This is the story of a particular Javanese group of 'matching' musical instruments called the gamelan Digul, and their creator, the Indonesian musician and political activist Pontjopangrawit (1893-ca. 1965). He was a superb Javanese court musician, who had entertained at the of king Paku Buwana X as a child. In this magnificent artistic environment he learned how to build gamelans, and also became a sought-after teacher. Involved in radical political activities, Pontjopangrawit was arrested in 1926 for his participation in the movement to free Indonesia from Dutch rule, and spent the next six years in the notorious Dutch East Indies prison camp at Boven Digul. Made in 1927 entirely from 'found' materials in the prison camp, including pans and eating utensils, the gamelan Digul became a symbol for the independence movement long after Pontjopangrawit's own release in 1932. In the 1940s, it was transported to Australia, where the Dutch and their prisoners took refuge from the Japanese invaders. At first interned as enemy aliens by the Australian government, the ex-Digulists were finally released. Cultural activities within the Australian Indonesian community involving the gamelan Digul served to create sympathy and interest for Indonesia's independence, which was granted in 1945. Tragically, Pontjopangrawit himself was later arrested by the Indonesian goverment during the 1965 revolution, and died in custody. This book's musical and political discussions will interest all those concerned with Indonesian and Southeast Asian music, performing arts, history and culture as well as the beginnings of Australian-Indonesian friendship. Margaret Kartomi, AM, FAHA, Dr. Phil, is the Professor ofMusic at Monash University. She has published over a hundred articles and several books, annotated CDs and LP records on the music of various parts of Indonesia and other ethnomusicological topics. She was elected a member of the Australian Academy of Humanities i

This text examines how and why change occurs in musical culture, particularly change engendered by contact between two or more impinging cultures, sub-cultures or classes within a culture. This contact can have positive or negative effects. It may result in an influx of new musical ideas, leading to a greater level of creativity than before, and even inspiring the different groups to develop new habits of discourse about music.;Contact between cultures may also lead to rejection as well as suppression of certain types of music. This process leads to such unfavourable circumstances as abandonment of entire works, genres or concepts or loss of instruments, yet even such conflicts may generate new and more positive creative achievements.

Kartomi first moves through a culture-specific inspection of several societies in Europe, Asia, and Africa, and then, synthesizing current ethnomusicological trends, proceeds to make a large-scale comparative study of classification schemes and the concepts which govern them.