E n
d a n s a n t
l a J a v a n a i s e
O t a c í l i o M e l g a ç o
[duration 02:00:00] all rights reserved
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The artist Otacílio Melgaço has two official curators in the virtual world. A curator (from Latin: ´curare´, meaning ´to take care´) is a manager or overseer. Traditionally, keeper of a cultural heritage institution (e.g., gallery, museum, library or, as the present case: sound archive) is a content specialist charged with an institution's collections and, highlighting the context in force here, involved with the interpretation of personal (heritage) material. Both, Mr. Paz and Mr. Campbell, are, therefore, reviewers of the Melgacian works. To learn more about their missions, tasks, assignments and responsibilities by means of valuable informations regarding the compositional process, the performative rhizomes and other special features, just click the following link:
otaciliomelgaco.wixsite.com/preamblebypsp
(O.M.Team; P r e l u d e)
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"J'avoue j'en ai bavé pas vous mon amour
Avant d'avoir eu vent de vous mon amour
Ne vous déplaise
En dansant la Javanaise
Nous nous aimions
Le temps d'une chanson
À votre avis qu'avons-nous vu de l'amour?
De vous à moi vous m'avez eu mon amour
Ne vous déplaise
En dansant la Javanaise
Nous nous aimions
Le temps d'une chanson
Hélas avril en vain me voue à l'amour
J'avais envie de voir en vous cet amour
Ne vous déplaise
En dansant la Javanaise
Nous nous aimions
Le temps d'une chanson
La vie ne vaut d'être vécue sans amour
Mais c'est vous qui l'avez voulu mon amour
Ne vous déplaise
En dansant la Javanaise
Nous nous aimions
Le temps d'une chanson.
´La Javanaise is a song written and composed by Serge Gainsbourg originally for Juliette Gréco, and interpreted by both her and Serge in 1963.´
I dare say that the affinities between Melgaço and Gainsbourg made Otacílio move himself to the heart of Indonesia. This was the starting point for O.M. sonically erect an auspicious intersection between east and west.
I particularly always had ambiguous feelings before the Gamelan. At the same time an attraction and a sui generis kind of fear. There´s no direct explanation, but hypotheses abound. The exoticism; the ability to transport us to a perception of another sound dimension (can understand me?); emergency sensations as if there´s an imminent danger; tendency to get into a trance - at least as an incitement and so on. Is like an irresistible metaphorical invitation to climb the Mount Meru.
Mount Meru. ´This mythical mountain of gods was mentioned in Tantu Pagelaran, an Old Javanese manuscript written in Kawi language from 15th century Majapahit period. The manuscript is describing the mythical origin of Java island, and the legend of moving some parts of mount Meru to Java. The manuscript explained that Batara Guru (Shiva) has ordered the god Brahma and Vishnu to fill the Java island with human beings. However at that time Java island was floating freely on the ocean, ever tumbling and always shaking. To make the island still, the gods decided to nail the island upon the earth by moving the part of Mahameru in Jambudvipa (India) and attaching it upon Java. The resulting mountain is Mount Semeru (or Meru), the tallest mountain of Java.´
I found a splendid way to describe the effects of ´En dansant la Jananaise´ on me and it seems an idiosyncratic factor of this developer Melgacian work compared to many other based on Indonesian culture. When I hear Western influence from the topic addressed here, it's like Java well anchored on land. Otacílio Melgaço again gives freedom to the island, like when the Java island was floating freely on the ocean. Once again tumbling and always shaking however now musically in its variations and dynamics... I am led to ask me the following question: The island would have a fresh destination? There is no answer and nor should there be. Ideally, navigates erratically and so Melgaço raises the Gamelan condition for another yet higher dimension: Mount Meru is a sacred mountain. With five peaks (for the composer, are now four as four are the sound Pieces. The fifth is probably a representation of the listener himself). Meru is considered - in Hindu, Jain as well as in Buddhist cosmology - the center of all the physical, metaphysical and spiritual universes. Perhaps, in broad analogy with the snorting creation of Otacílio Melgaço, this is the dimension as high: be a sonorous manifestation of univocal center." (Caio Campbell; Anglo-Brazilian semiologist and musician)
"The Brazilian composer and instrumentalist performs an overview of his most recent creations and inserts in the fertile womb of typical Indonesian music. As we would expect, through its stylistic, of course.
