ABSTRACT
This chapter explores some of the themes raised in the previous one and the external and internal forces at work on the form and nature of composition and variation-making. The issues raised by the forms of improvisation and composition just described are so various, touching on areas of politics, religion and personal creativity, that I can only briefly outline them in this book. For instance, a full study of the impact of modernization is outside the scope of this study: Brita Heimarck (1999 and 2003) has tackled aspects of this in relation to Sukawati gendér and STSI. In some ways, I might have aired some of the themes of this chapter much earlier in this study, providing as they do a context within which musicians operate. However, I have preferred to discuss them here as arising naturally from within the earlier discussions with musicians.
