BALI I started guitar lessons when I was 8. In high school I took as many music classes as possible. My theory and electronic music classes were given by one Walter Schneider, a living legend to this day. Among other things, he introduced us to world music--Indian ragas, Hungarian folk songs, and Balinese gamelan. The sound of the gamelan intrigued me as it did Ravel and Debussy when they first heard it at the 1898 World Expo in Paris. For 20 years I dreamed of visiting the small south pacific "island of a thousand temples."

The Balinese are Hindu, and their lives are thick with ritual and ceremony. The arts have flourished there, as their land is fertile and fruitful, leaving them time to pursue creative outlets.