Selindung Warna

The title is in Malay meaning ‘Hidden Colours’. Sound to me is always a hidden colour because we can only listen to it but not see it. The title is in Malay to reflect my cultural background. In this piece the numbers used in notating gamelan pieces are used and then transformed and ‘coloured’ using techniques such as light touches on the strings, pizzicati, percussive sounds, scratch tone combined with bowing pressure, extended techniques and glissandi. All elements in the composition such as tempo, dynamics, performance techniques, are integrated to become as one. It is like a sound fabric or sound texture. In this composition, the focus is not on the exact pitch, interval or melodic frame but on the sound, textures and sonority (as described above). It is a ’sound based’ composition. There are 9 small sections based on 9 different traditional Javanese gamelan pieces. These small sections are like a series of small patterns which are connected to each other like broken tiles being placed next to each other. ‘…to refer to the performance (Kekawin in Bali; an ancient form of poetry sung by the priests) as ‘music’…was stretching the term too far. The sound of this kekawin, …at that time, was quite unpleasant… …Perhaps the point is…no faculty is more important …than his ability to hear without prejudice. He must develop an aural perception far greater than demanded by any one musical tradition.’ Mantle Hood ‘Gamelbati’ is a word to describe my concept of integrating two different elements, which are Western and Eastern music. A word derived from gamelan, ‘gamel’ means to ‘to hammer’ or perhaps in this context ‘to play’ or ‘to strike’. The word ‘bati’ is a Malay/Indonesian word meaning united. In a more complex situation it could also be used to describe an integration of elements which becomes one component or texture: ‘sebati’; ‘menjadi sebati’. Also I use ‘bati’ as a short form for the words ‘barat’ and ‘timur’ (Malay/Indonesian) meaning West and East. In the piece, the slendro and pelog modes are used but the sound is individually tailored and breaks away from tradition and therefore it gives a new perspective on integration. The tempo, time, cyclic structure, the phrases and the organisation of the notes do not follow tradition but rather follow other strict rules: my compositional method.