Gamelan of Java and Bali

One word, two worlds

Gamelan simply means an ensemble of mostly bronze percussion — gongs, metallophones, drums — tuned as a set and never mixed with instruments from another gamelan. Beyond that, the Javanese and Balinese traditions have diverged for five centuries.

Central Java: the courts of Solo and Yogyakarta

Court gamelan is slow, layered and meditative. A skeletal melody (balungan) is played on the mid-range saron; larger gongs mark the ends of phrases in a nested cycle (gongan); higher instruments elaborate; a female soloist (pesindhèn) and male chorus add text. The drummer (kendhang) cues every tempo change. Performances accompany shadow puppetry (wayang kulit) that can run all night.

Two tuning systems coexist, and a full court gamelan is really two ensembles side by side:

• Sléndro — five roughly equidistant tones per octave.
• Pélog — seven unequal tones, of which five are used at a time.

Bali: gong kebyar and the temple

Balinese gamelan is fast, bright and explosive. The 20th-century gong kebyar style opens with a crash and proceeds through sudden shifts of tempo and dynamics. Its hallmark is kotekan: two players share one melody, each playing alternate notes so fast that no single musician could produce the line. Instruments are tuned in slightly detuned pairs to create a shimmering beat (ombak, “wave”).

Other Balinese ensembles include the ancient seven-tone gamelan semar pegulingan, the bamboo jegog of West Bali, and kecak, a 1930s vocal creation in which a hundred men chant interlocking “cak” syllables around a dancer.

Influence abroad

Debussy heard a Javanese gamelan at the 1889 Paris Exposition; Colin McPhee transcribed Balinese music in the 1930s; Steve Reich, Lou Harrison and the American gamelan movement followed. There are now more than a hundred community gamelans in Europe and North America.

Listen for free

• Internet Archive: the Music of Indonesia series (Smithsonian Folkways, 20 volumes) has extensive free liner notes; search the archive for gamelan in the Audio and Live Music collections — several university gamelan concerts are uploaded in full.
• YouTube: STSI Denpasar and ISI Surakarta (the state arts institutes) upload student and faculty concerts. Look for “Gong Kebyar Semara Ratih” and the Solo court’s “Gendhing Bonang” recordings.
• Wikimedia Commons hosts freely licensed field recordings tagged Gamelan.