From: The Cassette Mythos, Autonomedia 1990
Introduction
It would be hard to imagine an ethnomusicologist today who would wish to deny the importance of the commercial media in musical traditions around the globe. Relatively few studies, however, have made this issue a central concern. Gronow's work on recording ethnic music in the Soviet Union (Gronow 1975) and Racy's on the recording industry in Egypt (Racy 1976) represent important contributions. More recently, Gronow's comprehensive and general survey of the early days of the recording industry throughout Asia (Gronow 1981) is a valuable compendium, though perhaps wanting of interpretation. One can also point to Toth's comprehensive catalog of recorded music of Bali and Lombok, in which he offers not only an extensive list, but prefatory remarks on the implications of recording in the lives of the Balinese (Toth 1980). Keil's recent article on "mediated" music is provocative, not only in what he reports on the phenomenon in Japan, but also in his call for more extensive treatment of this subject in the literature (Keil 1984). The present paper is an effort in that direction.
Those of us who study the musical traditions of Indonesia cannot help but be aware of the rapid growth of the cassette recording industry throughout much of the country over the last fifteen years. Much of what is available can be classified as "popular" music: pop Barat (Western pop) and pop Indonesia (Indonesian pop). Yet it is rare in a cassette store not to find a substantial section devoted to traditional musical and dramatic forms of the local population. For the most part, these recordings do not represent efforts at preservation or documentation, but rather efforts at turning profits. The extensive offerings of traditional recordings indicate clearly the continued popularity of traditional genres and, I would argue, help these genres find legitimacy in contemporary Indonesia.
In this paper I will offer some remarks of a general nature on the industry in Java as a context in which to consider the cassette recordings of traditional genres in Banyumas, a marginal area of Central Java located far to the west of the courtly centers of Javanese culture. I am interested in the implications this new industry has for Javanese musicians and, secondarily, wish to comment on its implications for scholars such as myself. First, I provide some background about the extent to which cassette recordings have become a part of Javanese culture of the 1970's and 1980's.
In order for people to play cassettes they must be able to afford to purchase them, and to have access to a machine on which to play them. A sixty-minute recording of music performed by professional musicians costs anywhere from 600 to 1500 rupiah (with an exchange rate now of about 1000 rupiah to one American dollar). Imagery (1) Purchase at this price is within the means of a rather broad slice of the Javanese population, though still expensive for most peasants. More of a problem is the purchase of a cassette player. Some models are available for less than 25,000 rupiah ($25). Even a poor rice farmer may take that sum out of a major sale of his rice crop, since ownership of cassette players or other electronic media (radio, and especially television) not only provides entertainment but also enhances status. I have spent the last two summers conducting research in rural areas, and in no village I visited was there ever any problem finding a locally-owned cassette player. Most of these villages have no electricity. Cassette players are run either with small batteries or, more often, with power from automotive batteries. The technology, in short, is already in place--even in the remotest villages; and the cost, while heavy for some, is not prohibitive.
Not only have cassettes and cassette players penetrated to the remotest villages, they have also become part of contemporary language. The noun kast (sometimes spelled "cassette") refers to the cassette tape recording, and the noun tp (from "tape") to the cassette tape player or recorder--the machine itself. Loan words are more plentiful in the form of nouns, but cassettes have penetrated the realm of Javanese verbs as well. In addition to the older word ngrekam ("to record"), contemporary Javanese now includes words for the process of recording onto a commercial cassette: "Gendhing kuwi wis dikastk" ("That piece has already been recorded on commercial cassette"--i.e., there is an objectifiable "text" which can be referred to like a publication). The verb root is the same as the noun, kast, but it undergoes the various inflections possible with other verbs through prefixing and suffixing.
The notion of "cassette-ing" a piece of music, or a version thereof, has implications for the conception and practice of traditional music. One of my gamelan teachers once explained to me that he preferred to play one tone on the large kettle instrument kenong at a certain point in a well-known classical piece, but that another player had chosen a different tone during a recent recording of the piece. My teacher knew that this recording, by one of the most prestigious musical groups in Java, would be heard widely. Putting his aesthetic preferences aside, he taught his students to play the same tone as the one on the prestigious recording. In a similar vein, the former director of traditional gamelan music at the national radio station in Yogyakarta, Mujiono, often changed the way he had the radio station musicians perform the main melodic outline (balungan), based on new cassette releases. In a tradition like Javanese gamelan, in which many musical choices are left to the individual rather than being determined by a composer, cassette recordings can have a direct and observable effect on performance practice.
