I have also a great interest in indexing the age of the blade, as every man, interested in antiquities or simple history. But I also understand, when we are handling a part of rich and refined culture, and this part belongs to the heart of this culture, the most important things are not to tell without going into a teacher-pupil relation, which has the same intensity as a relation within the family.
This relation is an absolute necessity, but living in the age of google and wikipedia we forgot it more and more.
In Java, the gamelan music declines slowly, since the teaching follows the western conservatoire methods, using the written notation as source. The musicians in Java have had a notation system, probably since 19 centhury, but the importance of it was very small, since all teaching was a mouth (or instrument) to ear information.
It is not possible to understand a culture, handling it in a way, inadequate for this culture. Otherwise it is simply colonialism, which is, of course an important part of the Western culture.
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