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Balinese Sound Ensemble

MUS 101-01

Music and sound are integral to Balinese life for the success and contention of social interaction. Bali is home to worlds of soundscapes that highlight the creative nature of daily ceremony. The Balinese Sound Ensemble explores communal composition within many idioms of musical practices from Bali, Indonesia. This includes traditional gamelan (i.e., selonding, gambuh, baleganjur, gender wayang), musik kontemporer, and popular performance (i.e., rock n’ roll, heavy metal, keroncong). Students engage in techniques of playing such as kotekan (interlocking rhythms and melodies) and angsel (rhythmic breaking) and develop an understanding of material culture as social phenomenon. As students will learn in this class, music in Bali is not only a sonic performance, but it also intersects with social issues such as, cosmologies, politics, and environment. The Balinese Sound Ensemble helps to contextualize the role of sound in culture for a more nuanced creativity of listening and interactional ethics of difference.

At the end of the semester, this ensemble will culminate in a public sharing in collaboration with the Balinese Dance class. Students are encouraged to take this class more than once for the sustainability and viability of establishing community.

This ensemble does not require any prior musical experience.

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