Commercial cassettes also hold remarkable potential as teaching devices. Some of the best musicians confess that they learn a great deal of new music by purchasing or borrowing cassette recordings. While as recently as fifteen years ago they would have learned primarily from attending live performances and listening to the radio, they now have the opportunity to listen repeatedly to a single rendition and internalize details that might have been passed over in a single hearing. In the opinion of a number of Javanese, the availability of cassette recordings has raised the standards of musical performance, for these recordings usually present the most esteemed musicians and state-of-the-art performance quality.
Imitation is greatly facilitated; so, of course, are standardization and homogenization. But while one finds musicians all over Java imitating some aspects of performance practice represented on cassettes (for example, the drumming style of the well-known musician and puppeteer Ki Nartosabdho), the value placed on individual style is still very much in evidence. Becker's important study (Becker 1980) of gamelan music in modern Java suggested that the adoption of musical notation was bound to bring sweeping homogenization and standardization to Javanese music. Both Hatch (Hatch 1979) and I (Sutton 1982) have argued that imitation has not, yet at least, had such an effect. As much gamelan music continues to be learned by ear and the written sources most commonly referred to are written notebooks (which may and usually do vary widely from one individual to another), the variety in gamelan music appears to be little threatened by notation. The difference between reliance on chirographic sources (manuscripts) and on printed sources (publications) is profound. The latter may eliminate variety; the former almost ensure it. The commercially available cassette, mass-produced and available in identical form throughout Java, represents a far more real threat to musical variety. Not only are commercial cassettes "publications," but in addition they present all the parts, with all the subtle nuances, in audible form and are thus much more accessible than written sources. Still, the first fifteen years of cassette recording have not yet brought about such standardization. I only point to what is a great potential, but must emphasize that stylistic diversity persists.
One reason that such diversity persists may be the strength of the teacher-student bond. I am told by some musicians that the vast majority of those who study gamelan with a teacher will follow that teacher's example as best they can. The tradition of unquestioning acceptance of the teacher's authority still overrides the authority of the cassette. Furthermore, musicians still under the regular guidance of a teacher may not listen analytically to the cassettes they hear. One of my teachers said that intensive listening to cassettes can help a talented musician attain musical maturity more speedily than was possible a generation ago, but only if he or she is able (and willing) to grasp the intricate and unsorted information that a cassette contains.
Many musicians with whom I spoke indicate that the availability of cassettes can be beneficial for students as a means of constant contact with the musical sound. As a gamelan student myself, I was often advised to listen to a wide range of gamelan cassettes. Listening, more than "practicing" instrumental technique in the manner of an aspiring Western musician, is considered the primary path to musicianship in Java. While the gamelan music broadcast over radio and television includes everything from struggling amateurs to accomplished professionals, the cassette recordings present only the top range of performers.
Whatever the positive implications of the cassette industry might be, it is nevertheless seen by many musicians as a grave threat to their profession. Private gamelan concerts, usually commemorating a ritual passage and sponsored by an individual, were frequent before the turbulent 1940's (Japanese occupation in 1942-45, and revolution against the Dutch in 1945-49). During the 1950's and 1960's the frequency dropped off, but top musicians could still count on a steady schedule of engagements. Since the beginning of the cassette industry around 1970, the frequency has dwindled further.
All the performing arts have been affected by the presence of this industry, but none hit so hard as the musicians. Whereas dancers used to require the presence of musicians to provide accompaniment for their rehearsals, the standard practice now is to use commercially produced cassettes of dance music, or to make recordings for that purpose. It is not unusual for a dancer to use a cassette for performances, thereby eliminating the musician completely (an all-too-familiar scenario for those who follow almost all kinds of dance in contemporary Euro-American culture) and pocketing the entire fee. Ritual ceremonies in which gamelan has traditionally played an essential role are often held to the sound of cassettes blasting through a rented loudspeaker system. The cassettes made explicitly for wedding and other ceremonies are particularly pernicious. Presenting the very pieces required for the ceremonies, played by top musicians, these are fast-selling substitutes for live performances--and substantially cheaper than hiring even a small group of mediocre musicians. The industry is taking such a large bite out of the livelihood of skilled musicians that very few can make a living simply as performing artists.
