Indonesian traditional music as a whole demonstrates the country’s cultural diversity – a mix between local’s musical creativity as well as subsequent foreign musical influences that shaped Indonesia’s music scenes contemporarily. For Palmer Keen, a self-described ethnomusicologist from the United States, the traditional ensemble music gamelan is the gateway drug to Indonesian music.
Keen has been living in Indonesia for seven years and he spends his time extensively travels around the country, doing research and recording a lot of different traditional music groups. Through his journey, Keen met by and fell more deeply in love with Dayak lute musicians in Kalimantan, lalove artisans in Sulawesi, gamelan groups in East Java and many others. All of his journeys are documented on his ethnomusicology blog with many videos and audio recordings as well as analysis and comparisons of the various styles and instruments.
One of the main problems many nations are facing is the rapid modernization that, while bringing various positive impacts, also putting certain cultural products at a risk of disappearing and many Indonesian traditional music instruments be a part of it. Keen has his own opinion on this, stating that technology and tradition doesn’t always necessarily oppose each other. His goal here is how to benefit the traditional music communities using advanced technology inventions for people out there to listen in a way that they maybe couldn’t do before.
So far, Keen has visited at least 27 of Indonesia’s 34 provinces and hopes to visit Papua someday. And while he can’t give exact answer when or how this work of his will end, he said that as long as there are still interesting music to explore, then he vowed to continue.
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