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We hardly knew ye, Old Granddad No. 4. The rare musical instrument will soon head back to the East Coast after a short stay in New Mexico, but not before farewell concerts featuring a magnificent work that showcases its capabilities.

The music is La Koro Sutro by Lou Harrison, a true American maverick who renounced the mid-century modernism of atonality and 12-tone classical music in favor of a highly personal style based on Asian musical aesthetics, using unfamiliar instruments, unusual tuning systems, and discernible melodies. “I’m a song-and-dance man in the abstract,” was one of his favorite quotes. Old Granddad No.



4 was constructed by the California-based Harrison and his instrument-builder life partner William Colvig, the fourth and final instrument in a series they dubbed American gamelans. While they were inspired by the Indonesian gamelan — a mostly-percussion ensemble in which as many as a dozen performers play 70 to 80 different instruments — they weren’t trying to replicate it precisely. Instead, the Old Granddads consisted primarily of locally found objects, another of Harrison’s musical passions.

In this case it meant junkyard scrap such as discarded oxygen tanks, old metal bars, conduit tubing, and aluminum trash cans that they modified to emit specific pitches and then played with a variety of sticks, mallets, hammers, and baseball bats. Despite what the description may imply, the sounds of an American gamelan aren’t necessarily cacophonous. I.

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