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We had our last rehearsal in the morning, mostly practicing for our performance in the evening. It was unexpectedly emotional knowing that I was practicing those songs on those instruments for the last time. We were let out early, but I hung around a little longer and helped make decorations until Pak Dewa ordered me…

Today, we witnessed the cremation of a very important member of the village that recently passed away. As I walked out to the village center at noon I encountered a procession of villagers, a giant wooden horse, the priest, the gamelan band, and a box holding the body of the person that passed away. The…

In the morning, we ran through a lot of pieces quickly since we had a shortened day. The upcoming cremation ceremony rearranged our schedule a little bit, and we have to get ready for the final performance — the end of the program is approaching very, very quickly. We worked on Gengongan and Legong on…

Today was another day of instruction. Today we spent some time practicing in smaller groups. I practiced the slonding piece. I’m familiar with the Ugal part for the piece, so I wanted to continue learning the Polos part. It’s difficult for me due to the damping technique which uses the panggul to dampen the ringing…

Today, we had our tenth day of instruction. It was a very full and rewarding day of music. In the morning session, we learned the beginning of a new song, continued a song originating from North Bali and which featured the rayan, practiced a processional march piece, and ended with the first song we learned. We…

In the gamelan instructions this morning, we continued learning instruments of our own interests in small breakout groups. I have decided yesterday that I am to learn the kendang — the drums — of the piece Genggongan so Tom and I can continue playing the drum parts for the gamelan when we go back to…

Today we reviewed the two pieces we learned in the morning, and then went to small groups for afternoon practice. I played a Suling piece called Sekar Eled with Bisma for the whole afternoon session. Playing Suling is fun yet very challenging. I love the soft and delicate timbre of Suling melodies; however, it is…

Hello blog readers! I’m back for my second blog, going through Day 7(?) of our Embedded Study Abroad Program in Bali, Indonesia! What a day it’s been! I started the day by waking up to my watch buzzing for about 10 minutes after having a dream in which my watch would not stop buzzing and…

Today was our free day! Slate, Jon, Jiho, Angelina, Ming, Levin, Grace, and I decided to explore Uluwatu. The beaches were incredible! They were adorned with rocks and cliffs and the water was a mix of light and dark blues. Slate and I went to St. Thomas beach while the others went to a beach…

by Chi Jiang (Tim Jiang) When we arrived Cudamani today, the usual set of the gamelan was removed. Some instructors were away, too. We were going to do small group breakouts to practice different instruments. Dewa, Pasta, and Yande gave us a demo on the set of intriguing iron instruments (I forgot the name unfortunately).…