Boydell & BrewerBoydell Press Chapter Title Java.docx

Boydell & Brewer
Boydell Press
Chapter Title: Java
Chapter Author(s): Neil Sorrell
Book Title: The Other Classical Musics
Book Subtitle: Fifteen Great Traditions
Book Editor(s): Michael Church
Published by: Boydell & Brewer, Boydell Press. (2015)
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7722/j.ctt155j3zb.8
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars,
researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information
technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about
JSTOR, please contact [email protected]
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the
Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
http://about.jstor.org/terms
Boydell & Brewer, Boydell Press are collaborating with JSTOR
to digitize, preserve and

extend access to The Other Classical Musics
This content downloaded from 128.114.165.125 on Fri, 30 Mar
2018 02:14:08 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Gamelan gongs are made from an alloy of
ten parts copper to three parts tin, and are
filed to a golden colour. The exception is the
biggest gong (left) which is left in its black
state, with the marks from the hammer
blows still visible.
OCM.indb 50 08/06/2015 10:10
2018 02:14:08 UTC
51
2 JavaNeil Sorrell
A crowd of men, women and children are gathered in a
courtyard, and more
are in the street, squeezing into the gateway and sitting on the
walls, or in
rickshaws which have stopped for the show. An array of
instruments – large
and small gongs, xylophones, keyed metallophones, a bowed
instrument, a
bamboo flute – is spread out on the raised stone floor of a
pavilion where a

woman sings; players not absorbed in the music smoke and chat
on the
fringes. The only real light on this hot dark night is projected
onto a white
sheet stretched on a carved wooden frame at which a man sits,
moving flat
leather puppets of fantastical shapes while speaking their parts
and singing
songs; he also directs the gamelan, as this collection of
instruments is
known. At times one single instrument creates a shimmering
background; at
others the group produces loud snatches of repetitively-twirling
melody. The
musicians don’t use notation but watch the screen, laughing
uproariously
with the audience at the comic bits. Shows like this traditionally
last all night
without a break, with the puppeteer being the only one never to
leave his
place. The spectators come and go freely, knowing the story and
format so
well that they can decide which parts to watch, and when to go
somewhere to
doze, lulled by the background music which fuses magically
with the buzzing
and humming of insects.
On a visit to Java in 1971 I stayed with a cultured and musical
family. The father listened for hours to gamelan music on the
radio, and extolled its
subtlety and power. Among the many beautiful ways he found to
describe it, the
most memorable was ‘like raindrops falling from leaves after a
shower’ . Writing
in 1937, the Dutch author Leonhard Huizinga gave a similarly

poetic description:
‘There are only two things one can compare it with: moonlight,
and running
water. It is pure and mysterious like moonlight; it is always the
same and yet
always changing, like running water. ’ 1 The aquatic metaphor
common to both
descriptions is not far-fetched, as at least one sound in the
gamelan actually has
an aquatic origin. One of the drums derives its name, and many
of the sounds
it produces, from ciblon,2 a game in which children slap the
surface of water.
Despite being a percussion orchestra, the gamelan produces
sounds that are
essentially fluid, with legato holding sway over staccato.
The documented history of the modern gamelan begins in the
eighteenth
century, but its history is commonly held to stretch back to
mythological times,
when the god Sang Hyang Guru allegedly made a gong to
summon the other
gods. To permit further messages, two more gongs were added,
and this three-
note ensemble formed the nucleus of the first gamelan
(Lokananta). The word
OCM.indb 51 08/06/2015 10:10
2018 02:14:08 UTC