It would be one thing if musicians made handsome sums for their efforts in the recording studios, but they do not. They are paid more for recording than for normal performances, to be sure, but it is almost always a single fee, with no provision for collection of royalties. To give an idea of the range of fees paid, I cite two extremes in recent recordings of musicians in Yogyakarta. One company (Fajar) took a group of musicians to Semarang (three hours away), recorded for most of the day and evening, fed the group several times, and paid each musician around 50,000 rupiah, with extra for drummer and female singers. This fee was unusually high, especially for a single day's activities, no matter how gruelling. On the other hand, the national recording company, Lokananta, paid each musician only about 40,000 rupiah for what wound up being four days of rehearsing and four more full days of recording. If musicians could earn 5,000 rupiah a day, they could live with a modest degree of comfort, but these recording sessions are special. They occur unpredictably and too infrequently for most musicians to compensate for the many occasions that will employ tapes and playback devices rather than live musicians.
There is a tradition in Java of the performing artist as a kind of uncomplaining servant. This is clearest in the courts, where musicians and dancers, like sweepers and cooks, are all abdidalem (literally, "servants of the king"). When an individual sponsors an event with music outside of the courts, a similar relationship prevails. The host may demand this or that piece, stop the performance at any time, and so forth. He who pays the fiddler calls the tune; it is the host who is generally in command. By tradition, this was not an exploitative relationship, because the performers were fed and paid as well as the host could manage. If the host scrimped, his reputation could suffer greatly. In the cassette business, the entrepreneurs are not celebrating rites of passage and are not concerned whether musicians complain about long hours with low pay. In fact, at the moment of performance, since the musicians are being paid better for their time than they might be for a normal performance, the musicians are reluctant to complain. In Java the time immediately surrounding the transfer of money from one individual to another is generally one in which the recipient must show gratitude. Considering whether the fee is commensurate with the services rendered can only properly occur well after the act of transfer, and by that time the cassette industry has the tape and the legal rights to mass-produce it. Some musicians may be reluctant before a recording session; but, given their financial problems, they are not likely to turn down an offer beforehand and they may feel pressured to go along as part of the group. For recordings by Lokananta, participation is required of the civil servant musicians associated with national radio stations (RRI) and fees are not negotiable.
Cassettes and Musicians in Banyumas
Commercial cassette recordings of Banyumas music began in the mid-1970's, four or five years after the first recordings of mainstream Central Javanese music (primarily from the famous court-city of Surakarta to the east). Banyumas is part of the same Indonesian province of Central Java, but is culturally distinct, with its own dialect of the Javanese language, its own culinary preferences, and its own performing arts. At first it was large companies outside the Banyumas area that produced the recordings and then sold them back to the area, much as the "major" recording companies in the U.S. sold to "race" and "hillbilly" markets before World War II. Yet several local companies have emerged. The most prominent is Hidup Baru, whose main operation is located in the cassette store in downtown Purwokerto, the administrative center of Banyumas. Owned and run by a wealthy Chinese businessman, who also owns several movie theaters in the same town, Hidup Baru produces traditional Banyumas music and related dramatic arts, with a few pop and hybrid offerings. The major genres represented are karawitan (gamelan music), calung (bamboo xylophone ensemble music), music for bg (hobby-horse trance-dance), wayang kulit (shadow puppetry), kethoprak (traditional drama), and dagelan Banyumasan (local comedy). Of these, the local comedy tapes are the best selling. One volume of the comedy duo Pang-Penjol has sold over 40,000 copies and is still much in demand. Most of the other genres also enjoy a good market, throughout the network of about ninety stores in the Banyumas area to which Hidup Baru distributes. In addition to these major genres, Hidup Baru has produced cassettes of slawatan (Islamic chanting with terbang [single-headed drum] accompaniment), a short wayang jemblung (an imitation of wayang kulit, but with instrumental parts taken by voices--considered a humorous genre, distinctly Banyumas), and a number of hybrid genres, mixing popular genres from neighboring West Java (Bandung and Cirebon) with indigenous Banyumas singing. Best selling among the hybrid are jaipongan versi Banyumas (Banyumas versions of the popular West Javanese social dance music jaipongan).
