Ethnomusicology's Bronze Age in Y2K

discover the unique culture of another people. The gamelan was from Java, Indonesia. The University was UCLA. Subsequently, similar ensembles came from many parts of Southeast Asia and the Philippines to serve universities world-wide as primary resources in the field of ethnomusicology. That period of 46 years I have titled "Ethnomusicology's Bronze Age."' Let me broaden my first statement by adding one made 30 years ago. ... [T]he arts are a kind of camera obscura of society. Like that optical wonder, they reduce the whole of its identity-sanctions and values, sacred and secular beliefs and customs-to a faithful reflection in miniature, in living colors" (Hood 1971:xviii). I want to show that usage of bronze ensembles can be enhanced by several things in Y2K: 1) by learning to hear the unique sounds of a particular bronze ensemble (N.B. the key words "unique" and "particular"); 2) by developing a better approach to sonic analysis in the laboratory; and 3) by addressing problems of tonal memory retained from learning to play an instrument or to sing or even to speak. Deeply imbedded tonal memory can affect efforts in learning to play or sing or speak in an unfamiliar idiom.