the other classical musics
52
‘gong’ may have originated in Java, but the instrument almost
certainly did not,
although its origins are uncertain: locations as far apart as
China and Greece
have been proposed. What is beyond doubt is that gongs have
reached an
unsurpassed state of refinement in Java, with the gamelan
including gongs of all
shapes and sizes, and the largest being the most revered. What
sound could be
more grave, majestic and portentous than that of a large gong?
But ‘gamelan’ refers to many different kinds of ensemble in
Java, Bali and
other parts of Indonesia and Malaysia. And within Java there
are significant
differences between the ensemble from Central Java3 discussed
in this chapter,
and the smaller Gamelan Degung of Sunda (the region of West
Java around the
city of Bandung). Meanwhile Bali, the much smaller island to
the east, vibrates
to the shimmering sounds of its own huge variety of gamelans
including
the Gong Kebyar, Semar Pegulingan and Angklung ensembles.
Despite a shared
Hindu-Javanese culture until the sixteenth century (when
Muslim rule in
Java led many nobles to resettle in Bali) the Javanese and
Balinese styles have
evolved to be immediately distinctive, with enormous changes
over the past
hundred years. Balinese gamelan music tends to be loud and

fast, and it
relies on rapid interlocking rhythmic patterns that require great
skill and
accuracy. The Central Javanese gamelan, variously referred to
as Gamelan Jawa,
Gamelan Ageng, and sometimes even Gamelan Klasik, is the
best-known in the
world, with a core repertoire of ‘classical’ pieces plus a variety
of recent popular
compositions.
The gamelan exists in royal courts and the poorest villages; it
is played by
amateurs and professionals, children and adults; it is used for
the most refined
and spiritual of ceremonies, and for the bawdiest of parties. In
its full form it
is probably the world’s largest instrumental ensemble after the
symphony
orchestra, but there is a crucial distinction between the two. As
is often observed,
the orchestra is an ensemble of players, but the gamelan is an
ensemble of
instruments. When a symphony concert has ended, the stage is
bare, but the
gamelan remains in its place after the players have departed.
Moreover, the same
gamelan will be played by different musicians over several
generations, but it
retains its sound, appearance and character. This helps explain
why it functions
as a cultural emblem, telling us much about Javanese concepts
of ownership
and communal artistic activity. The performance described at
the start of this
chapter is called a wayang, and it brings Javanese people
together in a way which

transcends all barriers of social class.
The foundations of Javanese culture were laid down 1,700
years ago, with a
thousand years of Hindu and Buddhist kingdoms establishing
much of today’s
language, mythology and religion. The ancient Hindu-Buddhist
civilisation
is still proudly visible: the Buddhist stupa of Borobudur and the
Hindu temple
complex at Prambanan – both well over a thousand years old –
are in their
general shape and detailed carvings almost indistinguishable
from their Indian
models. Moreover, Javanese wayang and dance draw on the
Mahabharata and
Ramayana, the great Hindu epics which are as well known in
Java as they are
in India. Some of the terminology of Javanese gamelan music
(for example
nada or note, rasa or feeling) as well as the names of some
pieces (for example,
OCM.indb 52 08/06/2015 10:10
2018 02:14:08 UTC
53
Puspawarna, meaning kinds of flowers) is derived from
Sanskrit, which
influenced both the modern Javanese language and also the
archaic form used in

a wayang.
The arrival of Islam in the fifteenth century, and the
subsequent European
trading contacts – Portuguese, then the Dutch colonialists
attracted by the spice
trade – caused significant power shifts in Java, from whence
the migration
of nobles mentioned earlier helped ensure that to this day Bali
remains a
predominantly Hindu island. Even in modern Indonesia, home to
the largest
Muslim population in the world, the Hindu-Javanese legacy and
the indigenous
1 Kenong
2 Kempul
3 Gong
4 Kempyang
5 2 Kethuk instruments
6 Saron
7 Peking
8 Demung
9 Slenthem
10 Gambang kayu
11 Gender Panerus
12 Gender Barung
13 Kendang (drums)
14 Clempung
15 Bonang Panerus
16 Bonang Barung
The Javanese gamelan ‘Kyai Telaga Rukmi’ at the University of
Wisconsin-Madison, with a
key to the instruments