The company began in 1975 as a local liaison for a Jakarta-based company known as FM. Hidup Baru would locate performers of Banyumas music and drama and arrange for them to travel to studios in Jakarta for recording sessions, with copies made by FM from the master. Problems in 1978 led to the termination of the liaison with FM and the formation of a new one between Hidup Baru and SM in Bandung, West Java.
In 1981, a family quarrel resulted in the establishment of a rival recording venture based in a store right next to Hidup Baru in Purwokerto. One of the main recording artists for Hidup Baru, S. Bono, contracted with this new venture, Nusa Indah; the others either sought options to record with either, or shunned the rebellious newcomer, since the fees it offered were no more than those at Hidup Baru. Of these two, only Hidup Baru has obtained a permit to produce and distribute its own cassettes; Nusa Indah contracts with a larger firm (Semi-Record). Neither of them have their own studio, but rent ones in major urban centers far from Banyumas: Bandang, Jakarta, Semarang, and Yogyakarta (all well over one hundred miles from Purwokerto). Some tapes of Banyumas music have appeared on the Dahlia, Bobby-Record, Jaya, and Gita labels. Cassette salespeople in Purwokerto and other towns in Banyumas have told me that all of these have at one time been affiliated with FM. In addition to the local companies and these four, most of the major cassette companies of Java produce some Banyumas cassettes. These include the prestigious national recording company Lokananta; others are Borobudur (formerly Enggal Jaya), Kusuma, Cokro, Fajar, Ira-Record (formerly Wisanda), Kencana-Record, and P2SC. The process of being recorded can be a trying one for musicians. Most performers, if they have recorded at all, have done so with a number of companies, and have encountered a variety of situations. I interviewed several Banyumas musicians extensively about their experiences in the studio and their experiences dealing with the recording company owners and agents. In the studio, musicians face conditions drastically different from the social and ceremonious atmosphere they are used to when performing live. In some cases the performers can position themselves in more or less their normal formation, with anything from a simple stereo placement of two microphones to individual mics for each instrument and voice. Yet in some cases singers, drummer, and gong player may be placed in separate rooms to allow special volume settings (at Ira-Record studios in Semarang, for example). Most disturbing to the musicians are the cases where they must play in individual compartments, separated by plexiglass (at P2SC studios in Jakarta, for example). Though musicians can see each other, they can only hear each other through headphones. Still, they must perform the same spirited music that the cassette-buying public knows from lively ceremonies.
Encounters with business people can be a source of uneasiness as well. S. Bono, a primary school teacher and composer who has been the musical director for many recordings over the last ten years, told me that he was unsure how to settle on a fair price for a recording session. For his first session, he was asked to name a price for his entire group. He had to consider costs of transportation, meals, time in rehearsal, and time in the studio (which could not be determined beforehand). When his initial offer was immediately accepted, he felt he had probably grossly underestimated what the cassette industry representative would have been willing to pay. Since then he has become accustomed to dealing with people in this industry, but says he still finds it somewhat uncomfortable in comparison to negotiating with a private individual for a live performance in conjunction with a ritual ceremony.
In Banyumas, as elsewhere, musicians receive a single fee, with no royalties. For this reason, musicians tend not to complain about the rampant pirating. They have already received their fee and in some cases are pleased that their music is popular enough to merit the efforts of the piraters. The licensed cassette companies are the ones who lose out to piraters. One reason suggested to me by one Banyumas musician is that piraters tend to be poor Javanese and licensed cassette-company owners wealthy Chinese.
