Gamalan orchestra.
every time I hear it (live or recorded) it sends shivers up my spine.

http://www.geocities.com/Vienna/5059..._Orchestra.htm
http://www.personal.psu.edu/spp131/indonesia.html
http://www.hipwax.com/music/gamelan.html

'The Bali Sessions' recorded by Mickey Heart of Grateful Dead fame is supposed to be the best sounding Gamelan recording out there. Anybody heard it?

No, not yet, going to look for that. thumbsup
I do have some very beautiful recordings of the royal balinese orchestra, from before the second world war. (!) I found it on a CD in a university library. I'll look for the title, and post it.

Those scales really mess my (western) brain up. I love it.

I'll look for the title, and post it.
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Do it!

aaarrgg I can't find it! I hope nobody "borrowed" it!
I'll go to the library tomorrow and rent it again.

EDIT: Found it and some other stuff, will post tomorrow..

Hey it influenced Claude Debussy when he heard it... Curious to hear what the original sounds like but can't do it here in the office.

And Robert Fripp. The influence is very evident on Discipline- to wonderful effect imho.

These folks are wonderful- I had the opportunity to see them at Royce Hall a couple years ago, & met a few of them:

http://www.cudamani.org/

I never thought about that when I listened to Discipline (I guess though I already played vibraphone I did'nt know anything about Gamelan...), but now you say it, it seems so evident.

I´ve heard quite much Gamelan instruments as the music department at the university i studied at had an Gamelan orchestra. Lots of bells and percussion figures a lot like trance music, not that familiar with the religious background. Have not heard that much recordings but the ones i have suffer from being just to thrill for my ears (Just like i find a lot steeldrum recordings) i think ribbons would be a good choice here. Teach me more! /Toby

There's a great recording from the sixties on Nonesuch called "Music from the Morning of the World". I think it's Nonesuch 72015

It's Balinese Gamelan. But don't forget Javanese Gamelan as well.

This is the definitive recording I think. Hart's is spectacular but this one is more real and culturally genuine, even though it is excerpts...

Here's an interesting interview with the recordist, David Lewiston, with some record industry chat too:

<http://www.rootsworld.com/interview/lewiston.html>

I got to work with Lou Harrison's gamelan in Santa Cruz in the 80s but those Cabrillo Music Festival recordings are not released...

Lou

Maybe I should get 'Discipline'. It's hard for me to imagine the influence Gamelan music might have on a guitarist, working on a fretted instrument, unless Fripp just started bending the heck out of every note and getting pompous about it. heh I think a lot of Westerners would be content to play augmented scales in this context, because I'm guessing most wouldn't really understand Gamelan music even if they really tried.

There's a similar situation with a lot of music from mainland SE Asia etc. A lot of Westerners think they're playing something vaguely Oriental if they just hit the black keys on the piano or only use pentatonic scales!!

The gamelan being almost entirely percussion, why would one want to bend the notes? The flutes, of course, do slide around, but the bulk of it is percission - and many of the players only hit one or two notes each!

Maybe 20 guitarists with one string each? and a slide whistle... I have not heard Discipline yet either.

Lou

A lot of it is tuned percussion, playing in tunings a guitar can't touch. I don't mean the guitarist would want you to hear bends, I mean he would have to bend the strings as he was about to strike them to alter the tuning to anything like a Gamelan one. It's a little like trying to play Middle Eastern 'maqamat' modes on a Western guitar. The frets will get in the way, because the Middle Eastern tunings are not based on our diatonic scales.

Ah, I see. That woul dbe difficult! I'm just a humble recording enginer, not a guitar player... Usta play bass but that was long ago.

Lou

Of course, the music also works for us in the West as just a headf*ck thing to listen to!!

I think Fripps influence mostly has to do with rythmic concepts & use of ostinato petterns.

AN interesting aside, I'm no expert but as I understand it each gamelan has it's own unique tuning system-when you refer to a particular Gamelan, you are referring to that specific set of instruments and the music that is written for them- the music doesn't translate from one gamelan to another.

Also, some Gamelans are loooong; like all day and all night.

this amazes me, I lived in Bali for 5 years and i agree some gamalon lasts AALLLL day and I never felt any connection to it at all, I have been playing guitar as a main instrument for 40 years and have 'enjoyed' Fripp for nearly as long, have wife from japan and feel sort of close to Asia.., never would I have connected Discipline to gamelon?? (more likely 'Larks Tougue in Aspic' never would I have thought gamelon soothing in any sense.., i thought it was something akin to firecrackers to ward off bad spirits (and anyone else near by.)

I thought Fripp got his rhythmic chops from Bennet at Sorbourne house in england during his stay there in the late 70s (I think).., tapping such madness as 3/4 on his knee.., while nodding in 5/4.., while his other hand is tappind 4/4 and his other foot is tapping 7/8.., Im not joking I am sure I read an interview with him about this years ago

anyway the gamalon.., well it certainly cant be easy to record, its seems a cacophony of sound. I bow down to anyone who could do it successfully

If you do a google search for "fripp gamelan" a bunch of articles pop up, I'm hardly the first to think it. The closest I could find to anything near a direct quote though was this, in one of the articles:

"This effect is produced partly also by several intermingled guitar lines, a technology which Robert Fripp and Adrian Belew used as "interlocking guitars" and which technique Fripp also admitted was borrowed from gamelan music. "