OCM.indb 53 08/06/2015 10:10
2018 02:14:08 UTC
54
animist religions pre-dating the advent of Hinduism still
permeate the arts. And
this applies to Java, with its Muslim majority and sizeable
Christian minority
as well. Some of the surviving ceremonial gamelans in Javanese
palaces are
used only for specific rituals and ceremonies, or dates in the
religious calendar,
with the best example being the Gamelan Sekatèn, which is
reserved for
commemorations of the Prophet Muhammad’s birth and death.
These gamelans
comprise far fewer instruments than the typical Central
Javanese kind, but
the instruments (larger gong chimes and keys of the
metallophone group) are
bigger, supporting the theory that the gamelan evolved from a
small ensemble
of large instruments to a large ensemble of relatively smaller
ones. Wayangs
accompanied by the modern gamelan are often closely
connected with birthdays,
weddings and inaugurations of important enterprises, but they
also celebrate

Java’s distant past, going back beyond the Hindu period to
animist worship of
spirits and ancestors; in villages they mark key stages of the
agricultural cycle.
In 1755 the Dutch instigated the partition of the Mataram
kingdom, last of
the great independent Javanese empires, which took its name
from the region
around present-day Yogyakarta. With partition came the
establishment of the
Javanese kratons (courts) of Surakarta (Solo) and Yogyakarta
(Jogja), just thirty-
five miles apart. Later two additional minor courts were created,
one in each city
(the Mangkunegaran in Solo and the Pakualaman in Jogja) and
all four survive to
the present day. As military and political power passed to the
Dutch, the Javanese
This photograph, taken by Kassian Cephas at Yogyakarta in
1888, shows a traditional gamelan set up for a
shadow-puppet performance at the annual Sekaten festival.
OCM.indb 54 08/06/2015 10:10
2018 02:14:08 UTC
java
55
courts devoted their attention to the arts, and much of what is

performed to this
day derives from these centres of patronage. The rivalries
between them served
as catalysts of artistic excellence and prevented standardisation,
the avoidance of
which is still a key feature of gamelan music. Although the
political influence of
the courts never recovered after Dutch rule, the remarkable fact
is that all four
courts have survived under the modern Republic of Indonesia.
They now thrive
both as tourist attractions and as centres of performance, and
remain significant
centres of patronage for gamelan players, whose other sources
of income are
independent performances, radio work and teaching. There are
noticeable
differences of instrumentation and performance practice even
within the typical
Central Javanese gamelan, and the expert eye and ear will
immediately tell the
difference between a set from Solo and one from Jogja: the
instrumentation may
be different, as may the shapes of the wooden troughs of the
metallophones
(raised at the ends in Jogja, but flat in Solo), though the sound
will remain
roughly the same.
▪ Form, shape, function
The gamelan is mostly comprised of knobbed gongs of two main
shapes, plus
families of keyed metallophones, which is how instruments that
are more like
xylophones are usually described. These are sets of thin plates
or thicker bars,

suspended respectively over tube or trough resonators. Those of
the thick bar
and trough resonator family are played with a single, uncovered
tabuh or wooden
mallet, whereas all other mallets in the gamelan (used for thin
plates over
individual tube-resonators, as well as all gongs) are padded,
mostly with cloth
rings or string, but with thicker padding for the large hanging
gongs.
The preferred gamelan metal is a special bronze alloy called
gangsa which
is usually ten parts copper to three parts tin, and the craft of
manufacturing
instruments, especially the gongs, is as steeped in Javanese
tradition as the music
itself. Cheaper metals like iron are often used, though these do
not require the
unique skills essential to bronze-working. Unlike bells, the
gongs cannot be
cast, but must be hammered into shape from a disc hardly wider
than a dinner
plate. Nowhere else are these instruments produced with such
precise mixtures
of copper and tin, and with such carefully calibrated heating in
a furnace,
hammering for hours, and finally tuning by further hammering
and filing; the
protracted filing process transforms the black bronze, pock-
marked from the
hammer-blows, into its beautiful golden colour. In many
gamelans the largest
gong is left in its black state, with the marks from the hammer
blows clearly
visible, except for the central knob which is filed to a smooth
finish. Fine tuning

