It was, however, more than this, as I was to find out. Already I began to have a feeling of form and elaborate architecture. Gradually, the music revealed itself as being composed, as it were, of different strata of sound. Over a slow and chantlike bass that hummed with curious penetration the melody moved in the middle register, fluid, free, appearing and vanishing in the incessant, shimmering arabesques that rang high in the treble as though beaten out on a thousand little anvils. Gongs of different sizes punctuated this stream of sound, divided and subdivided it into sections and inner sections, giving it metre and meaning. Through all this came the rapid and ever-changing beat of the drums, throbbing softly, or suddenly ringing out with sharp accents. They beat in perpetual cross-rhythm, negating the regular flow of the music, disturbing the balance, adding a tension and excitement which came to rest only with the cadence that marked the end of a section in the music.
Tiny cymbals pointed up the rhythm of the drums, emphasized it with their delicate clash, while the smallest of bells trembled as they were shaken, adding a final glitter, contributing shrill overtones that were practically inaudible.
Not long after I became acquainted with Nyoman Kalér, he had said I was welcome to come and listen as the men practised, and the friendly members of the club soon grew used to seeing me enter the courtyard after dark to sit beside them while they played. Their instruments were arranged in careful order, like an orchestra. The deep-voiced jégogans, with their heavy, trembling keys, were ranged at either side, while in the centre stood the soft-toned g’ndérs that played the melody. At the back were placed the little gangsas, on which the brilliant ornamental parts were performed. The drums, the leading instruments, were placed in front. At a short distance away the tones merged and blended so that the gamelan sounded like one great instrument.
I sat watching the concentration of the players. Boys of fourteen, men of twenty or sixty—all gave themselves up to the serious business of rehearsal. The music was rapid, the rhythms intricate. Yet without effort, with eyes closed, or staring out into the night, as though each player were in an isolated world of his own, the men performed their isolated parts with mysterious unity, fell upon the syncopated accents with hair’s-breadth precision. I wondered at their natural ease, the almost casual way in which they played. This, I thought, is the way music was meant to be, blithe, transparent, rejoicing the soul with its eager rhythm and lovely sound. As I listened to the musicians, watched them, I could think only of a flock of birds wheeling in the sky, turning with one accord, now this way, now that, and finally descending to the trees.
What is the object of this club? I asked one night.
A little pleasure, a little profit, said Nyoman.
For the feasts and celebrations of Kedaton, their own village, they gave their services, as they were expected to do. In the temple they accompanied the ceremonial dances before the altars, played far into the night as they lulled priest and priestess to sleep with trance-music.
But when their légong dancers appeared in other villages, said Nyoman, the club expected to be paid. The money went into the treasury to be saved until the time of galungan, the week of feasts and holidays. Then was the time for joyous liquidation. The club bought pigs for a banquet and divided the remainder of the funds for holiday spending. But often it would be found that there was only a very small sum to share, for in the past six months the funds would have melted away on new costumes for the dancers, new gold leaf for the instruments, or a new set of headcloths for the members of the club.
For a club must sparkle, said Nyoman, when it appeared. Especially in another village. Otherwise they would be too ashamed. . . .
The iridescent music of Nyoman’s gamelan had its roots in a distant past, could be traced to the courts of ancient Java, and from there to a still more ancient India and China. Here to-day it had blossomed miraculously into something new. Successive generations of musicians had recreated it, transformed it, quickening the rhythm and modifying the instruments so that they rang with greater brilliance. An elaborate technique of interplay among the different instruments had slowly evolved, a weaving of voices around and over the melody, enveloping it in a web of rich though delicate ornamentation. And yet no separate part was in itself too difficult; all united to form a shimmering, pulsating whole, held together by the discipline of long rehearsal. As for the composers themselves, who could say? Long since dead, they were, presumably, simple craftsmen. Their names were unknown.
But how was it possible, I asked, for men to remember through the years this music of the past? If there were no notes. . . . In my country, I said, we write down our music. I showed him a printed page. He looked at it with curiosity.
There are also written notes in Bali, he said. But few people can read them, few have ever seen them. A book is rare.
If you could find one for me. . . .
He thought his friend Lotring, a musician who lived in Kuta, owned one. He would go one day and see.
He came a week later saying, Here is the book.
It was a bundle of dried palm leaves, trimmed and neatly tied together. It was old and brittle, and crumbled as I opened it. Inside, three or four lines of Balinese script stretched across each strip of leaf.
That is the pokok, the stalk, the trunk of the music, he said.
It was nothing more than the meagre tones of the chant in the bass, the barest of outlines. Nothing to indicate rhythm, nothing to indicate melody or the elaborate interweaving of sounds. A scratch here and there marked the accent of a gong and that was all.
It was only a reminder, said Nyoman. The rest, he explained, existed in the mind of the teacher.
Balinese music is based on five tones. In the sacred writings of the priests these tones have cosmological significance, for they are linked with the gods of the five directions, north, east, south, west and centre, where in the middle of a lotus sits Batara Siva, Creator, Destroyer, Lord God of All. His mystic colour is white; his sacred syllable hing; and the tone for this syllable is ding.
The gods of the other directions have also their colours—red, yellow, blue, black; their syllables and tones—dong, déng, doong, dang. . . .
But he didn’t think, said Nyoman when I asked him, that the boys and men of the clubs thought of this as they played.
Music is for pleasure, he said. It pleases both gods and men. In the writings of the priests there were long directions about the dances and gamelans “necessary” at a temple feast. It was to be regretted that to-day these directions were only half carried out. The gods felt slighted, complained more and more frequently, through the mouth of the priest or medium in trance. . . .
Thus music, I learned, had its “stem,” its primary tones (which it was possible to preserve in writing) from which the melody expanded and developed as a plant grows out of a seed. The glittering ornamental parts which gave the music its shimmer, its sensuous charm, its movement—these were the “flower parts,” the “blossoms,” the kantilan. (Like a dancer, Nyoman explained in parenthesis, whose body is the trunk, whose arms and head are melody, and whose hands form the flowers, which are the “gilding” of the dance.)
It was in these flower parts, he said, that a teacher showed his inventiveness, a gamelan its ability. The style was always changing, although the stem-tones remained the same. When he was a child, at court, the music had been slower, simpler, softer. But to-day it had become very difficult. . . .
One evening Nyoman brought to the house a g’ndér from the gamelan and began playing the soft love-music from the légong dance. A row of thin metal keys hung suspended over a row of upright bamboo tubes, and trembled at the least touch. As he sat there on the floor, the keys came to his shoulders. He held a little mallet in each hand; his fingers were relaxed, and the mallets seemed to fall upon the keys rather than strike them. The tones were limpid, with a mysterious, prolonged echo from the tubes, and as he played he seemed to lose himself in the dreaminess of the sounds he was producing.
A g’ndér is delicately adjusted and easily goes off pitch. If the bamboo resonators are out of tune, the tone