´Gamelan is traditional ensemble music of Java (hence the stimulant parallel with the Gainsbourg´s song) and Bali in Indonesia, made up predominantly of percussive instruments. The most common instruments are metallophones played by mallets as well as a set of hand played drums called kendhang which register the beat. Other instruments include xylophones, bamboo flutes, bowed instrument called rebab, and even vocalists called sindhen. For most Indonesians, gamelan is an integral part of their culture.´
We are face to face with a spectacular audible mosaic because Otacílio reviewed some of his resonant Pieces (originating from several albums) and thus offers us a unique panorama of his contemporary offspring. ´Unique´ because there´s an unexpected backbone in focus.The difference is precisely the proposal to explore the sonority of Gamelan (even not necessarily using the original instruments) having several Melgacian strands as successive ´sonic squamas´. Taking into account all Western use of this outlandish source, I think ´En dansant la Javanaise´ is, doubtless, one of the more noteworthy.
Check out the example of the third track; outsized sixty minutes or will be an everlasting visage?!; a transcendent and rare saga if we compare it with most of the contemporary music scene; forcing us to an astonishing sensory and perceptual extrapolation.
I should point out one of the many revealing aspects of ´En dansant la Javanaise´. The harmonies suggested by Melgaço are again - how can I say?: ´superhuman´. I invoke the concept of Übermensch. Nietzsche has his character Zarathustra posit the Übermensch as a goal for humanity to set for itself. An ideal for anyone who is creative and strong enough to master the whole spectrum of human potential, ´good and evil´. Amoral values. Maybe the combination of ruthless warrior pride and artistic brilliance. All under the wings of a certain transcendent guideline. For instance, the eternal recurrence. ´Some maintain that willing the eternal recurrence of the same is a necessary step if the Übermensch is to create new values, untainted by the spirit of gravity or asceticism. Values involve a rank-ordering of things, and so are inseparable from approval and disapproval; yet it was dissatisfaction that prompted men to seek refuge in other-worldliness and embrace other-worldly values. Others suggest that one must have the strength of the Übermensch in order to will the eternal recurrence of the same; that is, only the Übermensch will have the strength to fully accept all of his past life, including his failures and misdeeds, and to truly will their eternal return.´ The Melgacian use of simultaneous pitches (tones, notes), or chords ... structurally probably flirts with the idea of an eternal recurrence and his most timeless compositions may be a hint. A horizon broad enough to encompass the concept - sonically - and develop it - transphilosophical and stylistically.
Resuming other fields less dangerously hypothetical: In Indonesia, gamelan often accompanies dance. Another inevitable intersection if we consider the genius title in the case of the music context, don´t you think? As once said the French singer, songwriter, pianist, film composer, poet, painter, screenwriter, writer, actor and director Gainsbourg: ´I will compose to decomposition.´ He should not go unnoticed, because there are many interesting crossovers. ´Regarded as one of the most important figures in French popular music, he was renowned for his often provocative and scandalous releases, as well as his diverse artistic output, which embodied genres ranging from jazz, mambo, world, chanson, pop and yé-yé, to rock and roll, progressive rock, reggae, electronic, disco, new wave and funk. Serge's varied musical style and individuality make him difficult to categorize although his legacy has been firmly established and he is often regarded as one of the world's most influential popular musicians. His lyrical work incorporated a vast amount of clever word play to hoodwink the listener, often for humorous, provocative, satirical or subversive reasons. Common types of word play in his songs include mondegreen, onomatopoeia, rhyme, spoonerism, dysphemism, paraprosdokian and pun.´ The salutary provocation; dandy scandals suggested soundly and sensitively and cognitively and...; cultural diversity; explicit act of embracing various genres; the dodge to be categorized or labeled; clever wordplay (in titles of pieces/works or poetry/lyrics when recited or sung) and constant inventive polysemies and symbols and allegories and metaphors - from the album covers (observe the art of the disc reviewed here, really mesmerizing!) to heterodox composure in artistic career - etc. The points of intersection between Gainsbourg and Melgaço are many and indeed the pleasure of the First Dance should be between them...
