About a month before Balinese New Year (Nyepi), the banjar youth group get together and plan the construction of ogoh-ogoh. Ogoh-ogoh are giant dolls made from bamboo frames which are intricately weaved and tied and then covered with papier mache. They are made in the form of creatures of the underworld known in Balinese as buta-kala, in English something like ‘Satan’. The creatures are based on characters taken from traditional myths and legends, however in modern times many also take the form of modern characters, including even people in the media or in the government.

For young Balinese, making ogoh-ogoh is a challenging but exciting art form and one month before Nyepi, most banjars are bubbling with “ogoh-ogoh fever”. It’s no mean feat to make a papier mache doll metres high. Just getting it to stand up is a task, let alone making it lifelike.

Ogoh-ogoh are paraded around the streets on the eve of Nyepi, known as hari ngembak geni. Most main roads are closed off and thousands of people gather to watch the parade. It may take up to 30 people to carry a large ogoh-ogoh and each banjar includes a team of musicians playing gamelan and sometimes male and female dancers. Traditionally, however, it was just the ogoh-ogoh which were paraded in the streets on the eve of Nyepi. These days, however, this night has become an excuse for an ogoh-ogoh festival which is judged and the winning team rewarded with a large prize.

The gamelan ensemble used to accompany the ogoh-ogoh is called baleganjur which is made up of up to 15 musicians playing gongs, cymbals and drums. The louder the music the better, as their function is to scare off any demons before Nyepi, the day of silence. After being paraded till midnight, the giant dolls are ceremoniously burnt to represent the destruction of the demons on Earth.

©2009 Vaughan Hatch

Pelegongan and gender wayang maestro, I Wayan Kelo from Br Pande Mas, Kuta, died on Thursday afternoon at age 70 after suffering a stroke and battling briefly with leukaemia. Kelo was perhaps the most renowned teacher from Kuta since gamelan prodigy and composer I Wayan Lotring, and was one of his direct disciples.

Dedicated to the preservation and exposure of the Kuta style, Kelo had taught in many parts of Bali: in Lukluk, Pesawangan and at Mekar Bhuana Conservatory (2002-2003) to name a few. Recipient of the prestigious Dharma Kusuma award from the government, he was also a composer of new lelambatan compositions which were frequently performed by Kuta groups at kebyar competitions. Not only a musician, he too was an esteemed dancer, frquently asked to teach calonarang and wayang wong troupes- his daughters have carried on this tradition and now teach both locally and outside of Kuta.

Losing Kelo means that part of the original Lotring Kuta style is probably extinct, but further research in the field is needed to qualify this. Musicians remember him for his virtuosic gender wayang and superbly dynamic kendang playing (you can hear this dramatic kendang style, played by Lotring on the 1928 recordings by Odeon/Beka). A strict guru, Kelo placed utmost emphasis on practice discipline and playing technique, as well as teaching the original pelegongan kotekan patterns. He greatly lamented the destruction of Lotring’s pelegongan in the 1970s as well as the continuing disinterest in the pelegongan style by young Kuta musicians.

Kelo knew both the large repertoire of Lotring’s compositions as well as endangered legong pieces in their entirety. He explained to us many times that each legong piece could be played on its own as an instrumental piece, with a different introduction and closing section (pengecet) from the versions that accompany dance.

Mekar Bhuana had planned to study again with Kelo in preparation for the Bali Arts Festival this year, as well as start to document the yet unrecorded Kuta style, and his death was an unexpected tragedy. His passing is indeed a great loss to both the Kuta people as well as Bali’s artistic community in general.

Expressions of condolence can be sent directly to info@balimusicanddance.com to be printed, translated and read directly to Kelo’s family. His cremation will be held midday tomorrow (Sunday March 7^th) in Kuta.

The day after Saraswati is called Banyupinaruh, which always falls on a Sunday and the first Pawukon week, Dasa Sinta. As with many Balinese ceremonials days, Banyupinaruh comes around every seven calendar months (the Balinese will say six, because they mean six Balinese Çaka calendar months). To find out when it occurs each year, you will need to ask a Balinese or refer to a current Balinese calendar.

On Banyupinaruh, Hindu devotees get up very early on this day to bathe at dawn. For those who live close to the beach, they’ll choose to make a pilgrimage to the sea; others will go to rivers or similar watering places.

Most people pray or at least place offerings on the beach before bathing or swimming. Offerings are normally simple canang sari box offerings made of palm leaf, packed with colourful flowers and completed with an incense stick spiked in the sand.

After praying, they enter the water in their clothes or in a sarong wrapped around their bodies (You won’t see many Balinese in bikinis!). They then cleanse and purify their bodies with the water to purge negative emotions.

After bathing, people return home, change into clean traditional dress and pray.

