Ellen Koskoff, author of Bittersweet Sounds of Passage: Balinese Gamelan Angklung Cremation Music, answers questions about her new book.

Q: Why did you decide to write this book?

I wrote this book for a number of reasons. First, I fell in love with the music, especially with its playfulness and metric ambiguity. Second, it was an opportunity to more fully explore a musical repertoire and its contemporary cultural significance in a book-length study. And third, I wanted to dispel the idea that gamelan angklung music was merely ambient sound, not to be taken too seriously.

Q: What is the most interesting discovery you made while researching and writing your book?

In addition to learning why this particular music was so important and how its performance at a cremation served a number of social and spiritual purposes, I was reminded of how beautifully different and creative all humans are when they do something meaningful and share it with others.

Q: What myths do you hope your book will dispel or what do you hope your book will help readers unlearn?

Much of the previous scholarly literature on this ensemble and its music describes it as “ambient sound,” “musical wallpaper,” “humble,” or “diminutive.” And, that there has been so little research on this repertoire is evidence that previous scholars did not think it was significant enough to study. This, of course, is ultimately connected to major historical and political issues that affected Bali in the 19th and 20th centuries. I wanted to show the complexity of the music as well as its multiple meanings for contemporary Balinese.

Q: What is your advice to scholars/authors who want to take on a similar project?

Go for it! It takes a lot of time, work, and patience to write a book, but if you have enough passion for your subject, it will get done.

Q: What do you like to read/watch/or listen to for fun?

English and continental European “noir” mysteries.

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