America, of all the western countries, had unknowingly become the most eager participant in the development of gamelan outside of Indonesia thanks to pioneering composers and the newly formed field of study called ethnomusicology. Jaap Kunst is known by many as the father of ethnomusicology, be he actually never studied gamelan. It was his student Ki Mantle Hood who witnessed the first appearance of a non Indonesian, real gamelan ensemble to perform on a long-term basis and became enthralled. This performance occurred in the Netherlands under the direction of Babar Layar, who got his name from a Javanese composition. Layar formed the gamelan ensemble with his teenage friends in the German occupied Harlem in 1941 and continued to perform throughout the war (Grove's, vol.9, p.506). After Hood saw the gamelan performance he decided to devote his life to the study of the world's various traditional musics.
Another ethnomusicologist heavily involved in the study of gamelan was the Canadian born Collin McPhee. McPhee, born in 1900, studied composition and piano at the Peabody Conservatory in his youth. It was during 1931 that McPhee first heard a primitive recording of Balinese gamelans. McPhee was so impressed with these strange new sounds that he found himself in Bali studying gamelan in less than a year. He remained there for seven uninterupted years, during which he wrote Music in Bali. While McPhee was in Bali, he collected and transcribed native music and also formed several Balinese gamelans of his own, including a gamelan angklung and a gamelan semar pegulingan. He also collaborated with the infamous Margaret Mead in spurning locals to start gamelan ensembles and to perform.
Collin McPhee did something else of great importance involving Indonesian music. He was the first to compose gamelan pieces transcribed with western instruments. He wrote for solo or duel pianos, as well as a piece for the flute and piano.