Gamelan

Gamelan (Indonesian) The word gamelan means “musical group” and may come from a Javanese word that means to strike a percussion instrument. The term gamelan also refers collectively to one of more than twenty different kinds of percussion ensembles and, by extension, to the people who play in them. Gamelan music often is used as an accompaniment to story recitations and performances.

Gamelan music is indigenous to the Indonesian island of Java and dates back thousands of years. One myth states that the gods created the first gamelan musician, named Lokananta. Gamelan music is an essential part of all cultural activities in Java, including wayang kulit, or shadow puppet performances, court dance, and uyon-uyon, or symphony orchestra performances.

A complete gamelan ensemble must include the kendang, a double-ended drum beaten with the hands. This is a major instrument, and the pengendang, or drummer, is the conductor of the gamelan orchestra. Other instruments are the saron, a form of glockenspiel played with a mallet; the boning barung,a double row of bronze kettles on a horizontal frame played with two long drumsticks; the slentemand the gender,both made up of thin bronze bars over bamboo resonance chambers, each played with a padded drumstick; the gambang, made up of wooden bars on a wooden frame played with drumsticks of buffalo horn; and a variety of gongs.

The largest gong is considered to be the spiritual center of the gamelan. There are also a variety of xylophones, ranging from the smallest, gangsas, to the medium-sized ugal, to the largest, the jegogan. In addition, a gamelan contains stringed instruments, such as the clempung and the rebab, and large drums such as the bedug. There also may be vocalists, male or female, known as pesindens.

During a performance, all gamelan players sit cross-legged on a mat. In the wayang kulit (shadow puppet) show, which lasts an entire night, a gamelan plays a specific set of music that changes every three hours. The texture of a performance depends on the size of the instruments. The small instruments have more elaborate parts than the large ones. The largest gong, for example, is played only once per piece.

Even though Western instruments and music have become well known in Indonesia, the gamelan remains a popular form of music making.

SEE ALSO:

Wayang.

Sources

• Bakan, Michael B. Music of Death and New Creation: Experiences in the World of Balinese Gamelan Beleganjur. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000.
• Tenzer, Michael. Gamelan Gong Kebyar: The Art of Twentieth-Century Balinese Music. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000.