Musical Encounter in Java and Bali

When Claude Levi-Strauss speaks, in the "Overture" to The Raw and the Cooked> of music as uthe supreme mystery of the science of man,"* 1 he refers to a language that can be communicated beyond the boundaries of, yet still within, culture. Inscribing a very small arc within that universal circle, I would like to consider two musical ensembles, Java nese and Balinese gamelan, whose cultural contexts as well as musics have marked sympathies. In each case, the line of my argument wends a rather long way from conventions of speech to social interaction to percussion sounds. Hopefully the pengeoet, as the Balinese call the fast, heavy-stressed final section of a musical piece, will warrant the long development.