Among the exotic musical instruments that fill Assistant Professor Jennifer Matsue's office are a Brazilian berimbau (a one-stringed instrument with a bowlike body, used to accompany the Brazilian martial art form called capoeira), several gourd guiros, carved flutes, and dozens of other intriguing-looking instruments. But the place of honor is reserved for two major new acquisitions: a set of large Japanese drums and a huge Balinese gamelan. The new instruments came to Union courtesy of the Freeman grant supporting initiatives in East Asian studies.
The Japanese drums might be used in Buddhist temple or Shinto rituals,” says Matsue; “the smaller ones would be used in theater. There are traditional wadaiko pieces, modern compositions, and works influenced by African styles and arguably jazz-a tremendous variety of styles, combined with choreography and vibrant live performance. It is a very physical type of playing which is extraordinarily popular in Japan right now and increasingly popular in the U.S., particularly on the West Coast.”
The gamelan, also the Indonesian word for “orchestra,” is an ensemble instrument.
When you see a gamelan, with its many component parts, it's easy to understand why it's considered both instrument and orchestra. Twenty or more people can play it simultaneously, so it's a great communal instrument. “And it's very teachable,” says Matsue; “students don't have to be able to read notation, or have played another instrument.”
The Union gamelan, a wooden Balinese instrument with carved frames lacquered in red and gold, has a courtly look. It's made up of fourteen xylophones, each with its own name; a series of gongs (“gong” is another Indonesian word), each uniquely tuned; gong-chimes, metallophones, drums, flutes, bowed and plucked string instruments, and cymbals. It's actually referred to as a gamelan gong kebyar (“kebyar” means to burst into light or sound). The instruments in gong kebyar are tuned to a five-note scale. Originally used to accompany dance, it has evolved into the most expressive form of Balinese gamelan now being used for ceremonies and entertainment. “It is fairly modern, very popular, and widely exported,” says Matsue. “This one was custom-made for us-and shipped in twelve huge wooden crates from Singapore in December, on the day of the tsunami.
“Each gamelan,” she adds, “has its own personality. In fact, this one needs to be named-there will be a naming ceremony next winter. But it already has a spirit, which lives in the big gongs. It certainly feels like that when you hit it-it's something with a lot of force that plays loud and bright and clangy and fast. And you don't ever step over it-you might anger it-then you'd have to do atonement.”
Matsue is hosting an Asian Percussion Workshop this term with guest artist/scholar Deborah Wong. In this workshop as well as in next year's new Ethnomusicology Seminar, students will have the chance to play the Japanese drums and the gamelan-musicians and non-musicians side by side. “They're so thirsty to be creative,” comments Matsue. She hopes an ensemble will develop out of this work in the future.
During a term abroad at Japan's Kansai Gaidai university last fall, Matsue taught a course in modern Japanese popular music. She traveled with participating Union students as well. She's a perfect guide, having lived in Japan and speaking fluent Japanese. She even once sang lead in a Japanese rock band as part of her dissertation research, on underground hardcore rock bands in Tokyo. “Japan has been good at importing cultural forms and adapting them,” she comments.
Matsue originally got into ethnomusicology almost as an afterthought. “I applied to graduate schools for East Asian Studies. I was interested in Japanese religion, but I had just discovered ethnomusicology in a course I was taking. I ended up being accepted by the music department at the University of Chicago without ever applying.”
She started out in music as a cellist and a vocalist, singing in a Gregorian chant group in college and particularly fond of singing Lieder. But once she discovered the world outside the traditional Western classical canon, she never went back.
She is currently doing research on women in traditional Japanese performing arts as well as other aspects of Japanese popular music.
“By nature, my discipline is interdisciplinary,” says Matsue, whose courses are cross-listed with anthropology, women's studies, and East Asian studies, as well as performing arts. The field of ethnomusicology explores human music-making activities all over the world, in all styles, from the immediate present to the distant past. Ethnomusicologists like Matsue study music, the people who make it, the instruments they use, and the ideas, behaviors, and processes involved in the production of music.
Matsue likes being in a small, liberal-arts college environment: “There's a lot of freedom at Union to do things. For example, the gamelan isn't my area, but there's room to say 'I'm learning too,' along with the undergraduates. It's unusual to have this much latitude. I really feel I have a voice, a role to play.”
Ethnomusicologist and pop singer
Jennifer Matsue, assistant professor of performing arts and East Asian Studies, is John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Assistant Professor, through a fellowship that supports new and promising faculty members. Matsue is an ethnomusicologist who specializes in Japanese popular and traditional music. She teaches courses on Japanese popular music and culture, East Asian traditional music, world music, gender and sexuality in music, and global popular music. She has held teaching posts at the University of Chicago, Sophia University in Tokyo, and Dartmouth College. Matsue recently completed her Ph.D. at the University of Chicago in ethnomusicology with a dissertation on underground bands in Tokyo. She is working on a book titled Mamonaku Tokyo Desu! (Next Stop Tokyo!): Underground Music-Making in Contemporary Tokyo.