts, illuminating how

16 The légong versions of the Subali–Sugriwa story are usually called Kutir or Jobog.
17 Arthanegara: 1980:74
18 McPhee 1966:343. It should be mentioned that McPhee attributes Jerebu to Madé
Regog. A possibility is that Regog re–worked an earlier Tabanan version and made it his
own.
19 From McPhee’s unpublished notes at the UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive.
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