An artisan refines a new gong at a factory in Bogor, Indonesia

A traditional music form is finding new fans in the West.


By PETER GELLING BOGOR, Indonesia - Every day, a dozen grizzled men - shirtless, shoeless and with clove cigarettes dangling from their lips - hover over a pit of fire here in a tinroofed shack, taking turns pounding glowing metal into the shape of a gong with the crudest of hammers.
The men are artisans, creating the xylophones, gongs, drums and strings that make up this country’s traditional gamelan orchestras.
The workers are descendants of the laborers hired when this family-run business began making instruments in 1811.
Theirs is a dying art form.
The business, the Gong Factory, is one of Indonesia’s few remaining gamelan workshops.
Fifty years ago there were dozens of such tiny workshops in Bogor here on the island of Java alone.
The workshop in this small city 48 kilometers south of Jakarta has been one of the main suppliers of gamelan instruments in Java since the 1970s, when three of its competitors shut their doors because of a lack of demand.
Over the past decade, orders have been steadily declining here, adding to worries over the rising cost of tin and copper and the decreasing supply of quality woods like teak and jackfruit, which are used to build the ornate stands that cradle the gongs, xylophones and drums.
“I try to make sure there is always work for them so they can earn money,’’ Sukarna, the factory’s sixth-generation owner, said of his workers, who earn about $2 a day.
“But sometimes it is difficult.
’’ Gamelan, which comes from the Javanese word “gamel,” meaning to strike or hammer, is indigenous to Indonesia and has evolved over the centuries into a complex system of layered melodies and tuning .
With no conductor, gamelan is a communal, and often delicate, negotiation among a dozen or more musicians where age and social status factor into the music’s evolution through a single performance.
Gamelan music’s popularity is dwindling among the younger generation of Indonesians, who are more easily lured by Western rock.
Sukarna, 82, was relieved when his younger son, Krisna Hidayat, who is 28 and has a business degree, reluctantly agreed to take over as manager.
Still, Mr. Hidayat said his favorite band was the American hard-rock spectacle Guns N’ Roses.
“My father still listens to gamelan at home,’’ he said.
“I prefer rock ‘n’ roll.
’’ But in a twist, as interest in gamelan has waned in its birthplace, foreign musicians have become enamored with its sound.
Bjork, the Icelandic pop star, has used gamelan instruments in a number of her songs, most famously in her 1993 recording “One Day,’’ and has performed with Balinese gamelan orchestras.
Several contemporary composers have incorporated gamelan into their works, including Philip Glass and Lou Harrison, as did artrock bands of the ‘70s like King Crimson, which adopted gamelan for Western instruments.
Some schools in the United States and Europe now offer gamelan courses.
Britain even includes it in its national music curriculum for primary and secondary schools .
These days, it is orders from abroad that keep the Gong Factory, and other workshops like it, in business.
“Most orders come from America, but we also get many from Australia, France, Germany and England,’’ said Mr. Hidayat, the manager.
Mr. Hidayat has some hope that Western interest in the music will jump start a resurgence of interest in gamelan music in Indonesia.
But he acknowledges that he will not be uploading traditional songs to his iPod anytime soon.