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"An important presence through centuries of musical and social change, gamelan angklung is a small, four-tone bronze-keyed ensemble that remains ubiquitous at cremations in Bali. Ellen Koskoff offers a compelling portrait of these little-studied orchestras and their members: rice farmers, eatery owners, and other locals who do not see themselves as musicians or what they play as music. Koskoff examines gamelan angklung's cremation music and structures in three stages. First, she delves into the pieces across each stylistic category by charting differences in their tempos, pacing, general contours, and other characteristics. From there, Koskoff pivots to the pieces within each stylistic category to determine the specific grammar associated with each style. Finally, she presents the musical and emotional flow of actual cremations to show how the selection of pieces helps participants create and maintain the controlled emotional state needed for the ritual. A journey inside a tradition, Bittersweet Sounds of Passage looks at the overlooked music of an important ritual in Balinese village life"--
List of contents
Companion Website
List of Recordings
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1. Balinese Village Life
Chapter 2.
Gamelan Angklung Today
Chapter 3.
Gamelan Angklung Scholarship and Its Legacies
Chapter 4. Three Possible
Gamelan Angklung Ancestors
Chapter 5. Work for the Dead
Chapter 6. Work for the Community
Chapter 7.
Gamelan Angklung Cremation Music Today
Chapter 8. Flow-Paths
Chapter 9. In the Context of Performance
Glossary
Notes
References
Index
About the author
Ellen Koskoff is Professor Emerita of Ethnomusicology at the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester. Her many books include the award-winning
Music in Lubavitcher Life and
A Feminist Ethnomusicology: Writings on Music and Gender.
