Cudamani

I'm about to trek out of the house to see Cudamani perform for the second time today. The first performance here in Philadelphia, around 2pm, was taken in with very high expectations. I've long claimed to my friends and peers that gamelan is among the highest of human arts. Let alone their responses, I mean to say that my feelings for gamelan encompass nearly every branch of my own artistic ideals. If I had to compare my discovery of gamelan to some other much desired western discovery, I would say it is the missing link in human evolution, or better yet, the unifying theory to the physical forces of nature. OK, slight exaggeration... slight. More accurately, I'm mystified and inspired by the spiritual, metaphysical, physical, practical, musical, natural, timelessness of the sounds. Doth I protest too much?

The effect of gamelan on the western composer has become something of mythical proportions. Debussy is of course the most famous example, especially the story of his exposure to Javanese gamelan in the 1889 Paris World's Fair. To my surprise, I couldn't find many of Debussy's thoughts on gamelan recorded, but I did find this ditty:

"There used to be-- indeed, despite the troubles that civilization has brought, there still are-- some wonderful peoples who learn music as easily as one learns to breathe. Their school consists of the eternal rhythm of the sea, the wind in the leaves, and a thousand other tiny noises, which they listen to with great care, without ever having consulted any of those dubious treatises." (Debussy on Music, trans. Richard Langham Smith, [New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1977], quoted in Tamagawa, p. 22)

UPDATE:
I was awarded the Independence Foundation Fellowship. I'm going to Bali this summer --shhhh don't tell anyone yet. I have to figure out what to say at the old nine-to-fiver. Maybe it's time to move on, ya know. To really become an artist - leave the 40 hour week behind for an 80 hour week of composing, coffee shops, and bi-polarism. Anyway, I'm amazed that I have this opportunity. I'm going to study with Cudamani.