Gongs and Pop Songs

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Scholarship on Indonesia musical tradition has long focused on the gamelan of Java and Bali at the expense of the archipelago's many other musical forms. In an essential addition to literature on ethnomusicology and on Indonesia as a whole. Jennifer A. Fraser finally gives talempong its due. This little-known gong tradition is central to the cultural identity of the Minagkabau people of Sumatra. Gongs and Pop Songs is the first study to chronicle the history and variety of talempong styles. It reveals the continued vitality of older modes in rural communities, while tracing the emergence of newer ones with radically different aesthetic frames and values. The contemporary development in talempong have taken place against a shifting political, social, and economics backdrop that Fraser mines to explore and contexualize the evolution of Minagkabau musical and cultural practices. Fraser looks at how different styles of talempong create and articulate ethnic sentiments. She adopts a congnitive approached to ethnicity, asking how people understand themselves as Minangkabau through the combination of gongs and pop songs. A wealth of online audiovisual materials supplements the book.