"This semester we started using your textbook and I am amazed by the impact that it is having on my students and myself. Thank you!"

-Lia Southern, Ozarks Technical Community College, Missouri State University

"I adopted your textbook, after looking over all the others available from various publishers. Today I checked out the Online Instructor's Manual and, just now, your Blog. I have to say that this combination of materials is simply fabulous."

-Isabelle Belance, Harold Washington College

"I was fortunately introduced to your book . . . and I was immediately
struck by your successful efforts to relate to today's students . . . .
Thanks for writing a text that will, I'm certain, plant in students the
seed of love for music of other cultures."

-Michael Punches, Oklahoma City Community College

"I found the traditional/neo-traditional/post-traditional paradigm especially effective . . . . By defining 'tradition' as a domain of cultural practice characterized by dynamics of both continuity and transformation, [this book] provide[s] a framework that neither essentializes 'roots' nor gets bogged down in the multiplicity of 'routes' that characterize musical life in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries."

-Richard Jankowsky, Tufts University

One of the two "most significant publications on Balinese music in almost half a century . . . a leader in its field."

-The Times (London)

Choice Outstanding Academic Title (2000)

". . . an important addition to the ethnomusicological canon, as challenging as it is informative and as vibrant as the music it discusses. Its appeal to gamelan devotees will be obvious, but it also stakes a claim to advance the theory of ethnomusicology in its broadest sense."

-The World of Music

"This is a detailed, well-written, and wonderful book . . . . Anyone interested in music, cross-cultural fieldwork, cultural change, and adaptation will find this book well worth reading."

-Religious Studies Review

". . . the book is a wonderful read both for its deep descriptions of beleganjur and for its reflexive gaze . . . a richly rewarding experience."

-Yearbook for Traditional Music

". . . meticulously researched, expansively written, and wonderfully
revealing . . . . Bakan has elevated gamelan beleganjur to the level of
the much better known gong kebyar, and his explication of the music is unmatched . . . . [He] succeeds in realizing his call for a more
reflexive, people-centered ethnomusicological study."

-Notes

"This book covers new ground in its approach and focus, and is accessible to area as well as non-area specialists in ethnomusicology and anthropology. The disparate topics, together with transcriptions and CD, leave the reader with a rich patchwork of many facets of the complex and often contradictory contemporary beleganjur scene."

-Ethnomusicology