Gamelan

What it means

Gamelan designates an ensemble of predominantly metal percussion instruments as it is played in Indonesia, especially on Java and Bali. It includes tuned metallophones with sound plates, gongs of various sizes, drums, and, depending on the region, flutes, bowed and plucked instruments, and singing. A gamelan is not a type of instrument but a set that belongs together: the instruments are made together and tuned to one another, so that they sound coherent only in this combination. Two tonal systems with different numbers of degrees are in use, whose intervals do not correspond to the European ones and differ from ensemble to ensemble.

Musical use

The music is built in layers: a core melody is carried by lower instruments in large values, executed by middle ones, and played around by high ones in denser ornamentation, while large gongs articulate the sections and drums steer tempo and transitions. Musical coherence thus arises less from harmony than from the relation of these layers to one another. Gamelan accompanies ceremonial occasions, dance, and shadow play and is also played in concert. Since the late nineteenth century the music has also been known outside Indonesia and has influenced European composers; accounts of this are, however, often inexact, and the variety of regional traditions cannot be reduced to one style.

Performance practice

It is played with mallets, and the damping of the plate just struck with the free hand is inseparably part of the technique — without it the texture blurs. The instruments of a set stay together and are not mixed with foreign ones, because the tuning agrees only internally. In the ensemble everything follows the drums and the large gongs; listen to them before you pay attention to your own part. Information on tunings, designations, and manners of playing differs by region and school and should be enquired about with the specific ensemble.

Remember that the instruments of a set belong together and are not mixed with others: whoever compares recordings therefore hears different tunings without one of them being wrong. Allow for this when putting programmes together. In the ensemble, follow the drums and the large gongs.