[Durero]

This past Tuesday I participated in one of the most joyous performances in my life!

It was a world music fusion concert with a really strange & diverse mix of rock band, Korean drumming, and Balinese gamelan played in rock band as well as bluegrass band formats.

The highlight of the evening for me: (I'm on the left)





A bit of explanation: this piece is called Kotekan which refers to the extremely elaborate and complex style of interlocking melodies which is a dominant feature of Balinese music. The only practical way to perform the high speed interlocking parts on electric guitar is to play touch-style with a fabric damper on the neck because the parts consist of running 16th notes split between pairs of instruments (in this case two guitars) with each player doing 16th note rests when the other plays her 16th note in rapid alternation.

Here's an example of the kind of interlocking parts I'm talking about on traditional gamelan instruments:



And here's the same piece Kotekan played by our gamelan percussion orchestra a few years ago: (I'm second from the left in the front row of players)




The other two pieces I played in were rock fusion with Korean drums & percussion: