Gamelan week 1 2013 with extras

Gamelan

Traditional Music of Java Week 1

What is a Gamelan?

n 

Gongs and others

n  Around the sarons other larger metal and wood percussion instruments add bass sounds below, and an elaboration of the melody above. A distinctive feature of gamelan music is the very large gongs that punctuate the music and give it structure. As well as the percussion instruments are a range of others – suling flute, a bowed rebab (two-stringed fiddle) zither (siter) and drums (kendhang) that add further spice to the music.

Karawitan

n  Javanese traditional music (karawitan) is highly spiritual and the gamelan itself has mystic religious qualities. It is held in high reverence and each gamelan is a unique entity with its own qualities and strengths. The Bath Spa University College’s gamelan is named Sumekar. Gamelan Sumekar comes from the Central Java area around the ancient city of Jogja, and is made from bronze and wood.

How it is used

n  In Java the gamelan is very often used in combination with traditional dances as part of a wayang kulit – shadow play using ornate puppets manipulated by a Dhalang – a traditional puppeteer. Their performances uses a mixture of allusion, allegory, poetry and prose, and is always related to the Hindu religious epics, the Mahabharata and Ramayana. It is from the wayang that many of the pieces and songs that form the basis of the gamelan repertory. Alternatively the music can be used to accompany Javanese dance, or may be performer on its own, in which case it often features singers.

n  Film

Loud and Soft Styles

n  This gamelan tradition is many hundreds of years old. It is thought that two basic types of ensemble developed in the Javanese royal courts - the “loud-style” ensemble for outdoor use, and the “soft-style” ensemble for indoor use. Since about the 17th century the instruments of these two types have been combined into one “complete” gamelan.

n  When we start to learn to play gamelan, we begin on the loud-style ensemble. Gradually players progress to the soft-style instruments.

Gamelan concept outside Java

n  The Gamelan concept is not only found in Java but also Bali and other Indonesian islands. The Central Javanese tradition has both slendro and pelog tunings and plays generally slow, dignified and gentle music, played indoors in reverberant pavilions. Slendro is a 5-note scale, roughly dividing the octave into five equal spacings. Pelog is a 7-note scale with more varied spacings. On a double gamelan there is usually a note common to both tunings. The Bath Spa gamelan has only slendro.

BALI

Bali

n In Bali the instruments themselves are rather different and as well as a slow style like Javanese music, they have a ‘new’ style characterised by great exuberance, dramatic stops and starts, dynamic contrasts, rhythmic complexity and overt group virtuosity. The new style uses a 5-note version of pelog.

Balungan

n  In Javanese Karawitan the Balungan is the skeleton melody forming the frame of a piece. Other parts are derived from it. In fact it may be played in its simplist form by no-one – but is followed in everyone’s head. The speeds at which instruments are played are governed by the irama (tempo relationships, e.g. sounding of the balungan at half or twice the previous speed).

Instrument Types

n  The main groups of instruments are: n  Wilah tuned barred instruments (e.g. metal

xylophones) n  Pencon tuned knobbed instruments (e.g.

gongs) n  Suling tuned bamboo end-blown flute n  Rebab tuned 2-string fiddle n  Siter tuned stringed zither n  Kendhang drums

Notation

n  Gamelan music is an aural tradition. However, notation

is now used for teaching purposes and for preserving and publishing repertory. Usually just the core melody is written down, together with a few additional symbols and annotations.

n  Notation developed in Java in the 19th century and various methods existed. Today the most commonly used system is the numerical one used here.

Slendro and Pelog

n  It is much better to learn this form of notation than to try and use or adapt Western staff notation, since the tuning systems of the gamelan (slendro and pelog) do not correspond to the notes of the Western tempered scale, and the very concept of tuning itself is quite different.

n  The five fixed tones of the slendro tuning are numbered in ascending order of pitch -

n  12356 n  The seven fixed tones of the pelog tuning are numbered

in ascending order of pitch 1234567

Core Melody Instruments

n  Stretched across the centre of the gamelan is the

group of instruments one of whose main functions is to play the core melody. These are the instruments of the Saran family, plus the slentem.

