o suggested it. Harrison was surprised at the suggestion.

“You could have knocked me over with a

piano!” It’s hard to imagine another composer at the age of 60 who would become a beginner again,
but Harrison resolved to respect the centuries of accumulated wisdom that came from the culture
that had invented this ensemble, rather than simply use them as sound sources divorced from the
context of their origin. So he learned about traditional forms and how their cycles echoed those of
Hindu cosmology, about paths the elaborating instruments would weave around the core melody—
ingeniously reconciling his love of counterpoint with his love of melody, about the subtleties of its
melodic modes and rhythmic shifts. But no Javanese would mistake his compositions for traditional
music — Harrison was unafraid to treat his gamelan education as a po