is mostly achieved by cold-hammering, a highly skilled process,
plus further
filing.
The craftsmen making gamelans and the players of the finished
instruments
have much in common, with the same men sometimes fulfilling
both functions;
both skills depend on teamwork, and craftsmen and gamelan
players routinely
exchange jobs. Some craftsmen take names according to their
particular job, or
use ones from Javanese mythology (a notable example being
Panji, a legendary
OCM.indb 55 08/06/2015 10:10
2018 02:14:08 UTC
56
Javanese prince, for the man who has the very important job of
turning gongs in
the fire), so the work may take on the aura of a ceremony.
‘Gamelan’ can literally
mean hammering, or handling,4 a fact which further connects
manufacturing
process and musical product.
The instrumental groups of a gamelan perform specific
functions, and
their dense polyphony is created from just one melodic strand,

drawing from
a repertoire of patterns peculiar to each instrument. (An
example of how this
occurs will be provided later.) The whole gamelan can be
divided in various
ways. Two binary divisions are made according to tuning (to be
examined
later) and dynamics (‘loud’ and ‘soft’ instruments), but these
criteria give little
sense of how the music works, or of the function of each
instrument. For that
purpose a division into three broad functions is usually
proposed: a central
group of around five metallophones, which plays a simplified
outline of the
core melody – the balungan, or skeleton – on which the entire
piece is based; a
group of horizontally and vertically suspended tuned gongs at
the rear, which
mark the phrase structure of the melody; and a diverse group of
instruments at
the front, collectively referred to as the panerusan, which
elaborate the melody
by performing faster patterns around it, each pattern derived
from the repertoire
of the individual instruments, and dictated by the structure and
motion of the
main melody. The bonangs (double rows of small gongs
supported in bed-like
racks) perform the main elaborations in loud music, and also
play in soft styles.
Elaborating instruments tend to anticipate the balungan, rather
than follow it:
the destination of a phrase is in the minds and music of the
players long before
the balungan reaches it. The principal elaborating instruments

(panerusan),
which give the music its subtle polyphonic density, are nearly
all soft instruments
(incapable of playing loud), and are thus placed at the front of
the gamelan to
enhance their audibility. As the loud instruments may also be
played softly,
the full gamelan texture will include them regardless of
dynamic, while soft
panerusan instruments will drop out of loud music. Within this
group are the
bronze gendèr barung, or simply gender, with its smaller
version gender panerus,
metallophones that delicately trace intricate parts using two
padded mallets.
The soft group also includes some important instruments which
are neither
metal – such as the gambang (wooden xylophone) – nor
classified as percussion
(i.e. instruments struck with mallets), such as the suling (end-
blown bamboo
flute), celempung and smaller siter (both plucked stringed
instruments). The set
of hand-beaten drums (kendhang) which directs the tempo and
cues transitions
is not part of the panerusan, and plays in all gamelan music,
whether loud or
soft. Prominent within the panerusan is the two-stringed bowed
rebab, which
often functions as melodic leader of the ensemble: despite its
importance in the
modern gamelan, this is a relatively recent addition, and –
retaining its Arabic
name to this day – probably arrived from the Middle East in
the sixteenth century,
as Islam gained ascendancy in Java. The subsequent

combination of soft and
loud instruments created the modern full gamelan, with the
rebab centre-stage.
Another reason for the rebab’s special status is the centrality of
vocal lines,
for which it is the ideal companion. The typical line-up of
singers consists
of three or four men singing a pre-composed chorus (gérongan)
with which
OCM.indb 56 08/06/2015 10:10
2018 02:14:08 UTC
java
57
the gamelan players may join in, plus a female singer
(pesindhèn) who weaves
quasi-improvisatory lines. The voice gained steadily in
importance alongside
the rebab: the pesindhen is now the nearest thing to a soloist,
and is usually the
only performer to be named. Not only does her solo line stand
out (often with
the aid of amplification), but she is also the only woman in a
traditionally male
environment. These days women increasingly play gamelan, and
a small team
of pesindhèn often take it in turns to sing, so the lone female is
a less common

