ABSTRACT
People's perspectives are shaped by the intellectual, sociopolitical and technological circumstances of a particular place and time. When cultural conditions change, people's world-views may change as well. A gamelan theory is written by an individual from his or her distinctive perspective. In order to understand fully such a theoretical text, one should view it in the social and institutional contexts in which it was written. Starting from this premise, I wish to examine gamelan theories that have been written by Indonesian theorists since about 1900.