Sarons

n  A saron is a metallophone with thick bronze bars pegged over a trough resonator which is carved from a single block of wood.

n  There are three different sizes of saran: n  (i) saron demung The lowest pitched; usually just called dermung. n  (ii) saron bonung Pitched an octave above the demung, and

slightly smaller: n  usually just called saron. n  saron penerus (sometimes called peking) Pitched an octave above

the Saron barung; the smallest, and highest-pitched member of the family.

n  The demung and saron barung are played with wooden mallets. The saron penerus uses a smaller and harder mallet made from buffalo horn, producing a very bright sound.

Structure Instruments n  These are placed at the back of the gamelan and

consist of two types of tuned gong -hanging gongs and sitting gongs.

n  Hanging gongs n  The hanging gongs are suspended by thick cords

from the crossbar of a large wooden frame. They are played by striking the central protruding boss using a soft padded beater.

Gongs – Underlying Structure

n  (i) GONG ageng - This is the largest (about a metre in diameter) and deepest in pitch. A good quality GONG ageng will have a noticeable vibrato in its voice. The GONG ageng is the most respected instrument (those in some of the ancient gamelans of the Javanese Royal Courts are honoured with offerings). A normal-sized gamelan would have one GONG ageng.

n  (ii) GONG suwukan - Smaller than the GONG ageng and with a more clearly defined pitch. Most gamelans have two or three.

n  (iii) Kempul - Smaller and higher-pitched than the GONG suwukan. A normal gamelan would have about six.

Sitting Gongs

n  These are made in the same way as the hanging gongs

but tend to have deeper sides. They sit on top of cords which are stretched on wooden box frames.

n  Sitting gongs are played by striking the protruding boss. The sticks used are softened by being wound with thick cord. The sound is damped by pressing the stick noiselessly down onto the boss to stop it vibrating.

Sitting Gongs

n  i) kenong n  A set of large sitting gongs on frames arranged around the

player. There is one gong for every note of the slendro and pelog scales, although smaller gamelans may have fewer.

n  (ii) Ketuk n  A small squat low-pitched gong on its own box. The beater is

allowed to fall back onto the boss after strildng, producing the characteristic dull sound.

n  (iii) Kempyang n  A small high-pitched gong on its own box. n  The ketuk and kemp yang are always played by the same musician.

The kenong player may also play the ketuk/kempyang if only one musician is available

Elaborating Instruments

n  At the front of the gamelan are the instruments which fill-in and elaborate the core melody. The elaborating instruments of the loud-style are the bonangs of which there are two in each tuning - the bonang barung and the slightly smaller bonang penerus which is pitched one octave higher.

Bonangs

n  The bonang has a two-octave range, and its small gongs are arranged in two parallel rows, sitting on cords stretched over a wooden bed-like frame. The player uses two cord-wound sticks, one in each hand, and the gongs are struck on the boss. The layout of the gongs on the bonangs is most ingenious and designed access for the player.

Kendang - Drummer

n  The rhythmic leader of the gamelan, placed in the centre, is the

drummer. n  Three kinds of drum (kendang) are in common use: n  1. kendang ageng - large drum (also called kendang gending) n  2. kendang ketipung - small drum n  3. kendang ciblon - medium-sized drum n  The first two are often used as a pair, the small drum resting in

the player’s lap. n  All the drums are double-headed, having wooden bodies and

skin drumheads which are tensioned using a system of leather straps and sliders.

n  Beaters are not used, the p layer using both hands to produce a variety of different sounds.

Melodic Leader

n  In addition to a rhythmic leader, the gamelan

also has a melodic leader. In the case of the loud-style ensemble this is the bonang barung in the case of the soft-style ensemble, and of the full ensemble, the rebab (see below) takes the lead.

