Gamelan & Mental Health: Experiential Music Making in University Communities

Gamelan ensembles in North American institutions, have served as a pedagogical tool in music curriculums since their initial proliferation abroad in 1960, with Mantle Hood’s (1960) concept of “bi-musicality” serving as the primary motivation. I argue that the usage of these ensembles needs to grow beyond the original pedagogical agenda that brought them here, and that universities and scholars should acknowledge the benefits these ensembles provide beyond Hood’s term of bi-musicality.

In recent years, the rapid decline in mental health, has constituted what some scholars call a crisis, or an epidemic of loneliness. This decline is especially present among millennials and members of generation z in North America, who have lived through the September 11^th terrorist attacks, multiple conflicts in the Middle East, the housing market crash of 2008, and now the COVID-19 global pandemic. Engaging with sources that identify these generations perception of the American Dream, and case studies that identify feelings of loneliness, anxiety, and depression within these generations, I argue that more needs to be done to remedy this decline in overall mental wellbeing. I believe one potential remedy lies in community music making.

Engaging with Turino’s (2008) concept of presentational and participatory music making, and Clendinning’s (2020) spectrum of pre-professional and experiential ensembles, I examine the benefits that participatory, experiential-focused music making groups can provide to their members. I engage with scholarship that identifies mental benefits of community based music making within the context of music therapy. I further supplement this argument through my engagement with gamelan ensembles around me, conducted via fieldwork between August 2023 and March 2024.

Finally, I argue that the social and mental benefits provided in experimental gamelan ensembles, coupled with their unique relationship within North American institutions of higher learning, make them especially advantageous to the demographic of college-aged students, who have been especially affected by the ongoing mental health crisis.