Continuity, variation, selection

Cecil Sharp (1907) identifies three principles or forces at work in the shaping of English folk song. These are: continuity (based on memorisation and exact repetition), variation (the way a song may change each time it’s sung) and selection (the community’s acceptance or rejection of the variations so that some continue while others are dropped).42

These terms, of course, are similar to Darwin’s principles of evolution, “variation, selection and preservation of traits” (Darwin 1859). More recent studies suggest that such an evolutionary model of creativity may be misleading (see, for instance, Perkins 1994). According to the model, a folk song acquires its qualities through the achievements of many generations of singers:

42 They form the core of the International Folk Music Council’s definition of 1954: “Folk music is music that has been submitted to the process of oral transmission. It is the product of evolution and is dependent on the circumstances of continuity, variation and selection" (Karpeles 1955:6).

Individual angles and irregularities have been gradually rubbed off and smoothed away by communal effort, just as the pebble on the sea shore is rounded and polished by the action of the waves. (Sharp 1907:16)43

Bertrand Bronson’s "Morphology of the ballad tunes” (1954) reassesses Sharp’s model and suggested that self-selection by singer may be more

significant: continuity of a tradition is so ingrained that it acts as an inner check, preventing the “unacceptable” coming into being (ibid.:13). However Bronson does not fully explore whether what is regarded as unacceptable by a society may also be subject to change, nor does he examine the complexity of the relationship between performer and the surrounding community of which he or she is a member.

In Bali, gender players are acutely conscious of the approval or

disapproval of the community. Loceng told me he was going to try out the piece “Segara Madu”, which he had recently adopted from another area, as a

petegak, or sitting piece before a wayang, to see whether it met with the

approval of the discerning Sukawati audience (personal communication, 1992). Audience approval and disapproval play a large role in Balinese gamelan competitions (Bakan 1999:112-13). Bakan’s examples (as with Western pop charts) tend to involve submitting whole pieces to be approved, in which small variants might slip by unnoticed, but in Sukawati it is the complexity of the variations themselves for which the area is famous and which are appreciated by aficionados. Gender players perform for a number of different audiences simultaneously: discerning musicians and puppeteers, casual spectators, and, at temple festivals and other rituals, the gods. Players aim their complex variations and versions mainly at the most knowledgeable audience members.

Loceng’s frequent statements that he makes pieces more complex so they cannot be stolen imply a very active listening, which in reality is only adopted by some fellow musicians.

Even in a village tradition such as Sukawati, where pieces have been greatly changed within living memory and continue to change, it is interesting to re-apply Sharp’s concept of continuity. What is noticeable is that all the changes to the pieces seem to make the style "more ours” to those who own them. It is

43 Note the similarity with Levi-Strauss’s imagery: "during the process of oral transmission, these probabilist levels [of myths] will rub against each other and wear each other down, thus

gradually separating off from the bulk of the text what might be called its crystalline parts” (Levi- Strauss 1981:626-7).

as if Sukawati's reputation and self-identity are spurring on the very changes that elsewhere might be seen to be an unacceptable modernisation of local identity and tradition. This perhaps reflects Hood's (1959) notion of “offensive” versus “defensive” traditions. Sukawati style threatens to replace older styles in some other areas, while in Sukawati itself changes are made that make pieces more characteristically “Sukawati”. in some other areas, preservation rather than change ensures continuity, as with Vonck’s (1997) description of Made Sujana’s edict forbidding change in the Tejakula gender tradition (see chapter 2 of this study).

Which elements can vary in gendert Musicians state that whatever changes can be made one should never lose the sense of the piece’s pokok (“trunk”). I explore the rather subtle notion of pokok in gender wayang later in this study, but one could sum it up as “simple underlying form of the piece, which contains the piece’s identity”. Some special restraints are placed on improvised variations, in that they must fit into the overall structure of the piece as performed by the other players.

Sharp portrays variation as an almost unconscious, blind force, with the implication, perhaps, that it is a succession of mistakes, equivalent to scribal errors in written traditions. What, then, are we to make of a statement by Loceng in chapter 6 that his changes made on the spur of the moment while playing are never done “without thought” (I: tanpa pikir)? I think what he means is that, despite some changes appearing to “slip out” as if unconsciously, he is always on top of them, always in control.

This highlights one problem with applying the concepts of “continuity, variation and selection”: it implies that these are outside, abstract forces at work on individuals, ignoring their choices. More recent studies treat musicians and their surrounding music cultures more responsively. Lortat-Jacob’s depiction of Sardinian player-composers, for instance, foregrounds individual choice: he describes how Pichiaddas worked hard to ensure his music’s individuality, “alone, at night, in his kitchen”, going over his repertoire “the way a stamp collector reviews his entire collection to savor its richness” (Lortat-Jacob 1995:14).