(string instrument), two classical gamelan instruments — improvised with a variety of musicians and artists playing electric guitar, synthesizer, electronics and DIY devices, drum and cello. In one performance even a *dalang* (puppeteer) participated. Setya had been performing as vocalist at one of the Kombo concerts. Sandikala also performed from scores made by Dion, where improvisation also played a role. “Dion is a great fan of Dewa Alit” Yusti told us. Inspired by Dewa Alit, who builds new gamelan instruments that expands the classic tuning of gamelan of either 5 and 7 to 11 tones, Dion has developed gamelan instruments for Sandikala Ensemble to a microtonal tuning system of no less than 36 tones. We sat down with Setya, Yusti and Roni and asked them: “what is the relation between gamelan and experimental music in Indonesia today”. Setya began her answer by explaining why she as a teacher and practitioner of *karawitan*, the term used in Yogyakarta for the art complex of which gamelan instruments are a part, was drawn to perform in the festival for free improvised music: > The Kombo Festival and traditional *karawitan* resemble each other because both provide a space of freedom for musicians. As a performer in both experimental music and gamelan, one has to create a space of freedom for the other performers to interpret and in which to create their own music. These spaces of freedom differ in their framing, however. Setya continues: “in gamelan the space of freedom is one of based on *pathet* and *laras*, while the space of freedom in experimental music is one based on *rasa*.” Setya’s answer opened up a Pandora’s box for us, one we are still struggling to understand fully. On the surface, the answer is about technical issues such as tuning systems, composition, and performance rules. But it is also part of a philosophy of aesthetic experimentation and life itself. To see how, let us start slowly with the technical. *Laras* is the Javanese word for tuning system or scale of the gamelan. There are two overall systems in classical gamelan, namely *slendro* (with five tones per ‘octave’) and pelog (with seven tones per ‘octave’). It is these scales that Dewa Alit has experimentally expanded to eleven and *Sandikala Ensemble* to thirty-six. However, there are no fixed intervals or standard pitch for the tuning of the gamelan instruments (such as one finds in the ‘A’ in a Western musical scale). Therefore, each set of gamelan instruments follows its own internal attunement. This means, for instance, that a *gendér* (metallophone) used in and tuned to one set of gamelan instruments cannot be used in another set. *Pathet*, meanwhile, is the Javanese word for an aspect of music that has no English equivalent. A *pathet*, as Setya explained, > can, for instance, be the arrangement of tones in a specific tuning system or *laras* which creates a particular atmosphere or the mood for the piece. *Pathet* can also be ‘the division of labour’ between the musical notes in a composition of a *laras.* *Pathet* is a kind of melodic concept. There are many tones in each set of a composition (called *gendhing*) that musicians of the melodic instruments (such as the *gendér*