Performing vs. Recording: The Sound of Modern Bali

Aryandari, Citra (2020) Performing vs. Recording: The Sound of Modern Bali. In: Sounds, Body and Power Politics and Poetics of Religious Sound, 24-29 Februari 2020, Asian Research Institute NUS, Singapore.

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Abstract

This essay will discuss my ethnographic research with a Balinese community named Tenganan Pegringsingan. I was very impressed with their ability to maintain performative traditions dating back to the 11th century. The village was filled with beautiful sounds during the ritual occasions, but I was not allowed to record them because it is considered inappropriate to record sacred rites. Even so, outsiders and participants can always enjoy the live sound during the ritual ceremony, which is then recorded in our memory. Interestingly, while modern Balinese music has been recorded since 1928 by the record company Odeon and Beka, Balinese people seem to prefer live performances held in the villages. In 1945, with the emergence of RRI (Radio Republik Indonesia), Balinese people began to get used to sound recordings. Many music competitions are held in Bali and the growth of visual technology had an impact on the uniformity of musical production. These developments provoke salient questions. How did Balinese people respond to modernity through sound recordings, while maintaining traditional sonic ideologies? How can a community maintain ritual traditions by rejecting recording technologies, if recordings are present as the extended life of the culture itself? Why does the recording, built upon a power relationship, produce a different experience if it is compared to the live cultural performance? Moreover, these questions interrogate and reconfigure interactions in the fields of ethnomusicology, performance studies, and religious practice.

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