La Javanaise...
´In Javanese mythology, the gamelan was created by Sang Hyang Guru in Saka era 167 (c. AD 230), the god who ruled as king of all Java from a palace on the Maendra mountain in Medang Kamulan (now Mount Lawu). He needed a signal to summon the gods and thus invented the gong. For more complex messages, he invented two other gongs, thus forming the original gamelan set. The earliest image of a musical ensemble is found on the 8th century Borobudur temple, Central Java.´ The phrase echoes in my mind: ´He needed a signal to summon the gods and thus invented the gong.´ ´He needed a signal to summon the gods and thus invented the gong.´ The gong, gong... After reverberant repetition surrenders to the status of an almost uncontrollable mantra, would become ´Otacílio Melgaço, in his creative eagerness, might need a sign to summon us, and thus invented ´En dansant la Javanaise´? I really do not know. What I can surely say is: ´The term Karawitan refers to the playing of gamelan instruments, and comes from the word Rawit, meaning 'intricate' or 'finely worked'. The word derives from the Javanese word of Sanskrit origin, Rawit, which refers to the sense of smoothness and elegance idealized in Javanese music.´ Between this and that, the highlighted Karawitanian-Melgacian music is doubly Rawit: is defiantly intricate, is sagaciously finely worked ... while mysteriously smooth and elegant. Is there a better way to glimpse an eternal recurrence? No, I think not." (Pablo S. Paz; Argentinean musicologist)
Some works of O.M. that probably belong to a cycle covering ethnic syntax:
melgacootacilio.bandcamp.com/album/a-f-r-e-e-k-a-otac-lio-melga-o-duration-48-21
melgacootacilio.bandcamp.com/album/o-b-l-u-z-a-brazilian-rhapsody-otac-lio-melga-o-duration-30-17
melgacootacilio.bandcamp.com/album/brenn-and-otac-lio-melga-o-duration-55-11
melgacootacilio.bandcamp.com/album/prociss-o-nordesti-a-otac-lio-melga-o-duration-01-13-36
melgacootacilio.bandcamp.com/album/ok-ragas-por-la-komenco-de-tempoj-otac-lio-melga-o-duracion-50-25
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I - One summer evening in 1962, Gréco and Gainsbourg spent the evening listening to records and drinking champagne in the huge lounge at 33, rue de Verneuil. The next day, he sent her "La Javanaise". It seems that Gréco had debuted it in March 1963 by placing it at the beginning of her cabaret tour La Tête de l'art;
II - The word gamelan comes from the low Javanese word gamel, which may refer to a type of mallet used to strike instruments or the act of striking with a mallet. (...) Another word from this root, pangrawit, means a person with such sense, and is used as an honorific when discussing esteemed gamelan musicians. The high Javanese word for gamelan is gangsa, formed either from the words tembaga and rejasa referring to the materials used in bronze gamelan construction (copper and tin), or tiga and sedasa referring to their proportions (three and ten);
III - Influence on Western music
The gamelan has been appreciated by several western composers of classical music, most famously Claude Debussy who heard a Javanese gamelan in the premiere of Louis-Albert Bourgault-Ducoudray's Rapsodie Cambodgienne at the Paris Exposition of 1889 (World's Fair). The work had been written seven years earlier in 1882, but received its premiere only in 1889. The gamelan Debussy heard in it was in the slendro scale and was played by Central Javanese musicians. Despite his enthusiasm, direct citations of gamelan scales, melodies, rhythms, or ensemble textures have not been located in any of Debussy's own compositions. However, the equal-tempered whole tone scale appears in his music of this time and afterward, and a Javanese gamelan-like heterophonic texture is emulated on occasion, particularly in "Pagodes", from Estampes (solo piano, 1903), in which the great gong's cyclic punctuation is symbolized by a prominent perfect fifth.
