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MUSIC THE VILLAGE ORCHESTRAS The
performance, we found out afterwards, was given by one of the finest
gamelans, orchestras, in the island - the gong Belaluan, pride of the
quarter of the town that was later to become our home. One of the leaders
of the gang was Gusti Oka, the young prince who became our host. When
he rented us part of his house, we went to bed every night to the music
of the orchestra that rehearsed only a few doors away in the bale bandjar,
the communal meeting hall of Belaluan. As soon as they can afford it, after their temples are in good order, the most pressing need is to organize musical clubs, procure instruments, and train musicians. Every member of the village association takes an equal pride and interest in the game]an and they contribute gladly; with labour and even with money, to obtain the expensive bronze gongs and bars, to make and carve the frames of the instruments, and to secure teachers to train the musicians. Often the villagers own the instruments of a former orchestra that has fallen into neglect and have to call upon outside orchestras for their feasts; but let them be spurned by a successful modern group in a rival bandjar, and they will reorganize their gamelan at once - everybody helping with equal enthusiasm. The old instruments are returned, new frames are made, and all the missing pieces are replaced. To organize a new musical club a community first selects a head man and a treasurer. The new musicians are chosen from among the young men of the bandjar, who are directed by others with. musical experience. It is an honour to belong to such a group, and the members are not paid, but themselves contribute, in whatever way they can, to the acquisition of the instruments. In the group there are even men who do not play, but who are content to carry the instruments from place to place. The cost of a fine set of 'instruments often amounts to quite a fortune. The estimated value of the gong Belaluan was put at about fifteen hundred guilders. The actual monetary expenses were paid in instalments, and even after four years of profitable playing for the hotel, there still remained four hundred guilders unpaid. Of this apparently exaggerated figure a considerable part goes to buy a good set of large gongs, which are no longer made and are now a rarity and at a premium. The Balinese can make the bars of the metallophones, but the large gongs came from Java, from Semarang, where the last great makers of gongs lived. The richly carved frames of teakwood covered with pure goldleaf are also expensive. In former times it was a favourite hobby of the princes to form large orchestras and play in them themselves, but they are not quite so prosperous now, and today the organizations are more often independent, and it is the community that owns the orchestra. In Bali the orchestra consists of the set of instruments rather than of a group of musicians who own their instruments, as it is understood among us. In their zeal for improvement, the group of Belaluan went even further; fine costumes were made for the players and a special house was built to store the instruments, a shed for rehearsals. They even undertook to finance the repairs of the little temple of the bandjar, a good example of the love of the Balinese for their music and the pride they show in their orchestras. When the orchestra is assembled and the musicians are sufficiently trained, rehearsals called by a special tomtom (kulkul) are held every night after the work of the day is done. Although it is a requirement in the education of every prince to be able to play many instruments, the musicians are generally ordinary villagers without distinction of caste, and the strict rule that a man of low caste must always sit at a lower level than a nobleman is completely ignored; in an orchestra, at least as long as a performance or a rehearsal is in progress, a prince becomes democratic. links
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