Soft Style Instruments

n At the front of the gamelan. on the opposite side to the bonangs, are the soft-style elaborating instruments. These are technically the most difficult to play, requiring a high degree of musicianship and experience.

Rebab

n  The rebab is a bowed two-string fiddle using an underhand-style bow which is tensioned with the fingers. There are no frets or even a finger-board, so the stopping of the strings can be very flexible, enabling the player to move freely in between the fixed pitches of the gamelan scales, and capable of expressive effects such as portamento and vibrato. The playing style is very lyrical, closely related to vocal music and highly ornamented.

Gender

n  We have already encountered a member of the gender family in the slentem. The gender barung has 14 thin bronze bars suspended by cord over individual resonator tubes.

n  The player uses 2 padded disc beaters, one in each hand - the simultaneous playing and damping of the preceding note requiring great skill and coordination. The gender barung has a range of two and a half octaves; the smaller gender penerus is similar but pitched an octave higher.

Gambang

n  The gambang is a four-octave xylophone with the

wooden bars sitting over a box resonator and played with two small padded discs, each at the end of a long flexible stick made from buffalo horn. These slicks enable the fast reiteration of notes which is so characteristic of gambang playing, and which compensates for the almost instantaneous decay of the sound.

Celempung, Sitar, Suling

n  The celempung is a zither with 13 or 14 double strings

plucked with the thumbnails. More common than the celempung. and valued for its portability is a smaller, plainer version of it called the siter.

n  The suling is a simple end-blown bamboo flute. Two instruments are required, one with four finger-holes for slendro and one with five finger-holes for pelog.

Voices

n  Voices play an important part in much of the repertoire

of Javanese gamelan music, and are usually present in two forms:

n  1. The pesinden - a single female vocalist n  The gerongan - a male chorus of 4 or more singers n  The vocal parts are not soloistic in any way, but just

additional strands in the musical texture. n  The singers usually sit at the front of the gamelan in the

centre.

The System

n  We have seen how the layout of the gamelan reflects four main

functions in the music: (A) core melody, (B) underlying structure, (C) elaboration and (D) leadership. (This is very much an over-simplification, but helps us to understand the music system.)

n  The feature that makes one gamelan piece different from another is its core melody.

n  At the moment of performance this melody is “realized” into a complex polyphonic texture by the musicians. This requires interpretative and creative decisions to be made by all the members of the group. For this to happen all the musicians must learn the basic principles and norms of the music system.

Wilujeng

n  Full analysis and discussion with transcription is available in Neil Sorrell, A Guide to the Gamelan (London, 1990), 78-120.

n  There is a copy permanently available in the library – it cannot be taken out

Playing notation on sheet. Review of Colotomic structure of Lancaran and Ladrang forms.

Colotomy is idea of cycle in which instruments are played according to their pitch and function. At the centre is the balungan played by the main melody instruments – the melody is punctuated by the lower pitched gongs – the higher pitched elaborating instrument then weave more complicated melodic and rhythmic patterns over the structure. The whole creates a hugely complicated web of sound which all relates to the core melody.

Colotomic Structure

n  Colotomy is idea of cycle in which instruments are played according to their pitch and function. At the centre is the balungan played by the main melody instruments – the melody is punctuated by the lower pitched gongs – the higher pitched elaborating instrument then weave more complicated melodic and rhythmic patterns over the structure. The whole creates a hugely complicated web of sound which all relates to the core melody.

Last Thoughts

n  In such a system the student of music is not concerned with learning many different “original compositions” as in Western orchestral music. The student’s objective is to learn the process. i.e. how a piece is realized both in terms of (a) what each individual instrument plays in relation to the core melody, and (b) how the piece as a whole is interpreted in terms of tempo, dynamics, number of repetitions etc.

n  In traditional gamelan music there are only a small number of fixed forms (such as iancaran. the one you learned at the workshop). This means that once the realization process for a particular form has been learned, it can then be applied to any piece (i.e. core melody) in that form,