There are about 6,000 inhabited Indonesian islands and, as you can probably guess, there may be 6,000 different kinds of Indonesian music. Some Indonesian music is highly-pattered and meticulously structured, some is loose and sprawling. Some Indonesian music is firmly rooted in ancient tradition, some is ardently modern. Some Indonesian music is Islamic, some Christian, some secular, some all of the above. Look for almost anything in Indonesian music and you’ll find it. If you want to find an Indonesian music starter set, a good instinct would be to look for a compilation that provides a broad introduction to the most important Indonesian musical styles. Throughout the 1990s, Smithsonian Folkways collaborated with the Society for Indonesian Arts on exactly that kind of compilation.
We are revising the AllAroundThisWorld.com site — the information you’re seeking may still be here, but a lot of links are broken and details may be out of date. We are currently using a new (better!) site — ExploreEverywhere.com — to tell you all about our class offerings, our “pen pal” program and how to become one of our teachers, and will eventually be moving all the goodies from here over to there. So, GO TO THE NEW SITE!
