A Brief Introduction to Gamelan Music
Gamelan is a Javanese/Indonesian word for
ensemble. The word "gamel" means to hammer something
in Javanese and , indeed, "hammering" or hitting is
the way in which most of the different instruments in
the ensemble are sounded with the exception of the two
stringed instruments -- the bowed fiddle (rebab) and
the plucked zither (siter) -- and the flute (suling),
male chorus (gerong) and female soloists
(pasindhen). Most of the instruments are made from
cast bronze and are in the shape of hanging gongs
(gong, kempul) and racked gongs (bonang and kenong)
which look like gongs lying on their backs with the
boss facing up towards the ceiling. There are
metallophones (saron) (like xylophones but made from
metal, in this case, bronze polished to a gleaming
luster) and drums (kendhang) played with the
hands. The drummer and the bowed instrument player are
the leaders of the group, one determining melodic
transitions and the other determining rhythmic
transitions. No single person stands in front of the
ensemble and conducts. The musicians must listen and
rely on their understanding of what is "usual" in a
piece of any particular form and "special" or pamijen
in a particular piece in order to play it
properly. The music is cyclic, often composed of
several different cycles, each of which is repeated an
undetermined number of times. Each cycle begins and
ends with the stroke of the biggest gong (gong agung)
which is, itself, named Nyai Saraswati. The length of
individual cycles can be as short as 30 seconds or as
long as 20 minutes. As most pieces are composed of
several different cycles, each played several times,
the duration of pieces can range from a few minutes to
more than an hour, rivaling a Mahler or Beethoven
Symphony in terms of complexity, movements, and
duration.
The late 19th century composer Claude Debussy heard
gamelan at the 1889 World's Fair in Paris. He was
transfixed and spent many days in the Dutch East
Indies Pavilion listening to the Indonesian musicians
perform. He worked hard to understand the structure
and tuning. He later set about composing music
inspired by the Javanese music he heard. Some of the
other composers who have been inspired by Indonesian
gamelan traditions include: Maurice Ravel; Oliver
Messiaen; Benjamin Britten; Colin McPhee; Harry
Partch; John Cage; Lou Harrison; Peter Sculthorpe;
Anne Boyd; Steve Everett; and many contemporary
Indonesian composers such as I.M. Harjito; B. Subono;
Tony Prabawa; Franki Raden; I Wayan Sadra; and Otok
Bima Sidarta.
Western musicians who hear gamelan are struck both by
the complexity of the relationships between the melody
lines of the different instruments and, if they are
aware of the "rules" of western harmony, by the almost
"impressionistic" tone clusters that can be heard if
the listener hears the music vertically, or tries to
interpret it "harmonically". People without musical
training often focus on the melifluousness of the
sound and the soothing, meditative quality of some of
the music. Others are excited by the multileveled
interlockingness of the texture, comparing it to the
experience of listening to several, incredibly good
jazz solo players improvising together.