Gamelan

Gamelan - Indonesian Embassy in Canberra

A gamelan is a kind of musical ensemble of Indonesian origin typically featuring a variety of instruments such as metallophones, xylophones, drums, and gongs; bamboo flutes, bowed and plucked strings, and vocalists may also be included. The term refers more to the set of instruments than the players of those instruments. A gamelan as a set of instruments is a distinct entity, built and tuned to stay together — instruments from different gamelan are not interchangeable.

The word "gamelan" comes from the Javanese word "gamel", meaning to strike or hammer, and the Malay-Indonesian suffix "an" makes the root a collective noun.

Instruments and characteristics

Javanese Drums at the Indonesian Embassy in Canberra.

Gamelan are found in the Indonesian islands of Java, Madura, Bali, and Lombok (and other Sunda Islands), in a wide variety of ensemble sizes and formations. In Bali and Lombok today, and in Java through the 18th century, the term "gong" has been preferred to or synonymous with gamelan. Traditions of gamelan-like ensembles (sometimes called "gong-chime ensembles" by ethnomusicologists) also exist in the Philippines, Malaysia and Suriname, sometimes due to emigration, trade, or diplomacy. More recently, through immigration and local enthusiasm, gamelan ensembles have become active throughout Europe, The Americas, Asia, and Australia.

Javanese gongs at the Indonesian Embassy in Canberra.

Although gamelan ensembles sometimes include solo and choral voices, plucked and/or bowed string and wind instruments, they are most notable for the large number of metal percussion instruments. A central Javanese gamelan ensemble includes:

• metallophones, such as the saron, gendér, gangsa, and ugal (sets of metals bars laid out in a single row and struck like a glockenspiel)
• cradled gongs called bonang and kenong (sets of large, drum-shaped gongs laid out horizontally on stands)
• hanging gongs called kempul and a the large gong ageng
• xylophone-like instruments called gambang (similar to saron and gendér but with wooden bars instead of metal ones)
• drums called kendhang

The all-bamboo Gamelan jegog from Bali

Metals used include bronze, brass, and iron, with a 10:3 copper-to-tin bronze alloy usually considered the best material. In addition, there are gamelan ensembles composed entirely of bamboo-keyed instruments, of bamboo flutes, of zithers, or of unaccompanied voices with the functions of metallophones or gongs in the metal ensemble transferred to surrogates.

There are many ways to look at the musical structure of gamelan music. One is to consider three layers: a fixed melodic outline, with punctuated by lower pitched instruments and decorated by higher pitched instruments. A Javanese classification also adds a leader of the melody and a leader of time. Many of the music forms will be marked at the end by the largest gong in the ensemble, although there are some exceptions.

History

The gamelan has an old and mysterious origin. Apparently it predates the Hindu-Buddhist culture that dominated Indonesia in its earliest records, and instead represents a native art form. The instruments developed into their current form during the Majapahit Empire. In contrast to the heavy Indian influence in other art forms, the only obvious Indian influence in gamelan music is in the Javanese style of singing.

In Javanese mythology, the gamelan was created by Sang Hyang Guru in Saka era 167 (c. AD 230), the god who ruled as king of all Java from a palace on the Maendra mountains in Medangkamulan (now Mount Lawu). He needed a signal to summon the gods, and thus invented the gong. For more complex messages, he invented two other gongs, thus forming the original gamelan set.

In the palaces of Java are the oldest known ensembles, the Munggang and Kodokngorek gamelans, apparently from the 12th century. These formed the basis of a "loud style." A different, "soft style" developed out of the kemanak tradition and is related to the traditions of singing Javanese poetry, in a manner which is often believed to be similar to performance of modern bedhaya dance. In the 17th century, these loud and soft styles mixed, and to a large extent the variety of modern gamelan styles of Bali, Java, and Sunda resulted from different ways of mixing these elements. Thus, despite the seeming diversity of styles, many of the same theoretical concepts, instruments, and techniques are shared between the styles.

Varieties of gamelan ensembles

See also: List of gamelan varieties

There are a wide variety of gamelan ensembles, distinguished by their collection of instruments and use of voice, tunings, repertoire, style, and cultural context. In general, no two gamelan ensembles are the same, and those that arose in prestigious courts are often considered to have their own style. Certain styles may also be shared by nearby ensembles, leading to a regional style.

The varieties are generally grouped geographically, with the principal division between the styles favored by the Balinese, Javanese, and Sundanese peoples. Balinese gamelan is often associated with the virtuosity and rapid changes of tempo and dynamics of Gamelan gong kebyar, its best-known style. Other popular Balinese styles include Gamelan angklung and kecak, also known as the "monkey chant." Javanese gamelan was largely dominated by the courts of the 19th century central Javanese rulers, each with its own style, but overall is known for a slower, more meditative style than that of Bali.

File:Cj13.jpg

Malay musical orchestra; consisting of gamelan and drums.

