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rasa evaluation of rasa in a self-conscious, formal setting, an officially sponsored competition. In 1989 the national television station (TVRI) in Yogyakarta held a sindhèn competition, open to anyone from the Special District of Yogyakarta and the Province of Central Java who was between the ages of 18 and 40. Suhartå was one of the judges, and he graciously allowed me to photocopy his notes from the “technical meeting” (the exact, untranslated designation) at which the panel of judges discussed the scoring procedures for that competition. The relevant section is reproduced and translated in figure 5.1. From the relative weights given to each category (4, 3, 2, 1), we may surmise that the list of items to be discussed is given in decreasing order of importance. Indeed, this order corresponds exactly to the priorities my teachers said they had when they judged competitions in general. Several of them told me that their first concern was with correctness (harus betul dulu [I]): singing should be in tune and correctly pronounced, and there should be no gross errors in timing or melodic pattern. If things are generally correct, then a judge can go beyond that and listen for subtleties of rasa and timbre—aspects that require the exercise of taste on the part of the one judging. In practice, though, it is not always possible to distinguish between questions that admit of correctness in an absolute way and questions of aesthetics. For, as we have seen, questions of right and wrong are often couched in terms of whether something is appropriate or inappropriate: garap depends upon rasa, and vice versa. Nevertheless, the distinction is made in practice,21 and not everyone asked to sit on a panel of judges feels qualified to assess rasa (Sudarsono, July 5, 1991). Javanese musicians often profess their reluctance to make absolute pronouncements about matters of interpretation and, especially, of rasa. One frequently hears, “there’s no right way,” or, in reference to varied interpretations, “they’re all fine,” or “that’s just my opinion.” These comments show that relativism is at least an ideal, even if one also hears the same musicians making what seem to be dogmatic pronouncements at other times.22 It is significant, for instance, that under “timbre” in figure 5.1, the committee chairman wrote [c]ukup jelas (sufficiently clear): clarity, at least, is a quantifiable aspect of timbre that most people will agree on. Judges do not always practice what they preach, however, and are sometimes seduced by a beautiful voice into giving its possessor higher 21. Perlman has also noticed this split into two kinds of criteria (1994:165). 22. For examples of this other tendency—to see matters of interpretation as objective—see Perlman 1994:196–98. It should be pointed out that, in a Javanese context, such self-deprecating statements can be used to mean something quite different from their apparent meaning. According to Waridi (February 8, 2006), when a teacher says “but don’t just listen to me—go ask others as well,” that can mean “go ahead and ask others, but then you’ll see that I was right.” Nevertheless, there were many instances in my conversations with various teachers, when it was clear they meant that there were several equally good options. And, along the same lines, Waluyo, a vocal teacher at STSI, said that judging singing competitions goes contrary to his nature—he finds it nearly impossible to give a single ranking, since each singer has his or her own strengths, and the variety among the voices is to be relished (May 12, 2006).