Even the best-known musicians in Banyumas do not make a living from recording revenues. One of the most active and widely known musicians, Rasito, has recorded over thirty one-hour cassettes of new and traditional Banyumas-style gamelan music and forty-seven all-night (seven- or eight-hour) shadow puppetry performances. In addition to this, he teaches at the Banyumas conservatory of performing arts (SMKI) and, for one week out of every month, at the national academy in Surakarta (ASKI). Most of his income, however, comes from playing for live performances by the puppeteer Ki Sugino Siswocarito. This puppeteer is far and away the most popular in the Banyumas region, and his popularity has been enhanced, most would say, by the vast number of cassette recordings he has made. Rasito, like other musicians in the Banyumas area, sees more positive implications in the cassette industry than some of his compatriots in the court centers to the east. He and his group Purba Kencana acknowledge the role of the industry in their continuing local fame. One must also take into account bitter complaints by underemployed puppeteers about the dominance of one central figure in Banyumas wayang. A few others have been recorded, but have not sold as well as Ki Sugino: Ki Soegito Purbocarito, Ki Djono Hadiprayitno, Ki Taram, Ki Marto Warsono, Ki Sukirno Atmosudarmo, and the late Ki Soerono. Yet among these the young Ki Djono Hadiprayitno is enjoying a fast rise in popularity, one which might have been much slower had Hidup Baru not recorded him.
Whatever problems the cassette industry may be causing or contributing toward in Java, it is seen primarily as a positive development by musicians in the Banyumas region. Some of the reasons for this are clear. It has apparently not cut into the frequency of live performances to anywhere near the extent that it has in other parts of Java. The population of Banyumas is still willing to spend substantial amounts of money to hire live musicians for important ritual functions (weddings, circumcisions, and "vowed" ceremonies staged because certain wishes have been granted). The area is not as densely populated as other areas of Central Java to the east, and most of those who are wealthy have not lost their enthusiasm for their local traditions. While there was a scare during the first several years of cassette recordings of local music that live performance was doomed, it is no longer fashionable, according to a number of musicians and other local residents, to play recorded music at ceremonies in Banyumas. Those who do risk losing face within their community. One musician I talked with did show disdain for recording music, for fear of biting into the market for his group's paid engagements. Yet it is hard to imagine his group, which features his fifteen-year-old grandson as an uncannily "beautiful" transvestite singer-dancer (lnggr) and a generous dose of humor in live performance, being replaced by cassette and tape machine. Banyumas Javanese in general show a strong sense of local identity, and part of that identity is a distinctive and pervasive brand of brash humor and a love for lively events. There is far greater opportunity for interaction between performers and audience here than in the more refined styles of Central Java, and this difference may account for the greater staying power of the Banyumas traditions in this era of commercial mass media. Probably the most distinctive genre of music in the Banyumas region, and also the most widespread, is the bamboo xylophone ensemble called calung, with several singer-dancers, usually female (called lnggr or, more rarely, ronggng). Hidup Baru and other companies began to record and disseminate this music in the late 1970's. The owner of Hidup Baru told me he was reluctant beforehand to record this "crude" art form, for fear that it would only appeal to people too poor to buy the cassettes in sufficient numbers. Yet he responded to requests by a substantial number of customers specifically for calung, and chose the groups and singers based on suggestions of customers and musicians in his hire. As a result, a number of young performers, such as the lnggr Kampi and Kamiyati, suddenly found themselves media stars. These two come from the village of Banjarwaru, near the town of Kroya, in the Cilacap district of Banyumas. As their names spread as lnggr prestigious enough to be recorded, their engagement schedules filled quickly and their fees rose. More recently, other young musicians have gained similar exposure and are thereby able to demand much higher rates for live appearances than they would otherwise. A number of these come from Banjarwaru and other villages near Kroya, as the cassette industry has established Kroya as an area of top-rate calung groups and lnggr performers.
Perhaps more significant than the enhancement of individual careers and certain villages, however, is the rise in popularity of this genre in general since its entrance into the world of commercial media, only within the last six or eight years. Not only do performers attest to their busier schedules and greater prestige in their communities, but makers of calung with whom I spoke noted a marked increase in orders for new calung over the last five or six years. It should be added that the successful groups cater to their audiences by performing calung versions of some pop songs, and live performances are not complete without the slapstick and ribald antics of a clown figure (badhut) who appears around midnight during performances that normally last from about 8:00 p.m. until 4:00 or 4:30 the next morning. The recording of music for bg (hobby-horse trance-dance) is another interesting chapter in the Banyumas cassette recording story. Though considered by many to be a low form of performing art, in contrast to calung and especially wayang kulit, bg music has been recorded by Hidup Baru and, according to the owner, sells moderately well. This struck me as curious. I had heard this music in the context of several trance-dance rituals and found it hard to imagine it outside of its ritual context, let alone as taped music available commercially. A practicing trance-dancer told me that people like to listen to the lively rhythms of the drum and that the group recorded had added a female singer--a suggestion of the recording company, and not a usual practice for live bg performances. He laughed when I asked whether these tapes were ever used as substitutes for live musicians in ritual contexts. This was certainly not the case, he replied--no danger of these tapes putting live performers out of work. Rather, the commercial recordings have given the bg genre as a whole slightly greater prestige than it had previously and enabled the particular group recorded to earn more respectable fees than it could before. And of course, these recordings are also changing people's conceptions of the genre, which now may include a female singer.
