Gamelan: Signature Pedagogy for Creative Collaboration

Abstract

Current research in creative collaboration in music is largely limited to professional groups in the areas of jazz and composition, often in the context of higher education. Little is being done in the area of world music or, in this case, gamelan. In this chapter, I take an autoethnographical approach, as both a gamelan player and educator, to examine how gamelan cultivates the skills and disposition necessary for creative collaboration. Gamelan, with its minimal entry point compared to most other groups/ensembles, and its emphasis on community and playing together, exhibits a non-hierarchical approach to learning—a key feature of creative collaboration highlighted by Barrett et al. ( 2021 ). This makes it an exemplar of creative collaboration not just for the music profession but for other professions as well. As collaboration is now recognised as vitally important in many professions, gamelan has the potential to show how collaborative skills can be learnt and cultivated by anyone and, when required, transferred to another context and environment. This chapter also considers how gamelan can be a signature pedagogy for cultivating creative collaboration in music that can be experienced and transferred beyond the music profession.

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