![]() ![]() He offered his full support, and thanks to his advocacy, a new world music ensemble billed as “Intercultural Improvisation” was slated to begin the following January. Drawing inspiration from their examples, I proposed an “Intercultural Improvisation Ensemble” to my advisor, the prolific ethnomusicologist, composer, and trumpeter Dr. At the same time, it seemed clear to me that the precedent had already been set for this sort of project by improvising musicians such as Anthony Brown, David Borgo, Ed Sarath, George Lewis, and Hafez Modirzadeh. Historically, world music ensembles operated as self-sufficient units offset from a separate jazz studies program mainstream Western music operated in a separate department altogether. It seemed like a tall order - after all, each musical tradition operates within its own complex codes of sound and meaning. As we began making preparations for our final gamelan concert, a thought occurred to me: could it be possible to gather musicians from these different ensembles to make music together? ![]() The Department of Ethnomusicology hosts a myriad of world music ensembles, and my experience in the gamelan opened my ears to fascinating new ways of hearing and listening. Just over a year ago, in the spring of 2013, I was completing my second year of doctoral coursework in ethnomusicology at UCLA, which included playing gong in the Balinese Gamelan Ensemble. None of them, however, has been as exciting nor as bizarre as my most recent stint as the co-founder and co-director of the Omni-Musicality Group (also known as the OMG). Khalil’s work at UCSD’s Temporal Dynamics of Learning Center.Īnd here’s a nice video documenting the ongoing gamelan program at the Museum School.Since taking up the trumpet at age ten - and the trombone two years later - my life as a musician has taken some interesting turns. Read the full text of this article on the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Asian Art website.įind out more about Dr. Brown, who studied under Hood at UCLA and subsequently founded the Center for World Music, made his first efforts to bring world music, a term he is credited with having invented, to the elementary classroom in 1973 through his “world music in the schools” program in the San Francisco Bay Area. The gamelan program at the Museum School has its philosophical roots in Mantle Hood’s well-known concept of “bi-musicality.” Just as one who is bi-lingual must have fluency in more than one language, one must be fluent in more than one musical language to be considered bi-musical. Our current work explores whether improvements at interpersonal time processing, or synchrony, may translate into improved attention.Īlso of interest in this article is Alex’s account of the history of the Center for World Music’s World Music in the Schools program, based on his experience as a founding instructor during and after the program’s 1999 inauguration in San Diego at the Museum School: Our research has found a connection between the ability to synchronize with an ensemble in a gamelan-like setting and other cognitive characteristics, particularly the ability to focus and maintain attention. Khalil offers important observations on attention in children, impaired temporal processing, ADHD, and the benefits of bi-musicality. Gamelan aficionados and music educators alike with find much of interest in this great Smithsonian article on the value of music education for kids by Center for World Music board member Alexander Khalil, PhD. ![]()
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