The composer Erik Satie, an influential contemporary of Debussy, also heard the Javanese gamelan play at the Paris Exposition of 1889. The repetitively hypnotic effects of the gamelan were incorporated into Satie's exotic Gnossienne set for piano.
Direct homages to gamelan music are to be found in works for western instruments by John Cage, particularly his prepared piano pieces, Colin McPhee, Lou Harrison, Béla Bartók, Francis Poulenc, Olivier Messiaen, Pierre Boulez, Bronislaw Kaper and Benjamin Britten. In more recent times, American composers such as Henry Brant, Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Dennis Murphy, Loren Nerell, Michael Tenzer, Evan Ziporyn, Daniel James Wolf and Jody Diamond as well as Australian composers such as Peter Sculthorpe, Andrew Schultz and Ross Edwards have written several works with parts for gamelan instruments or full gamelan ensembles. I Nyoman Windha is among contemporary Indonesian composers that have written compositions using western instruments along with Gamelan. Hungarian composer György Ligeti wrote a piano étude called Galamb Borong influenced by gamelan. Avant-garde composer Harry Partch, one of America's most idiosyncratic composers, was also influenced by Gamelan, both in his microtonal compositions and the instruments he built for their performance.
American folk guitarist John Fahey included elements of gamelan in many of his late-1960s sound collages, and again in his 1997 collaboration with Cul de Sac, The Epiphany of Glenn Jones. Influenced by gamelan, Robert Fripp used rhythmically interlocking guitars in his duets with Adrian Belew in the 1981–1984 trilogy of albums (Discipline, Beat, Three of a Perfect Pair) by rock band King Crimson and with The League of Crafty Guitarists. The gamelan has also been used by British multi-instrumentalist Mike Oldfield at least three times, "Woodhenge" (1979), "The Wind Chimes (Part II)" (1987) and "Nightshade" (2005).
On the debut EP of Sonic Youth the track 'She's not Alone' has a gamelan timbre. Experimental pop groups The Residents, 23 Skidoo (whose 1984 album was even titled Urban Gamelan), Mouse on Mars, His Name Is Alive, Xiu Xiu, Macha, Saudade, The Raincoats and the Sun City Girls have used gamelan percussion. Avant-garde performance band Melted Men uses Balinese gamelan instruments as well as gamelan-influenced costumes and dance in their shows. The Moodswinger built by Yuri Landman gives gamelan–like clock and bell sounds, because of its 3rd bridge construction. Indonesian-Dutch composer Sinta Wullur has integrated Western music and gamelan for opera;
IV - Influence on contemporary music
In contemporary Indonesian music scene, some groups fuse contemporary westernized jazz fusion music with the legacy of traditional ethnic music traditions of their people. In the case of Krakatau and SambaSunda, the bands from West Java, the traditional Sundanese kacapi suling and gamelan degung Sunda orchestra is performed alongside drum set, keyboard and guitars. Other bands such as Bossanova Java were fused Javanese music with bossa nova, while the Kulkul band fuse jazz with Balinese gamelan.
The Indonesian singer Anggun, often incorporated Indonesian traditional tunes of gamelan and tembang style of singing in her works. Typical gamelan tunes can be trace in several songs in her album Snow on the Sahara such as "Snow on the Sahara", "A Rose in the Wind", and also in her collaboration works with Deep Forest on "Deep Blue Sea" on their 2002 album, Music Detected. Philippines born Indonesian singer Maribeth Pascua also featuring gamelan tunes in her songs Denpasar Moon and Borobudur.
Beyond Indonesia, gamelan has also had an influence on Japanese popular music, specifically the synthpop band Yellow Magic Orchestra. Their 1981 record Technodelic, one of the first albums to heavily rely on samples and loops, made use of gamelan elements and samples. Yellow Magic Orchestra member Ryuichi Sakamoto also used gamelan elements for his soundtrack to the 1983 British-Japanese film Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, which won him the 1983 BAFTA Award for Best Film Music.