Outside of the main core on Java and Bali, gamelans have spread through migration and cultural interest, and while sometimes the original styles are copied, new styles sometimes result as well. Malay gamelans are designed in ways that are similar to the Javanese gamelan except that the tune is higher. The gamelans were traditionally played in the royal Malay palaces of Pahang (Gamelan Pahang), Riau, Kedah, Kelantan and Terengganu. Gamelan is also related to the Philippine kulintang ensemble. There is also a wide variety of gamelan in the West, including both traditional and experimental ensembles. See gamelan outside Indonesia for more information on these styles.

Cultural context

In Indonesia, gamelan is usually accompanying other arts, such as dance, wayang puppet performances, and rituals. Typically players in the gamelan will be familiar with most dance moves and poetry, while dancers are able to play in the ensemble. In wayang, the dalang (puppeteer) must have a thorough knowledge of the music, as he gives the cues for the gamelan. It is uncommon to play a gamelan on its own, and there are not concerts in the Western sense, although it can be used as background music, as for a wedding.

Its role in rituals is so important that there is a Javanese saying that "It's not official until the gong is hung." Some performances are associated with royalty, such as visits by the sultan of Yogyakarta. Certain gamelans are associated with specific rituals, such as the Gamelan Sekaten, which is used in celebration of Mawlid an-Nabi (Muhammad's birthday). In Bali, almost all religious rituals include gamelan performance. Gamelan is also used in the ceremonies of the Catholic church in Indonesia. Certain pieces are designated for starting and ending performances or ceremonies. When a "leaving" piece (such as "Udan Mas") is begun, the audience will know that the occasion is nearly finished and begin to exit. Certain pieces are also believed to possess magic powers, and can be used to ward off evil spirits.

Gamelan is frequently played on the radio. For example, the Pura Pakualaman gamelan performs live on the radio every Minggu Pon (a day in the 35-day cycle of the Javanese calendar). In major towns, the Radio Republik Indonesia employs professional musicians and actors, and broadcast programs of a wide variety of gamelan music and drama.

In the court tradition of central Java, gamelan is often played in the pendopo, an open pavilion with a cavernous, double-pitched roof, no side walls, and a hard marble or tile floor. The instruments are placed on a platform to one side, which allows the sound to reverberate in the roof space and enhance the acoustics.

Men and women usually perform in separate groups, with the exception of the pesindhen, the female singer who performs with male groups.

In the West, gamelan is often performed in a concert context, but may also incorporate dance or wayang.

Tuning

Celempung - Indonesian Embassy in Canberra.

The tuning and construction of a gamelan orchestra is a complex process. Javanese gamelans use two tuning systems: sléndro and pélog. There are other tuning systems such as degung (exclusive to Sunda, or West Java), and madenda (also known as diatonis, similar to a European natural minor scale). In central Javanese gamelan, sléndro is a system with five notes to the diapason (octave), fairly evenly spaced, while pélog has seven notes to the octave, with uneven intervals, usually played in five note subsets of the seven-tone collection. This results in sound quite different from music played in a western tuning system. Many gamelan orchestras will include instruments in each tuning, but each individual instrument will only be able to play notes in one. The precise tuning used differs from ensemble to ensemble, and give each ensemble its own particular flavour. Colin McPhee remarked, "Deviations in what is considered the same scale are so large that one might with reason state that there are as many scales as there are gamelans." However, this is a view that is contested by some teachers of gamelan, and there have been efforts to combine multiple ensembles and tuning structures into one gamelan so as to ease transportation issues at the times of festivals. One such ensemble is gamelan Manikasanti, which can play the repertoire of many different ensembles.

A peculiarity of gamelans is that, although the intervals between notes in a scale are very close to identical for different instruments within each gamelan, the intervals vary from one gamelan to the next. The occasion for the word approximately is that it is common in Balinese gamelan that instruments are played in pairs which are tuned slightly apart so as to produce interference beating which are ideally at a consistent speed for all pairs of notes in all registers. It is thought that this contributes to the very "busy" and "shimmering" sound of gamelan ensembles. In the religious ceremonies that contain Gamelan, these interference beats are meant to give the listener a feeling of a god's presence or a stepping stone to a meditative state.

Notation

Traditionally gamelan music is not notated, and began as an oral tradition. However, in the 19th century the kratons of Yogyakarta and Surakarta developed distinct notations for transcribing the repertoire. These were not used to read the music, which was memorized, but to preserve pieces in the court records. The Yogyanese notation is a checkerboard notation, which uses six vertical lines to represent notes of higher pitch in the balungan (core melody), and horizontal lines which represent the series of beats, read downward with time. The fourth vertical line and every fourth horizontal line (completing a gatra) are darkened for legibility. Symbols on the left indicate the colotomic structure of gongs and so forth, while specific drum features are notated in symbols to the right. The Solonese notation reads horizontally, like Western notation, but does not use barlines. Instead, note values and rests are squiggled between the notes.