sight.
All instruments played with mallets require damping, except
for the largest
gongs. This is easily achieved if only one mallet is used, with
the free hand
damping the key by pinching it between the forefinger and
thumb as the next
one is struck, or holding the gong steady while gently pressing
the mallet
against the central knob that has just been struck. The gambang
requires no
damping as the sound from the wooden keys decays rapidly. In
the case of the
genders, the thumbs, little fingers and the side of the hand
(whatever is not
used to hold the mallets) must control the damping, so that four
things happen
simultaneously: the two mallets produce two lines of music
while the rest of the
hands damp each line. While the gamelan is usually thought of
as an egalitarian
ensemble, where all contribute to the sound and none should
dominate or even
be considered more important, some instruments make greater
demands on
the player’s technique and musical knowledge than others. But
this enhances
the gamelan’s attractiveness as a mixed-ability ensemble:
novices can join in
and, when ready to face greater challenges, can graduate to
other instruments.
The formalised sonic architecture of the full gamelan gives
acoustic cohesion
to the music, and the fixed relationship between instrument and
function
helps memorisation of an entire repertoire. It also gives the

sound and texture
of gamelan music a particular stability: once the piece begins, it
maintains its
texture with very limited dynamic changes; there are almost no
silences in
gamelan music.
▪ Performance
Palaces and wealthy households have pendhapa, special
pavilions designed to
house gamelans. With their concave roofs and hard marble
floors these create
the ideal acoustics, in which the sounds blend well and with no
instrument or
voice predominating; it is sometimes said that a gamelan is one
instrument
played by many, and that is how it should sound. But now
gamelans are mostly
played in more modest, less reverberant surroundings, from
village halls to
little more than shacks. Gamelan concerts do take place –
though these tend
to be more of an informal playing session, klenèngan, than a
Western concert –
but the main function of this music is to accompany a ceremony
or theatrical
performance involving dance or puppetry.
The combination of the gamelan’s mythological origin – as a
signalling
system invented by the gods – with residual animist beliefs in
which objects
may have spirits, helps explain why gamelans may be revered,
and why some,
especially in the royal courts, are regarded as pusaka, or sacred
heirlooms. This

OCM.indb 57 08/06/2015 10:10
2018 02:14:08 UTC
58
sacred element should not be over-emphasised – lest the
gamelan be falsely
regarded as symbiotically tied to a specific religion – but
respect for it must also
be shown by non-Javanese players, who are instructed to
remove their shoes
and never step over instruments (which would imply an uncouth
individual
dominion over a communal object). And in Java such
considerate behaviour
is not reserved for the gamelan: it is expected in everyday
comportment. The
word alus (smooth) lies at the heart of Javanese ideas of culture,
education
and self-control: it denotes refinement, calm, restraint, subtle
allusion and
understatement rather than brazen directness. It can be seen in
Javanese dances
and wayang shadow plays, where the alus hero will remain
calm, engage in
periods of meditation and preserve his inner strength by
avoiding excessive
outbursts or losing control. This principle governs most of the
gamelan
The metallophone (right,

in its Balinese form) is at
the heart of the gamelan:
sets of thin plates or
thicker bars, suspended
over tube or trough
resonators.
OCM.indb 58 08/06/2015 10:10
2018 02:14:08 UTC
java
59
repertoire, although it also includes more raucous and catchy
items. The general
term for gamelan music is karawitan, which is closely related in
meaning to alus.
Another ideal, linked to the importance attached by the
Javanese to meditation,
is iklas, a kind of detachment and mental repose. These
qualities are reflected in
the music, where abrupt contrasts and harsh noise are usually
avoided, and they
make ideal criteria for ‘classical’ in the Javanese sense, as does
another Javanese
term, adi luhung (beautiful and glorious).5 Yet since the dramas
have their clowns,
ogres and villains, the music must sometimes erupt into
raucousness.