These days, since most people have bathrooms in their houses, many just bathe at home in water and fragrant flowers (yeh kumkuman) whilst reciting a prayer or mantra, then put on traditional dress and pray in their family temple (sanggah).

Balinese say that compared with just taking a regular bath or shower, bathing on this holy day makes them feel refreshed and revitalised.

On Banyupinaruh, beaches across Bali are packed with families-everyone from infants to the elderly; and whilst it’s not an ideal day for sunbathing (finding a spot is tricky!), swimming or other watersports for tourists, you are blessed with some wonderful photo opportunities.

© 2010 Vaughan Hatch

In iconographic form, Saraswati is depicted as a radiantly beautiful woman wearing a crown and a sari who sits on a lotus flower, accompanied by a swan and a peacock. In Her four (sometimes depicted as two) arms She holds items symbolic of the values of knowledge and learning, including lontar (palm-leaf scriptures), rosary beads and a lute (veena). In the Balinese version, however, Saraswati is often seen standing, wearing a Balinese dance costume, and Her Indian lute has been replaced with an Indonesian spiked fiddle (rebab).

On this day, which always falls on a Saturday every six Balinese calendar months, Hindus across Bali make special offerings to lontar, books and learning materials (not including computers, oddly enough-these are blessed on the day for things made of iron called Tumpek Landep). Devotees are not supposed to read or study on Saraswati day.

Saraswati is naturally an important religious day for schools and places of learning. Students are expected to attend school in Balinese traditional dress and pray while all the books and other learning material are blessed by teachers and priests. Even many alumni return to their schools or universities to take part in worship.

On Saraswati, many worshippers do a sort of temple circuit, praying at different locations. This is particularly popular with young people who like to do this till late at night. After all, it is a Saturday night and it’s a good excuse for friends and couples to spend time together out of the watchful eye of parents. It’s no surprise that beach temples are the most popular destinations for worship.

The day after Saraswati is called Banyupinaruh. Read about Banyupinaruh.

© 2010 Vaughan Hatch

He explained to us that selonding was originally found all over Bali and in parts of Java. “Most people in Bali only know of the selonding music from Tenganan because that style is popularised and recordings of it are available commercially, but there are many other existing styles, not only in Karangasem, but also in other parts of Bali, that need to be documented and appreciated.” Srimpu hopes to improve access to rarer styles and with his duplicate set of instruments, people can study from local experts in a secular context, therefore opening the opportunity for others to learn and help understand and preserve this beautiful music. We also learnt that all selonding sets are different, with a different number and different order of keys. In addition, contrary to popular belief, not all selonding are made from iron; there are also a number of bronze sets. The information we got from Srimpu was both educational and enlightening, and it is clear that he is a man deeply passionate about these archaic traditions that are desperately in need of attention and preservation for future generations of musicians, music lovers, researchers and composers worldwide.

Since our meeting, Srimpu has requested that Mekar Bhuana become involved with Yayasan Selonding to help expose its educational programmes to a wider audience both on a local and international scale. Now the foundation has a Facebook page (Yayasan Selonding) and there are plans to source funding to republish, redesign and relayout Srimpu’s 534-page selonding book (which is currently out of print), which will also be translated into English by indOKiwi “linguistic & cultural solutions”. The book will then be circulated in bookstores locally and online, as well as libraries and educational institutions worldwide. Keep an eye out for updates on this on www.balimusicanddance.com as well as on their Facebook page.

Semambang Jawa reveals modulation in and out of three modes: lebeng, selisir and sunaren, which makes it fascinating to both play and listen to. It is also very long and a real challenge to memorise, consisting of two 256-beat pengawak and two 64-beat pengecet. One of the musicians claimed that it could take two years just to remember the pengawak sections, which are are the equivalent four pengawak legong. It is probably the length of these compositions as well as their meditative-like tempo that contributed to their decline in popularity as Bali edged towards modernism and “everything fast and instant”.

Once the reconstruction is complete and funding is secured, our group plans to record this piece as well as several others for a second Mekar Bhuana court music album. Then this music will be documented and accessible to future generations to appreciate and study. Please give us all the support you can!

As I mentioned previously, gender wayang are the original instruments used to accompany puppet shows in Bali. This is where they got their name about one thousand years ago. Compared with Javanese puppet shows which use a full-sized gamelan set with two different tunings, requiring many musicians and singers, the small Balinese gender wayang quartet makes the Balinese puppet show a much more intimate event. In fact, when I brought a Balinese puppetry troupe to New Zealand in 1999, a professor of musicology thought that the music was a lot more ‘earthy’ than its ethereal Javanese counterpart.

Even though gender wayang are not being used so often anymore for secular, night time puppet shows in most parts of Bali, they must still be used in ritual performances, such as wayang gedog/lemah or wayang sudamala. The ritual puppet shows are normally held during the day (lemah means ‘daytime’) and may be accompanied by only two gender wayang instruments if there are only two players available.

