DECLINE AND PROMISE: Observations from a Present-Day Pangrawit

During a roundtable discussion at the SOSIM conference about how pangrawit (gamelan musicians, literally practitioners of karawitan) view their present-day situation, participants of the event appeared to reach one particular conclusion: the prospects for pangrawit and karawitan are grim. This roundtable included ethnomusicologists present at the event, the members of the ensemble Ngudi Raras,¹ at Cornell as part of a month-long tour of the United States, and the Javanese scholar-musicians Sumarsam, I. M. Harjito, and Danis Sugiyanto. Most of the comments from the Ngudi Raras members focused on how karawitan practices are turun—on a decline. This decline has affected