Colloquium:

John Roeder and Michael Tenzer

University of British Columbia
Inside Gabor: Tempo, Melody, and the
Identity of a Balinese Composition

John Roeder Michael Tenzer

Professor of Music Theory Professor of Ethnomusicology
Synopsis
This paper is a collaboration between an ethnomusicologist and a music theorist
in search of ways to achieve richer analyses of individual non-Western selections.
They will begin by discussing the pedagogy and integration of methodologies from
ethnomusicology and music theory in a course they team-teach, “Periodicity in
Music.”

Contextualizing their research within the growing subdiscipline of world-music

analysis, Professors Roeder and Tenzer will present as a case study an analysis Tuesday, May 3, 2011
of Gabor, an often-performed piece for Balinese gamelan gong kebyar which, like 3:30 p.m.
other music in its genre, deploys concurrent textural layers moving at different
speeds, organized around a slow melody measured by recurring patterns of gong Music Building
strokes. They explore and question the identity of Gabor’s essential features, how
they can be appropriately represented, and the theories those representations entail. Room 216
The ontology of a Balinese “composition” is negotiable at multiple levels that bear All are welcome
crucially on what insider and outsider analyses deem structurally essential.

These considerations provide a backdrop for the analysis proper. Professors Roeder
and Tenzer begin their study by comparing insider and outsider transcriptions,
candidly assessing the possibilities and paradoxes they present. They then apply
cross-cultural listening strategies, involving basic perceptions of interval repetition,
focus, and timing, and extend them to include analysis of Gabor’s pitch-class
structures and levels of pulse salience.