▪ Tuning Systems
Each gamelan has its own spirit and personality, and many sets
are given names.
Some of these are enigmatic, like the famous old Gamelan Kyai
Kanyut Mèsem
(‘Revered and moved to smile’) in the Mangkunegaran palace in
Solo; others are
more explicit, like Gamelan Sekar Petak (‘White flower’), made
in 1981 to reside
in the English city of York. The age, appearance and quality of
the carving of the
metal and wood – and even the colours or oils applied to the
wooden frames –
can vary considerably, but what gives a gamelan its acoustic
personality is its
tuning. The two unique tuning systems of Java (laras sléndro
and laras pélog)
are consensual rather than standardised, thus no two gamelans
are tuned
identically. These tunings define karawitan (gamelan music)
even more than
the instruments themselves. Laras sléndro is a pentatonic tuning
in which the
intervals are more or less equidistant (between a whole tone and
minor third),
thus distancing it quite radically from the pentatonic scale
produced on the black
notes of the Western keyboard. Laras pélog is also conceived as
pentatonic but
has seven available notes, from which three pentatonic sets can
be extracted.6
The intervals of the pélog heptatonic set vary quite widely, from
ones little bigger
than a semitone to others close to a minor third. A gamelan in
just one laras
(tuning) is perfectly viable, though what is commonly described

as a complete
gamelan is generally assumed to have both, necessitating a set
of instruments
for each laras. To work as an integrated set, the two tunings
must coincide on
one pitch, which can serve as a pivotal note (tumbuk) when
changing from one
tuning to the other.
Within each tuning are three sub-tonalities or pathet, a word
suggesting
constraint or limitation, and the constituent notes of the two
tunings are
organised into three pathets per tuning: pathet nem, pathet
sanga and pathet
manyura in sléndro and pathet lima, pathet nem and pathet
barang in pélog.
Pathet is one of the glories of karawitan, focusing the available
pitches of the
gamelan and giving them nuance, depth and subtlety, but its
complexities make
it the hardest aspect to define and describe. Even the Javanese
have difficulty
in explaining it, if not in grasping it intuitively: it must be
absorbed over time,
so that it becomes more instinctive than intellectual, but it is
based on the
principle of hierarchy. If the tonic can shift from one note to
another (and with
it the dominant) the whole character of the pentatonic set will
change. Javanese
theory does have a concept equivalent to tonic and dominant,
and the Javanese
ear is finely tuned to these different ways of organising the
notes so that their
OCM.indb 59 08/06/2015 10:10

2018 02:14:08 UTC
60
relative strength changes. We should therefore talk of a
pentatonic mode (varied
according to pathet) rather than the pentatonic scale.
The tonal shift just described, affecting the hierarchy of
pitches, impinges
on extra-musical features such as mood and time of
performance. The pathets
reflect the passage of time through the day or night, and even
the life cycle.
First comes sléndro pathet nem, with its corresponding pélog
pathet lima,
representing youth; then sléndro pathet sanga, with its
corresponding pélog
pathet nem, reflecting the transition to adulthood; and finally
sléndro pathet
manyura, with its corresponding pélog pathet barang, for the
wisdom of old
age. The attendant moods, however, do not progress in the same
way – in fact
they seem to reverse what one might expect: sléndro pathet
nem/pélog pathet
lima have a low tessitura and fairly sombre mood; sléndro
pathet sanga/pélog
pathet nem have a higher tessitura and brighter mood; sléndro
pathet manyura/

