In Reply to: Music and the Arts posted by emacy on Sunday, 21. June 2009 at 12:47 Bali Time:
Not quite sure what a doctoral candidate is, but would like to share what Balinese music means to me. We are a 40 yr old couple with young children that frequent Bali from Australia annually. I would like to say we seek out balinese music when we travel but we don't, only what we are coincedently blessed with in our travels.
When we come home from work, we light our scents of Bali, put on our gamelan music piped outside in our peaceful space, and our minds almost stop. The music is meditative to us, and signifies peace and the end of our day, and grounds us from all that is happening or has transpired. It has become subconsciously ritualistic. I love it, and it takes me places. It also fills that void between our times in Bali and home. One of my favourite pieces is a gamelan performance by an orchestra performing in Ubud that you can see on Utube. If you haven't seen it, do yourself a favour. Everytime I listen to it (daily for a year now) I get the same chills.