Later, many Americans were first introduced to the sounds of gamelan by the popular 1988 Japanese anime film Akira. Gamelan elements are used in this film to punctuate several exciting fight scenes, as well as to symbolize the emerging psychic powers of the tragic hero, Tetsuo. The gamelan in the film's score was performed by the members of the Japanese musical collective Geinoh Yamashirogumi, using their semar pegulingan and jegog ensembles. Gamelan and kecak are also used in the soundtrack to the video games Secret of Mana and Sonic Unleashed. The two opening credits of 1998 Japanese Anime Neo Ranga use Balinese music (Kecak and Gamelan gong kebyar). Each "waking up" of Ranga in the anime uses the Gong Kebyar theme. The musical soundtrack for the Sci Fi Channel series Battlestar Galactica features extensive use of the gamelan, particularly in the 3rd season, as do Alexandre Desplat's scores for Girl With A Pearl Earring and The Golden Compass. James Newton Howard, who composed Disney's 2001 feature film Atlantis: The Lost Empire, chose Gamelan for the musical theme of the Altanteans.
Loops of gamelan music appear in electronic music. An early example is the Texas band Drain's album Offspeed and In There, which contains two tracks where trip-hop beats are matched with gamelan loops from Java and Bali and recent popular examples include the Sofa Surfers' piece Gamelan, or EXEC_PURGER/.#AURICA extracting, a song sung by Haruka Shimotsuki as part of the Ar tonelico: Melody of Elemia soundtracks.
Gamelan influences can also be heard in the 2006 hip hop song, Tokyo Drift (Fast & Furious), by Teriyaki Boyz.
In the Regular Show episode "150-Piece Kit", a gamelan is mentioned to be part of the eponymous kit.
...for purposes of pragmatism and clear exegesis,
quotes have Wikipedia as a source...
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Between two parentheses...
(Atonalism, Twelve-Tone, Serialism, Musique Concrète... Acousmatic. Eletroacoustic. Magnetic Tape. Expressionism, New Objectivity, Hyperrealism, Abstractionism, Neoclassicism, Neobarbarism, Futurism, Mythic Method. Electronic...Computer Music, Spectral, Polystylism, Neoromanticism, Minimalism and Post-Minimalism...are addressed by Melgaço. Paradoxically New Simplicity and New Complexity also.
Art Rock, Free Jazz, Ethnic Dialects, Street Sounds are occasional syntax elements.
All the possibilities mentioned above and others that were not mentioned are the usual accoutrements of the composer/instrumentalist to establish his ´babelic´ glossary. We can prove this in a short passage of a single composition up along the entirety of a conceptual phonograph album. All distributed over a career and idiosyncratic records. Have we a universe before us and I propose to see it through a telescope, not a microscope.
I propose not handle very specialized topics here. Otherwise would be, with the exception of musicians and scholars, all hostages of a hermetic jargon. Because more important is to present Otacílio Melgaço to the general public and not to a segment of specialists. Faction of experts not need presentations, depart for the enjoyment beforehand. For this reason there is no niche here for intellectual onanism and encrypted musical terminology. The reason for these parentheses is to establish such elucidation. The non-adoption of technicalities leads to more panoramic, amplifier reviews. Are You always welcome. Those who do not dominate contemporary music and are introduced to the world of ubiquitous O.M. [autodidact and independent artist who, being more specific, does not belong to schools or doctrines; artist who makes Music and that´s enough; music devoid of labels or stylistic, chronological, historical paradigms or trends] and Those who belong to the métier and turn to enjoy propositions they know and also delving into advanced Melgacian sound cosmogonies...
I conclude poetically. ´Certeza/Certainty´ by Octavio Paz. ´Si es real la luz blanca De esta lámpara, real La mano que escribe, ¿son reales
Los ojos que miran lo escrito? De una palabra a la otra Lo que digo se desvanece. Yo sé que estoy vivo Entre dos paréntesis.´ If it is real the white light from this lamp, real the writing hand, are they real, the eyes looking at what I write? From one word to the other what I say vanishes. I know that I am alive between two parentheses.
We´re all more and more a-l-i-v-e now.)
- P.S.P.