pélog pathet barang have the highest tessitura and brightest
mood. In short,
while pathet may seem to behave like tonality it is actually
much closer to a
modal system, in which note hierarchies, moods and times of
performance
are significant. Different keys (Western tonalities) depend on
emphasising
different notes from within the twelve semitones; sléndro uses
exactly the same
five pitches but, as it were, alters the viewing angles and
perspective. A similar
notion applies to the pathets of pélog, though the process of
taking different
pentatonic sets from the available seven notes makes the task of
distinguishing
between the pathets much easier. In fact, the five-note set
within sléndro can be
expanded by adding ‘chromatic’ notes to certain pieces; such
notes, absent from
the basic pentatonic set to which most instruments are pre-
tuned, can only be
produced vocally or on the rebab. This practice, known as
barang miring (oblique),
is restricted to a few pieces, and its effect is to change the mood
from happy
to sad.
▪ The canon
Just as terms like ‘symphony’ and ‘concerto’ automatically
suggest classical
music to Europeans, in Java the word gendhing fulfils a similar
role. It can be a
generic word for a gamelan piece, but it is also used to describe
the largest and
noblest compositions, as opposed to the shorter forms in the

traditional canon
and the catchy, popular pieces that have come to occupy an
important position in
the repertoire. The large gendhing are also closely associated
with court music,
as they mostly originated in the palaces; they are nearly always
in two main
sections, each repeated several times. A common practice is to
attach shorter
pieces to the initial large gendhing to make a kind of continuous
suite which
can last from twenty minutes to over an hour. The most
important determinant
of duration is tempo, and what in Javanese gamelan music is
known as irama,
which is not quite the same thing as tempo but rather a system
of tempo
relationships.
The simplest way to understand this is to consider simply the
core melody
(balungan). As its tempo slows down, the time-gaps between its
notes lengthen,
allowing the elaborating instruments to fill in the gaps with
more notes. Thus
OCM.indb 60 08/06/2015 10:10
2018 02:14:08 UTC
java
61

in the faster irama (where the balungan is moving most quickly)
an elaborating
instrument may only have time to play two notes per one of the
balungan. When
the music slows down to the next irama, the same elaborating
instrument will
play four notes per one of the balungan; in the next irama eight,
and so on.
There are essentially five irama, working in this system of
ratios. Each can move
within a wide range of tempi; it is only when the ratios change
that the irama
changes. A useful analogy can be made with the gears of a car:
a range of speeds
is tolerated in one gear, but at a certain point in slowing down
or accelerating
a change of gear – hence ratios within the mechanism –
becomes necessary.
Moreover, while some gamelan instruments may be playing four
notes per one
of balungan, others may be doubling that to eight, yet the whole
ensemble is still
playing in the same irama, since two or more are not recognised
as occurring
simultaneously.
How the musicians respond to irama, but also to pathet and
everything
else that is fundamental to the organisation of gamelan music, is
a key aspect
of performance. In the absence of scores and parts, the
musicians must know
not only the balungan but also how to create their parts and
relate them to it.
This practice of realisation is known as garapan, or ‘process of
working’ . While

admitting a certain amount of freedom, this is not quite
improvisation, as the
player of each elaborating instrument must choose an
appropriate pattern
according to the pathet and irama from the available repertoire
for that particular
instrument.
Another feature of gendhing is sung poetry. (A small but
important
group of gendhing, using relatively few instruments, have no
singing, but
the bulk of classical pieces feature parts for the solo female
singer and male
chorus.) Vocal music has influenced the composition of many
instrumental
gendhing, and Javanese gamelan music has come to feature
singing more and
more, with the female soloist emerging as a star. Song texts are
based on the
old Javanese poetic metres and deal with noble and elevated
topics. Perhaps
the most famous of all begins with the line ‘Parabé Sang
Marabangun’ (‘The
name of the noble king Marabangun’). Another frequently sung
text begins
‘Nalikanira ing dalu wong agung mangsah semedi’ (‘In the
night a great man
meditated’). Around midnight, at a crucial point in the wayang
shadow play,
the dhalang (puppeteer) sings a chant containing the words
roughly translated
as ‘the prayers of the wise priests grace the witching hour’ .
The status of many
texts and melodies is further enhanced by their ascription to the
rulers of the