Today this notation is relatively rare, and has been replaced by kepatihan notation, which is a cipher system. Kepatihan notation developed around 1900 at the kepatihan in Surakarta. The pitches are numbered (see the articles on the scales slendro and pelog for an explanation of how), and are read across with dots and lines indicating the note values. Like the palace notations, however, they record only the balungan part, and to a large extent what is heard relies on memorized patterns the performers call upon during performance. However, teachers have also devised certain notations, generally using kepatihan principles, for the cengkok (melodic patterns) of each elaborating instrument. In ethnomusicological studies, transcriptions are often made onto a Western staff, sometimes with unusual clefs.

Influence on Western music

The gamelan has been appreciated by several western composers of classical music, most famously Claude Debussy who heard a Javanese gamelan play at the Paris Exposition of 1889 (World's Fair). (The gamelan Debussy heard was in the near-diatonic madenda scale and was played by Sundanese musicians.) Despite his enthusiasm, direct citations of gamelan scales, melodies, rhythms, or ensemble textures have not been located in any of Debussy's own compositions. However, the equal-tempered pentatonic scale appears in his music of this time and afterward, and a Javanese gamelan-like heterophonic texture is emulated on occasion, particularly in "Pagodes," from Estampes (solo piano, 1903), in which the great gong's cyclic punctuation is symbolized by a prominent perfect fifth.

Direct homages to gamelan music are to be found in works for western instruments by Béla Bartók, Francis Poulenc, Olivier Messiaen, Colin McPhee, Benjamin Britten and Steve Reich. In more recent times, American composers such as Barbara Benary, Lou Harrison, Dennis Murphy, Michael Tenzer, Evan Ziporyn, Daniel James Wolf and Jody Diamond as well as Australian composers such as Peter Sculthorpe, Andrew Schultz and Ross Edwards have written several works with parts for gamelan instruments or full gamelan ensembles. I Nyoman Windha is among contemporary Indonesian composers that have written compositions using western instruments along with Gamelan. American folk guitarist John Fahey included elements of gamelan in many of his late-60s sound collages, and again in his 1997 collaboration with Cul de Sac, The Epiphany of Glenn Jones. The experimental art-rock band King Crimson, while not using Gamelan instruments, used interlocking rhythmic paired guitars that were influenced by Gamelan. Experimental pop groups His Name is Alive and Xiu Xiu use Gamelan percussion in many songs. The avant-garde group The Residents have also used gamelan in their music, particularly in their 1976 album Fingerprince. The gamelan has also been used by British multi-instrumentalist Mike Oldfield at least three times, "Woodhenge" (1979), "The Wind Chimes (Part II)" (1987) and "Nightshade" (2005).

Many Americans were first introduced to the sounds of gamelan by the popular anime film Akira. Gamelan elements are used in this film to punctuate several exciting fight scenes, as well as to symbolize the emerging psychic powers of the tragic hero, Tetsuo. The gamelan in the film's score was performed by the members of the Japanese musical collective Geinoh Yamashirogumi. Gamelan and kecak are also used in the soundtrack to the video game Secret of Mana.

See also

• Kulintang
• Music of Indonesia
• Legong: Dance of the Virgins
• Gamelan outside Indonesia

Further reading

Balinese gamelan

• Balinese Music (1991) by Michael Tenzer, ISBN 0-945971-30-3. Included is an excellent sampler CD of Balinese Music.
• Gamelan Gong Kebyar: The Art of Twentieth-Century Balinese Music (2000) by Michael Tenzer, ISBN 0-226-79281-1 and ISBN 0-226-79283-8.
• Music in Bali (1966) by Colin McPhee. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Javanese gamelan

• Gamelan: Cultural Interaction and Musical Development in Central Java (1995) by Sumarsam, ISBN 0-226-78010-4 (cloth) 0226780112 (paper)
• Music in Java: History Its Theory and Its Technique (1949) edited by Jaap Kunst, ISBN 90-247-1519-9. An appendix of this book includes some statistical data on intervals in scales used by gamelans.
• A Gamelan Manual: A Player's Guide to the Central Javanese Gamelan (2005) by Richard Pickvance, Jaman Mas Books, London, ISBN 0-9550295-0-3

External links

• Balinese Music
• Introduction to Gamelan Music by Qehn, Javanese only.
• American Gamelan Institute
• France Gamelan Information (special section on 1889)
• Yogyakarta Gamelan Festival
• Javanese gamelan notation - a huge collection maintained by Barry Drummond (in PDF format)
• Javanese gamelan notation - prepared by Vi King Lim
• Balinese and Javanese Gamelan

Listening

• Gongcast - Webcast of gamelan recordings
• Play a gamelan instrument online (saron, slentem, bonang, kempuls)
• Another virtual gamelan. Allows to play, and "program" (sequencer like) gamelans. Text is in French.
• The Virtual Javanese Gamelan play and compose Javanese music using this award winning free resource