Playing for a puppet show requires a higher skill level than performing purely instrumental music (at weddings, tooth filings, cremations etc) because the musicians must be able to react at lightning speed to cues from the puppeteer. Whilst there is no improvisation, the musicians must know a large repertoire of music (memorize up to 20 pieces) to be able to play the appropriate musical illustration for each puppet. Unrefined (kasar) characters such as giants, demons and evil characters, as well as buffoons require loud and fast music, especially when they are angry and there are fight scenes. Refined (alus) puppets such as noblemen, women and heroes need sweeter, slower music, normally played in a higher register. The shows can last for hours, so the musicians not only need a high skill level but great stamina and tons of strong, sugary Balinese coffee!

If you want to find out where you could watch a puppet show or learn more about and hear samples of gender wayang music, click www.balimusicanddance.com/about-us/gamelan

© 2010 Vaughan Hatch

If you’ve ever been to a wedding, cremation, tooth filing, or seen a puppet show in Bali, then chances are you would have heard gender wayang. An archaic type of gamelan orchestra dating back to possibly around the 10^th century, the ensemble is made up of either a pair or a quartet of 10-keyed bronze metallophones. Like the bamboo rindik xylophones, gender wayang can be played by only two people, yet musically they produce rich and varied compositions, representing many of the instruments in a large gamelan orchestra. They are played with round beaters using a difficult two-handed technique that involves a hitting and damping technique that can take years to master. Normally the left hand part carries the melody and the right the ornamentation, but not always. Add to this the fact that both parts often interlock with each other and you have a pretty complex musical balancing act! This is one of the reasons that gender wayang are considered by Balinese to be perhaps the highest form of gamelan music.

The music produced by the instruments is not loud, but rather quite soothing, almost meditative. This is the reason why gender wayang are used to accompany the often painful coming-of-age tooth filing ritual, and when played on a cremation tower also helps to accompany the spirit of the deceased to the afterlife. The instruments are tuned to a five-tone fairly even tempered scale that the Balinese that varies from region to region, or simply according to the personal preferences of the tuner or the owner themselves. Originally there were many, many different tuning but these days there seems to be a trend towards standardization due to the popularity of certain recordings etc.

Historically, gender wayang were so named because it was the ensemble that always accompanied Balinese puppet shows (wayang). However these days, apart from in ritual, it is more common that people use larger gamelan orchestras. This is both due to trends as well as the time and practice needed to create a gender wayang group. More on gender wayang in the next issue of Kulture Kid.

© 2010 Vaughan Hatch

Tumpek are auspicious days on the Balinese calendar. There are six Tumpek which are spread over a 210 day cycle called pawukon.Tumpek days signify the meeting of a Saniscara weekday (Saturday) and Keliwon day.

The first in the pawukon cycle is called Tumpek Landep and is the day Balinese make offerings to objects made from iron, in particular daggers called kris and iron gamelan. These days even vehicles and computers are adorned with the elaborate offerings in the form of clothing woven from coconut leaves.

Tumpek Uduh is in reverence of plants, in particular large trees, fruit-bearers, or those considered useful to humans. The trees are dressed up and sometimes struck during the ceremony in the hope that it will continue to bear fruit for our consumption.

Tumpek Kuningan is commonly known simply as “Kuningan” and occurs on the Saturday after Galungan. It represents the end of the Galungan holiday where ancestors are worshipped. Balinese make offerings of yellow rice on this day.

The day respect is made to bronze gamelan, masks and dance costumes is called Tumpek Krulut. Offerings are laid out in front of the largest gong, prayers are recited, and holy water is sprinkled on the instruments. Sometimes smaller offerings are tied to each individual instrument.

Tumpek Kandang is the day Balinese make offerings to animals, in particular farm stock such as cows, pigs and buffalo. The animals are washed, given special fodder and dressed in ceremonial cloth.

The day reserved for ceremonial puppets is called Tumpek Wayang. A puppeteer will take all the puppets, perhaps more than 100, out of their wooden box (keropak) and line them up on a banana tree trunk (gedebong) as if to be used for a real performance. Then special offerings are made. Dance costumes, masks and barong are also blessed on this day. In some villages with sacred barong, a barong performance is held on the evening of the day after Tumpek Wayang.

© 2010 Vaughan Hatch

At this event we took the opportunity to perform Tabuh Blandongan, a twenty-minute piece that consists of four long sections (pengawak) and five shorter sections (pengecet). Our terompong player for this piece was only fifteen, and is probably the youngest person who has ever learned and performed this difficult court piece from Pagan Kelod (originally Puri Denpasar style). Three audio samples are on our Audio page.