Dennis Murphy (born January 19, 1934) is a composer, musician, instrument maker and artist. January 19 is the 19th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1934 was a common year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ... A composer is a person who writes music. ... A musician is a person who plays or composes music. ... A musical instrument is a device that has been constructed or modified with the purpose of making music. ... An artist is someone who employs creative talent to produce works of art. ...

Dennis Murphy is one of the fathers of American gamelan (along with William Colvig). Lou Harrison credits Murphy as being the first person to build gamelan instuments outside of Indonesia, He has composed numerous works and shadow plays for gamelan. American Gamelan is a style of gamelan based on Javanese gamelan instruments and music, but using primarily American made instruments and compositions. ... The partner for thirty three years of composer Lou Harrison, William Colvig (1917-2000) was an electrician and amateur musician. ... Lou Silver Harrison (May 14, 1917 - February 2, 2003) was an American composer. ... A gamelan is a musical ensemble of Indonesian origin typically featuring metallophones, xylophone(s), drums, and gongs. ... Wayang is the Indonesian term for puppet, and the term refers to any and all of the numerous varieties of puppetry found in the archipelago. ...

Starting around 1959 or 1960, while earning a Master's degree in theory and composition at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Murphy got interested in gamelan during a survey course which included a section on ethnomusicology. He heard a recording of Javanese gamelan and was hooked. About that time, the head of the economics department, L. Reed Tripp, returned from Java where he had been on a Ford Foundation grant. While in Indonesia, Tripp's two young sons became involved with a children's gamelan group. The boys loved it so much that their parents bought a small slendro gamelan and shipped it to their home in Madison. Then Mrs. Tripp called Bob Crane, a composition professor, and asked if he knew anyone who would like to try Javanese Gamelan. So Crane, Murphy and his wife Pat, and few more people started learning what the children could show them, and it went from there. 1959 was a common year starting on Thursday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1960 was a leap year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... Music theory is a set of systems for analyzing, classifying, and composing music and the elements of music. ... A musical composition is a piece of original music designed for repeated performance (as opposed to strictly improvisational music, in which each performance is unique). ... The University of Wisconsin System is the state university system in Wisconsin. ... Wisconsin State Capitol Madison is the capital of Wisconsin, a state of the United States of America. ... A gamelan is a musical ensemble of Indonesian origin typically featuring metallophones, xylophone(s), drums, and gongs. ... Ethnomusicology (from the Greek ethnos = nation and mousike = music) is the study of music in its cultural context, cultural musicology. ... View of the Puncak area in West Java Java (Indonesian: Jawa) is the most populous of Indonesias islands, and the site of its capital city, Jakarta. ... Economics is the social science studying production and consumption through measurable variables. ... The Ford Foundation is a US charitable foundation created to fund programs that promote democracy, reduce poverty and promote international understanding (see mission statement). ... Slendro (called salendro by the Sundanese) is a pentatonic (five tone) scale, one of the two most common scales used in Indonesian gamelan music. ...

Shortly after this, Murphy began constructing gamelan instruments and started composing short pieces for gamelan at the same time. The whole story is described in "The Autochthonous American Gamelan", Murphy's thesis written while working towards his Ph.D. in ethnomusicology from Wesleyan University in Connecticut. He named the gamelan "Venerable Sir Voice of Thoom" and invented an entire cosmology and artificial language to go with it (Thoomese). Ethnomusicology (from the Greek ethnos = nation and mousike = music) is the study of music in its cultural context, cultural musicology. ... This article concerns Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut; there is also a Wesleyan University in the Philippines and a number of other colleges and universities whose names include Wesleyan. ... State nickname: The Constitution State Other U.S. States Capital Hartford Largest city Bridgeport Governor M. Jodi Rell Official languages English Area 14,371 km² (48th)  - Land 12,559 km²  - Water 1,809 km² (12. ...

Murphy started teaching at Goddard College in Plainfield, Vermont in the fall 1967. A student group using Murphy's instruments had its first performance the same year. More instruments were made with occasional student help. Instruments were hammered out of steel, or made from found objects such as a car hubcap, soup cans, or an antique milk-strainer. For a couple of years there were nine people in the ensemble (three were named Dennis.) The Goddard Gamelan performed traditional Javanese gamelan pieces along with pieces composed by Murphy and students. By the mid seventies the ensemble had grown to full compliment of instruments tuned in both pelog and slendro. Students designed and constructed a building to house the instruments for rehearsals and performances. Goddard College is a private college located in Plainfield, Vermont. ... Plainfield, Vermont Plainfield is a town located in Washington County, Vermont. ... 1967 was a common year starting on Sunday (the link is to a full 1967 calendar). ... Pelog is one of the two essential scales of Gamelan music native to Bali and Java, in Indonesia. ...

In 1980, Goddard made major cuts to its academic programs, and the gamelan moved to the Plainfield Community Center and was renamed the Plainfield Village Gamelan. Later, the ensemble moved to Murphy's farm in Plainfield and the group continues to perform. 1980 is a leap year starting on Tuesday. ...

Several of Murphy's students have become instrument makers. Barbara Benary while not a student of Murphy made a gamelan following directions in Murphy's thesis, and then went on to make more instruments of her own design, notably giant bar-and-resonator gongs, using one-gallon paint cans to build the tubes. Barbara Benary is an American composer and ethnomusicologist specializing in Indonesian and Indian music. ...

Murphy has also composed pieces of chamber and choral music. He also performs with the Fyre & Lightning Consort and the Nisht Geferlach Klezmer Band. For this sort of classical music, see chamber music Chamber Music is also the title of a collection of poems by James Joyce, his first book, published in 1907. ... This article is about choirs, musical ensembles containing singers. ...