Dear SGCGO and All,

This past Sunday evening began with the setting out of our floor mats and gamelan instruments, and the sweeping and mopping of the cobblestones in anticipation of silat. As more people arrived, the music began. The Sekar Gedhogan Community Gamelan Orchestra continues to grow: we were honoured by the presence of Cikgu Ariffin Mahidin and his wife Ameera, of Silat Gayong Malaysia, as well as Amanda, an artist from Brighton, Scott and family, and many more. We look forward to seeing all again next week.

The evening’s music began a bit thinly, but as returning members arrived, and new members stepped up, the sound filled out beautifully. This was accompanied with a bit of silat by Bram, our resident silat player, and he followed this up with Jawanese poetry. Cikgu Ariffin had a strong slap on the kendhang–double drums–and Bram returned with a silat flower dance. Our community efforts are now producing impressively diverse sections of music, ranging from tight gamelan melodies to meandering silat accompaniments to abstract scat-singing inspired ramblings, all entirely improvised.

Please do not forget that the gamelan instruments are not necessarily as instruments of expression but designed as (but not limited to being) prayer tools, similar to Tibetan singing bowls. The gamelan is a community building instrument, it allows anyone, young or old, to join in and create. Let the ancient instruments guide you and you will soon find yourself producing art rather than consuming it.

This Sunday, 30 July, will be our last ‘rehearsal’ before the our next event: an evening of silat, dance, and movements accompanied, of course, by gamelan music. Everybody is invited to both this weeks gathering and the event on Sunday, 6 August. You and everyone are invited to bring a picnic and share; we will again be collecting monies to support two hamlets affected by the 29 May Yogyakarta earthquake (see Summer Events). At this time we do not know who the silat players will be but for sure we will have our Sekar Gedhogan Community Gamelan Orchestra to entertain you with music and dance.

We would like to mention again the upcoming wayang kulit shadow puppet show, tentatively scheduled for Friday, 8 September. The story will return to ‘The Venom Of Fire Demands The Truth, Wisanggeni Gugat’, performed at our initial Cecil Court performance last year and again at the Beyond the Border story-telling festival; however, this year we will put much more emphasis on the god-clowns, the panakawan. Bram suggests the performance will be around one hour-ish (yeah, right…).

And now for something new this week (many thanks to Tim for the recordings; blame Ché if this doesn't work yet):
Sound clip 1
Sound clip 2
Sound clip 3
Sound clip 4
Sound clip 5
Sound clip 6
Be warned that these are .mp3 files 1 to 3 Mb in size, i.e. they may take a bit of time to download, especially if you are on dial-up service; Sound clip 4 is the smallest at 800Kb.

See you round next Sunday!

SGGO

For those offended, sorry about the autoplay; I am still playing with the site... Do email me any suggestions at che@london.com.