In Reply to: Colin McPhee posted by Warwick on Thursday, 31. October 2002 at 16:59 Bali Time:
You can buy CDs of McPhee's Tabuh-Tabuhan at places like Amazon (www.amazon.com - just do a search for the title and it will bring up 2 or 3 different versions of the piece). It was about the only thing that McPhee wrote which is still regularly played. I don't like it much, but then I prefer traditional gamelan anyway and I think McPhee's stuff is pastiche.
He was a bit of a controversial character. When you read his book A House in Bali you get a picture of someone who was very sensitive to Balinese culture, but years later it emerged that he actually clashed a lot with local villagers who accused him of rudeness and insensitivity.
His major book was Music in Bali which remains one of the best descriptions of gamelan music in print. There is a section on his work in Michael Tenzer's book Balinese Music which is a very good introduction to the musical traditions of Bali and has good pics and diagrams of gamelan instruments and dance forms. If you want to make sense of gamelan, Tenzer's book is the one to buy. For those interested it is Tenzer, Michael (1998) Balinese Music. Published by Periplus. It sells for about $20 USD. You can probably get that at Amazon too.