Beyond changing people's conceptions about the relative status of individual genres within the Banyumas tradition, the commercial recording of Banyumas music (and drama) has given the tradition as a whole a new prestige, a place alongside the more famous mainstream tradition of Central Java (the court-based style of Surakarta). During the era before Indonesian independence, the culture of the court had the most exalted place in the minds of the Javanese populace, and music performed by servants of the ruler was, by definition, the most prestigious and powerful. Since Banyumas was never an area of royal courts, it was seen traditionally, by the local people as well as other Javanese, as an outlying district, subordinate politically and inferior artistically to the Central Javanese courts to the east. The early decades of Indonesian independence saw a rapid decline in the cultural role of the courts, but still the arts associated with them were the ones taught at academic institutions and favored heavily in the mass media. Now that cassette companies find that Banyumas music will turn a profit for them, Banyumas tradition is gaining a measure of prestige and recognition that would have been impossible during earlier times. Now it enjoys more nearly the same system of patronage as the mainstream tradition, packaged in the same colorful little cassette cases and sitting on the same shelves in the cassette stores.
In 1978 / 79, shortly after the initial success of commercial recordings of Banyumas music, the provincial government founded a local conservatory of performing arts, where students learn Banyumas gamelan and calung music as well as standard repertoire from the court centers. More recently, academic institutions in these court centers (ASKI Surakarta and ASTI Yogyakarta) have begun to offer courses in Banyumas music and dance. Admittedly, it would be difficult to substantiate that commercial cassette recordings were a direct influence in the academic acceptance of Banyumas tradition or that cassettes, more than the presence of the conservatory, contribute to the greater prestige this tradition apparently enjoys today than a decade ago: the national government has expressed increasing concern over the disappearance of local traditions and may have contributed to a sense of pride in traditions outside the mainstream. The widely known and highly regarded Central Javanese musician and puppeteer Ki Nartosabdho has also championed marginal styles, including that of Banyumas, in his performances and cassettes. Yet it would seem misguided to rule out the proliferation of local cassettes as a highly significant factor in recent developments. To many musicians it is the single most important force in the recent history of music and related performing arts.
In summary, I suggest that one can see two complementary trends. The first is towards greater differentiation among individual performers and groups: between those who are recorded and those who are not. Commercial cassettes harden the lines of distinction, sharply raising the prestige and earning power of recording artists while lowering them for others. The second trend is towards the equalization of status for genres and whole marginal traditions. In these cases, the cassette industry acts as a leveler, blurring the older status distinctions that were still in place a generation ago.
In addition to its impact on musical practice and conception in Java, the cassette industry has some important implications for scholars, in particular ethnomusicologists. It was not long after the dawn of this industry in Java that scholars began using cassette recordings as research data. Roger Vetter bases much of his master's thesis on commercially recorded performances (Vetter 1977), as does Rene Lysloff (Lysloff 1982). Wright refers to a number of commercial cassettes of traditional music in his study of music in Cirebon (Wright 1978). In his comprehensive catalog of recordings of music of Bali and Lombok, Andrew Toth (Toth 1980) finds the vast majority of recordings to be cassettes produced in Indonesia. In my own dissertation (Sutton 1982), I make frequent reference to commercial cassettes as accepted "texts" of Javanese tradition; and in my current work on Banyumas and other marginal traditions of Javanese music, I have been relying heavily on commercial cassettes in compiling repertory and exploring variety in performance practice. Indigenous scholars are also using cassettes in their research, particularly in their investigations of lesser-known traditions (for example, Supanggah, et al. 1983).
