Yes all fore the love of art. I hiked up the Vulcano again this time with a new photo camera, some DVtapes and shoes. The hike was again pretty heavy for a non hiker but I made it to the top again. And shot some nice footage of the sun set, cliffs and steamy grass in the morning glow. Although it was a bit though it really was worth it, even for the second time the view was amazing.
Shooting the clouds drifting bye peacefully.
The mountain guide and me infront of the bad cave.
Today I had my last Kendang lesson with Nanah. We just whent over all the Barong rhythms one more time and we did some improvisation. The lessons have been great I’ve learned a lot although Nanah unfortunately doesn’t speak English we just said bagus (indonesian for pretty) when it was good and he would repeat the rhythm when I didn’t get it. I could stay here fore years and still learn more. But for my project this has been a great experience.
Me and my Kendang teacher Nanah.
Today I went shopping for Wayang Kulit puppets. Vaughan the founder of the Conservatorium that I’m attending happens to know one of the best puppet masters on Bali, Kadek Mardika. I don’t really know if Mardika is his last name ore just the name of his business but it sounds good. His father was one of the famous puppet masters of Bali and he and his brother have taken the trade. Kadek is one of the lucky people on Bali who gets to travel the world with his wayang plays. He has already played in Itally, Germany, Switserland and Japan so hopefully I get to see him play soon in Holland.
Kadek the puppet master holding the tree of life.
The puppets are made cut out of lather, put together and painted in oneweek. Although the audience only get to see the shadow of the puppet they take great care in painting them in the right colors so the puppet master can keep them apart and feel the puppet more wile he’s playing with it. The different colors have different meanings, so is green for wisdom and holiness, prins Rama is green and so is his monkey follower after his reincarnation. Red is powerful, demons are red but also the creator is red.
The puppets are secret they have a soul after they got blessed in a ritual. Every time the puppet master is going to perform he performs a ritual before taking them out of the box. And after the story is told the puppets are peacefully put to sleep back in the box with an other ritual. I like the whole idea of spirits in puppets it makes me feel like my traveling around the world with my stuffed doll companion toet isn’t all that crazy.
Puppet before paint job.
I went to Ubud again and met some friends there. Ubud is great so many things to do.Good luch places with Wifi, great dinner place with good food and atmosphere. Balinese dances at 19:30 every night and than a nice cool beer in one of the bars and clubs. I havent spent a day without playing the drums in Ubud.
Drumming in Ozigo just outside of Ubud
Just when I started to feel confident banging the Kendang, Samarah or Sasuke as he likes to be referred to, comes a long and shows how it’s done proper. He’s Vaughan and Evies 6 year old sun who is growing up amongst the musicians and the instruments at the conservatory. He makes up his own melodies on the Saron and even thought me how to use the beaters and stop the keys on the Gender.
Sammy playing the Kendang.
My old sony camera broke on top of the Batur Volcano. That was really an annoying after a four hour hike. But I’ve bought a new one yeee it’s not really big news but I’m just happy so I’ll put it on the Blog anyway. My last Sony cam was about 5 years old so I hope this one will also give me at least 5 of picture pleasure.
Sunrise seen from the Batur vulcano.
After a 3 hour hike I’ve reached the top of mount Batur to film the sunrise this morning. It looks really pretty unfortunately my photo camera died and my miniDV tapes were full after one hour on the top. So I’ll have to do the hike up and down again to make new shots for the project. Apart from that it was a great experience and a beautiful site. I did the whole hike on my Havaianas! (flip flops) the day before I asked the guide can you do it on flip flops cause I didn’t bring any shoes? Of course he said but just buy a second pair of flip flops to be sure to have new once for when they break on the mountain. So I did, well he was right you can do it on flip flops but I would strongly recommend shoes for hiking specially for the way down. So next time I’ll bring some shoes, 5 miniDV tapes and a new photo camera.
Filming the sunrise.
So now that I kind of learned a 4th of the Kendang Barong patterns with a beater on 80% of the desired speed I discovered that not all the patterns start on the beat.
Some of the patterns start on the after beat ore some ware behind the beat, not really a 16th but 32nd and a bit. Pretty hard to time. Every time I got it right I could hear it sounded the way it is supposed to but it felt like I was totally of pulse ore flying by like some Doppler effect, it made me a bit dizzy. It has the same working as playing 3 against 4 rhythms but than with longer patterns, well thats what I make of it maybe I’ll conclude differently when I got it under control.
To make sure I can reproduce later what I’ve learned today my teacher Nanah played the patterns wile I played the Kajar witch basically is a click played on a small damped gong on every beat. The principle of the Kajar is simple to grasp just bang the thing on every beat. But when the Kendang player starts to play against it or with it and than some how overlapping it, it becomes really difficult to just bang the damn thing on a fixed tempo like a clock. If you play Kajar you can not just plug your ears and start banging away. You have to listen to the Kendang player for he is also giving queues to the Kajar to slow down ore half time. And thats what makes it all so interesting in the Gamelan no one is the absolute boss, there are rules and every body has to listen to one another to make it work. But their is also space for improvisation and for one aspect of the music to work the other one has to deliver as well. So the Kendang ken not play around the beat when there is no beat played and the beat is not continuously on the same tempo because the Kendang player guides it as well. Very cool right? I love it, I could stay here fore twenty more years I guess but I’ll try to get as much as possible in the upcoming month. And I’ll try to get as much sun as possible to 
The Kendang sounds different every time I play it. Some times it’s even harder to get the right sound out of it. Some times if I tighten the heads with the rings on the side the sound doesn’t seem to change much. So I asked Nanah how to make it sound good. Well basically it has to be tightened almost every day because it’s a new drum. So you have to take the knot out of the skin straps that keep the tension on the heads. And pull the straps back in to tension so you can further adjust the pitch with the small hoops on the side of the drum that squeeze the straps more to each other to make the tension bigger so the pitch go’s up. He also sometimes bangs on the steel hoop thats in the drum head. I think I bangs it in to the right place ore further over the drum but I wouldn’t know exactly how to bang it into position. It’s a bit different from my Ludwig Black beauty snare witch always sounds good also when I take one screw out ore don’t bother to tune it for weeks (:
The Kendang rhythms are pretty complicated. This is for to reasons one because it’s generally hard to get the right sounds out of the drum. And two because the rhythms are pretty long cycles compared to normal western drumming.
The three most important sounds are, pa, dum and dee. The dee is to me the easiest one just bang the drum hard with the palm of your hand on the side of the right head, no rocked science involved. The dum is a bit trickier because wile you hit the right head of the drum you have to damp it a little with your thumb and little finger so it makes a kind of flacionette. The pa is a slep with your left hand on the left head you have to make it sound beefy with your fingers, with I can not do yet.
So those are the sounds now when you sort of get that you can start with your first rhythm. My Kendang teacher just played it to me and I was supposed to repeat it, but it took me 20 times of listening to the recording and writing it down to get it sort of right. The basic rhythm is: dum pa dum pa pa dum pa dum dum pa dum dee, pa dum pa pa dum pa dum dee, dum pa dum pa dum pa pa dum, dum. And than repeat. We’ll it took a wile and for tomorrow I’ll nee to do two new once!
