For musicians in Bali, the gamelan (an orchestra of gongs and metallophones) is a way of life. They practice their craft many hours each day, perfecting techniques that have been handed down for generations. For Elizabeth Johansen ’01 (pictured right) and other members of Gamelan Galak Tika, the gamelan is a hobby, practiced for several hours on Sunday and Wednesday nights. In friendly exchanges that pitted gong against gong and pongle against pongle, Johansen’s group and Balinese musicians faced off in competitions throughout Bali this summer.

Johansen was a bit intimidated by the contests, and for good reason. Because their musical artistry is a way of life, Balinese groups would be nearly impossible to beat, Johansen remarked before the trip. But there’s a good chance Johansen’s group left a lasting impression.

Gamelan Galak Tika, a community ensemble in residence at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), received a standing ovation at a Carnegie Hall performance last November. Part of John Adam’s “In Your Ear” festival, the group used the xylophone-like instruments, gongs and drums that collectively make up a gamelan orchestra, and mixed them with cello, synthesized percussion and electric guitars to create a fusion of traditional and contemporary sounds that brought the crowd to its feet. Johansen said she was excited and honored to perform the works of Evan Ziporyn, group founder, composer and clarinetist, and those of Dewa Ketut Alit, pioneering Balinese composer from Pengosekan Village.

Performing in the Gamelan Galak Tika—which means intense togetherness—has been Johansen’s hobby since she arrived in Boston in 2001 to work as a mechanical engineer for product/experience design firm IDEO. An engineering major, she learned to play after joining the gamelan ensemble at Pomona College. For one year, she performed Balinese pieces as taught by renowned Balinese gamelan music devotee Wayne Vitale. A background in piano gave Johansen a good start.

“Gamelan is unique in that the music is not written but taught to the group by a master who has effectively memorized all of the parts,” she said. “I have always had trouble reading written music, so I really took to this new method of learning music with its audio and communal components.”

The distinctive gamelan sound also appealed to Johansen. A fan of Claude Debussy, a French pianist influenced by Javanese music, Johansen enjoyed the block chords, modal-flavored harmonies and whole-tone scales present in Debussy’s works and in gamelan music.

Like others before her, Johansen simply walked into a Gamelan Galak Tika rehearsal, found a spot at an instrument and began following the lead of the master musician. If participants catch on, they are welcome to continue practicing and participating in performances. “Most people self select themselves; if they’re not learning very quickly, they end up leaving,” said Johansen.

Those who remain learn from Evan Ziporyn, master gamelan composer and head of music and theater arts at MIT. In 1993, he founded Gamelan Galak Tika, which combines traditional Balinese gamelan with western instruments. In addition to arranging the performance at Carnegie Hall, Ziporyn has taken the group to festivals, schools, museums and events around New England. The trip to Bali, which included a performance in the annual Bali Arts Festival, was Gamelan Galak Tika’s first time abroad.

Johansen has found that a good ear, excellent memory and skillful coordination are helpful traits for a gamelan member. Versatility is also an asset, since Gamelan Galak Tika members do not specialize in a particular gamelan instrument. “For each song you’ll pick one instrument and play it for that song. But for a new song, you’re welcome to get up and pick another instrument and learn that part,” Johansen said. She plays all of the instruments except for the lead drum or kedang, which sets the pace and volume of the pieces. Instruments that comprise a gamelan include horizontally mounted and vertically suspended tuned gongs; tuned zylophones; stringed instruments, and end-blown flutes. When combined in various ways, the instruments in a gamelan orchestra make complex music that Dutch writer Leonhard Huizinga described as “pure and mysterious like moonlight, …always the same and always changing like flowing water.”

The sound of gamelan music can take some getting used to with its five-note scale. “Western music has 12 notes, so only five notes is unusual, plus the five notes are not exactly like any of our 12,” said Johansen. “The notes are unevenly spaced and not as familiar to the ear. When you’re first playing, it’s hard to hear the difference between notes and remember which note to start on.”

Johansen’s goal is to improve her technique so it rivals that of the artists she faced in Bali. Most are skillful gamelan players, playing with expert precision. “They express the real feeling of the music instead of just hammering through,” observed Johansen. “Getting some real feeling and contrast is a challenge.”

After playing for nearly seven years, Johansen’s skills have improved considerably. Occasional mistakes have not discouraged her. Most memorable for Johansen was a performance involving a Chinese flute called a pipa. “Ziporyn thought of an innovative technique that used a bow—like one for a violin or cello—on the metallophone keys to create a vibrating sound. I was one of two people to bow the instruments, and the pipa player was to begin the piece with us. Unfortunately we hadn’t tightened our bows and there was no sound. The audience might have noticed that. Oh well, life goes on!”

Johansen’s gamelan involvement is indicative of her lifelong quest to try new and different things. While at Mudd, she co-hosted and produced the 1998 Nugget Challenge competition won by John Fuhrman ’00, who ate 77 chicken McNuggets®. She was an award-winning debate team member and took modern and improvisational dance classes, choreographing a piece that merged dance and debate for the annual Pomona student dance concert. Even at IDEO there is room for creativity. There she works on designing different products for an array of industries, with medical clients being her favorite and most rewarding. She is currently working on connecting IDEO with a non-profit organization called Design that Matters that focuses on designing products for use in underserved populations.

Johansen used vacation time from IDEO to make the trek to Bali for the festival, attended by artists from various Indonesian provinces as well as those from the United States, Korea and Japan. Being surrounded by the Balinese culture gave Johansen deeper insight into what she called “the essence of the music.” After two weeks of touring with Gamelan Galak Tika and enjoying the Balinese dancers, musicians and thespians, Johansen said she has a new appreciation for the craft that she enjoys as a challenging but relaxing pastime.

hmc American Gamelan

The Harvey Mudd College American Gamelan was begun in 2001 by William Alves, associate professor of music, who has studied Indonesian music on a Fulbright fellowship. HMC’s custom instruments, made in Java, resemble traditional Indonesian instruments but sound different. Using the country’s slendro and pelos tuning systems, Alves had the instruments intoned to the just intonation system, in which all of the intervals between notes can be represented by ratios of whole numbers. He describes the HMC gamelan’s sound as “soft, mellow and bell-tone-like.” Pomona College has a Balinese gamelan, which Alves describes as traditional, “bright, loud and dynamic.”

The HMC Gamelan orchestra plays only new compositions, many created by Alves, hence its name “American Gamelan.” Alves has composed such pieces as “Gending Chilao” and “Elegy for Lou Harrison,” which can also be played with instruments like the harp or violin. Masashi Ito ’02 and Bryan Tysinger ’01 have also composed pieces.

The HMC Gamelan is a regular feature in MicroFest, an annual Southern California festival of microtonal music which Alves co-directs. He brings a MicroFest concert to The Claremont Colleges each year. This year, the HMC Gamelan presented a program of all new works, some of which combined harp, voice and violin with the gamelan.

Current players of the HMC group include Alves, Assistant Professor of Mathematics Darryl Yong ’96, as well as current and former students. Alves will offer gamelan instruction as a class this fall, a plus for the humanities and social sciences curriculum, and for community building.

“Gamelan is one of the most community-oriented forms of music that I know,” he said. “Even more than Western chamber music, it gives a sense of wholeness and cooperation among its players through concentrated listening and contemplation.”

The gamelan instruments will make the move this year from a Beckman Basement room to a former conference room in Platt Campus Center. Just added to the collection of about 20 instruments were sarons, keyed instruments similar to a xylophone, and kenongs, suspended gongs shaped like inverted pots.