If Indonesia were superimposed on Europe, it would stretch from Ireland to the Caspian Sea. Only three countries--China, India, and the USA--have larger populations, and few encompass a greater diversity of societies and cultures. Indonesia's people belong to more than 300 ethnic groups, speak almost as many languages, and inhabit some 3,000 islands in the 13,700 island archipelago. Most (90%) are Muslim, but there also are substantial numbers of Christians, Buddhist/Taoists, Hindus, and animists.
Three-quarters of the population live in rural areas, but Indonesia's media is saturated with urban images, mostly generated from the capital, Jakarta, a megalopolis with more inhabitants than any U.S. city. Javanese rice-farmers, Buginese sailors, the Balinese pedanda (Hindu priest), the Acehnese ulama (Islamic teacher), Jakarta bureaucrats, noodle-vendors, Minangkabau traders, Chinese-Indonesia shopkeepers, batik-makers, bankers, shadow-puppeteers, shamans, peddlers, marketwomen, and dentists are all part of contemporary Indonesia.
Indonesia's music is as diverse as its people. Best known abroad are the Javanese and Balinese orchestras generally called gamelans, which consist of gongs and other struck metal instruments, but gamelans are only one aspect of a much larger musical universe. Solo and group singing and solo instrumental music (typically played on the flute, shawm, plucked lute, bowed lute, plucked zither, or xylophone) are found everywhere, as are ensembles of mixed instruments, and ensembles dominated by instruments of a single type--especially flutes, drums, xylophones, zithers, or gongs.
Much of ths music is indigenous to the cultures of Indonesia. On the other hand, some of the most prominent and commercially successful contemporary genres of popular music derive from foreign sources; however, since these are often sung in one of Indonesia's 300 languages, disseminated nationwide through the mass media, and avidly consumed by millions of Indonesians, they must be considered Indonesian. In addition to the indigenous and the clearly imported, there are numerous hybrid forms that mix traditional and foreign elements in delightful and unpredictable ways.
The Music of Indonesia Series offers sampling of this tremendous variety. In selecting the music, Yampolsky and his Indonesian colleagues concentrated on genres of special musical interest, and, wherever possible, present them in depth, including several examples to illustrate the range of styles and repertoire.