Whereas a scholar planning field work on music in Java fifteen years ago would be almost sure to include recording as a central activity, it is now conceivable to conduct field work and return home with hours (days, weeks!) of recorded material without even taking a tape recorder to the field. For those whose teaching duties include directing a Javanese gamelan performance study group, a collection of cassettes can be a valuable source of new repertory. And for the researcher their potential as indicators of performance practice and current musical tastes is formidable.
The research potential, in fact, begins not after the period of field research, but during it. Commercial cassettes may play an important role in the interaction between the ethnomusicologist and the musicians with whom he is studying. It can be extremely valuable to spend time with one's teacher listening to commercial cassettes and discussing their merits and shortcomings. Also, Javanese I have interviewed have suggested, on a number of occasions, that I try to find a particular cassette in order to hear a good example of a certain piece, style, or genre. The cassette industry has unwittingly built a kind of reference library of mass-produced authoritative "texts," to be consulted by those seeking knowledge about performance practice.
Despite all this, I would not recommend ethnomusicologists leave their tape recorders behind, because there are a number of reasons to continue to make one's own field recordings. One still may wish to record single instruments in order to gain a clear document of particular techniques, or to let the recorder run throughout an entire ceremony in order to be able to check over the precise flow of events. I hardly need to go on listing the many ends to which ethnomusicologists put their trusty machines and certainly would not belittle the contributions these machines have made to our work. But the cassette industry has provided at negligible cost a wealth of material representing the most prestigious musicians, a remarkably broad spectrum of genres and, in most cases, of repertory within those genres.
What problems or shortcomings, then, does the scholar find in this ready-made data? Most fundamental is the fact that they are only recordings, separating musical sounds from the musicians who make them and from the social milieu in which those sounds have been and continue to be meaningful. They represent a record of an event the purchaser has not witnessed and may not even be able to imagine. These broad considerations aside, the cassettes offer other problems as well. First, tape quality varies from fairly good to very poor; tapes may crease after being played a few times. Second, and related to the first, sound quality is uneven; where performances may have been of high caliber, the recording (or the particular copy that one happens to obtain) may be badly distorted, poorly balanced, or uneven in speed. Third, names of performers other than singers are seldom listed, nor are dates of recording or release. Fourth, on cassettes produced by the less prestigious companies, pieces may be incompletely or incorrectly labeled, and may be cut off before their conclusion. Fifth, mistakes may be let go for financial reasons, since the companies are likely to be concerned with the standards of the tape-buying public rather than those of the performers. Even when a performing group is willing to spend extra time at no additional charge to attempt a better take, some recording companies will refuse if they believe an early take to be good enough to sell. Sixth, the repertory for some traditions is not evenly represented: an enormous number of cassettes have been produced of the mainstream tradition of Central Javanese gamelan, but the repertory presented excludes a vast amount of restrained court music that simply would not sell as well as the livelier pieces that are recorded.
For these and other reasons, it is important that someone using commercial cassettes for research have considerable experience with the musical tradition represented. Such experiences should include attendance at live performances, lessons with acknowledged musical experts, and some attempts of one's own at recording the music in question. In short, cassettes can serve best only as an extension to field research.
To conclude, let me comment on the relative implications of this industry for performing Javanese musicians and for ethnomusicological scholars. In many ways, this industry would appear to serve the scholar better than it does the musicians whose music it records. Yet I have tried to show that the situation is complex and contradictory. The scholar can quickly build a substantial collection and familiarize himself with the sounds of various genres of music that might otherwise be inaccessible without an exceedingly lengthy stay in the field. But herein lies an insidious problem: as an objectifier and commercializer of sound, the cassette presents the scholar with sound divorced from performance context, providing only certain kinds of information. For Javanese musicians, this industry may severely curtail opportunities for live performance. On the other hand, it may offer new possibilities for learning, and a new means of gaining exposure and prestige--not only for individuals, but for genres and even entire regions, such as Banyumas. The cassette industry represents a very significant force in the world of Javanese music and deserves to be watched closely by scholars who seek to understand music as a part of Javanese culture.
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Originally published in The World of Music (Journal of the International Institute for Comparative Music Studies and Documentation [Berlin] in association with the International Music Council [UNESCO]), Vol. 27, No. 3, 1985