Berlin Cosmopolitan School students exploring Music from Java

Java, Indonesia’s main island, has an old and fascinating music culture. Our music majors from 11th grade went to explore it. It took them only 45 minutes on the U-Bahn to get there, at Ethnologisches Museum in Dahlem.

There, on the top floor, were spread out all kinds of gongs, from miniscule to huge, plus a variety of xylophones. Under the guidance of an ethno-musicologist they dived into the mystical world of Javanese sounds learning about the tone system, the structure and the notation. It was a learning by doing: our students actually performed three traditional pieces.

Please, listen: