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Podcast: The Essay
Episode: Indonesia's Tin Pan Alley - Tihingan in Bali
Description: 'Be not afeard. The isle is full of noises,
Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears...'There is an idea that what Caliban is describing is gamelan music, and that Shakespeare had heard accounts of it as he wrote The Tempest from sailors who had recently returned from a voyage to the Spice Islands - Indonesia.The village of Tihingan in Bali is full of noises because the chief occupation there is making gongs for gamelans, the wonderful gong orchestras of...