Article

Intimacy without Proximity: What COVID can Teach us about Community, Ecology, and Musicking

Kevin McNally

Published in: Ethnomusicology Ireland 8 (2022)

Pages: 46-61 | Published Online: December 2022

https://doi.org/10.64208/JXTB2571

Abstract

Based on my field work as a community music facilitator of a Javanese gamelan ensemble in rural Ireland, I will outline the theoretical basis and practical steps I adopted while pursuing an arts practice PhD in the midst of the COVID pandemic. I will show how the concept of intimacy – with materials and between humans - informed the creation of new music for gamelan, and how the ‘vibrant material’ (Bennett 2010) of the gamelan itself was an agent in the creative process. At the heart of the paper is an analysis of Tabhartas, a piece for gamelan and solo performer I composed in response to the halting of my community music practice.

Keywords: Community music, ecology, arts practice research, ecocriticism, gamelan, materiality

Author: Kevin McNally