Javanese courts. For example, the well-known Puspawarna
(mentioned earlier
for its Sanskrit-derived title, with a notated extract given later
in this chapter)
is attributed to Mangkunegara IV (reigned 1853–81), and is still
used in the
Mangkunegaran palace to announce the ruler’s entrance. The
modern, popular
style of gamelan music, characterised by shorter pieces with
catchy tunes, by
contrast uses humorous texts or ones that deal with everyday
life, and may
even carry government propaganda. Such pieces are great
favourites in wayang
performances, especially in clowning episodes.
OCM.indb 61 08/06/2015 10:10
2018 02:14:08 UTC
62
▪ Notation
Gamelan has always been an oral tradition. Although notation
systems emerged
in the nineteenth century, with a more recent one found
throughout the global
gamelan diaspora, notation is never used in performance by
experienced
Javanese musicians, who rely on their memory and spontaneous

creativity. They
will have learnt the art in childhood by observation and
imitation. One often sees
children taking over a gamelan when the adults have left, and
trying to reproduce
what has just been played. Notation is used to teach beginners
in schools and
music colleges, and also to preserve a canon of melodic outlines
and complex
patterns, but it is never used for anything like a full score.7
Even with unfamiliar
modern compositions that disrupt the traditional functions of
the instruments
and other stabilising forces such as pathet, musicians will either
learn the work
orally or, if they must use notation, dispense with it at the first
opportunity. The
more competent they are, the more they will memorise
everything they need,
including the balungan. This ability enhances the process of
mutual listening,
which in turn ensures cohesion and a refined sense of ensemble.
The peripheral status of notation is also reflected in the fact
that the cipher
system ubiquitously encountered for gamelan is only one
hundred years old. Its
name, kepatihan, comes from the compound in Solo serving as
residence for
the equivalent of prime minister to the court. The musician and
theorist R. L.
Martopangrawit (1914–86) said that before notation was
invented, musicians
would learn gendhing through humming.8 In fact they still do,
and it is common
to hear a musician hum the main melody (or a kind of composite
line that brings

as much of the ensemble together as humming can achieve)
while playing
another part against it.9 The greatest virtue of the kepatihan
system is simplicity,
and it can be mastered in minutes. By assigning a number to
each pitch, the
music can be speedily notated without further need to specify
precise intonation
(which would not work in a musical culture that prides itself on
pitch variability
from one gamelan to another). But complex rhythms are harder
to capture, and
dynamics and tempo are not usually indicated. Above all, the
notation is confined
to what can most easily be notated: it acts as a reference point
from which to
construct a whole piece.
Earlier a ‘core melody’ was mentioned, on which the entire
piece is based: this
corresponds to the European cantus firmus or ‘nuclear melody’ .
The Javanese
term balungan has found almost universal acceptance, partly
because its literal
meaning (skeleton) captures the essence so well. But debate has
focused on
the nature and role of this melody, and the mistakenness of
assuming it to
be the main melody. In some contexts, especially very slow
music, it is barely
recognisable as a melody at all, and is better described as points
along the path
of more complex melodic strands. But because it outlines the
melodic flux, and
gives musicians a basis on which to construct their parts – and
is the only line

Gamelan tradition has shown remarkable continuity, as
evidenced by this eighteenth-
century manuscript (above left) and by photographs of K. P. H.
Notoprojo, a renowned
Javanese performer (above right), and the Sunda gamelan led by
Uking Sukri and Ono
Sukarna in 1972 (below).
▶
OCM.indb 62 08/06/2015 10:10
2018 02:14:08 UTC
java
63
OCM.indb 63 08/06/2015 10:10
2018 02:14:08 UTC
64
played by more than one instrument – it is the part that is
notated and preserved

to represent the piece.
In the kepatihan system, each note is given a number. In the
examples below,
the numbers refer to the notes in the sléndro tuning. The pélog
heptatonic set
is simply numbered from 1 to 7; the five sléndro notes are
numbered from 1 to
6 (low to high), omitting note 4. (The reason is that the notes
also have names
which predate the cipher notation system: for example note 2 is
called gulu, note
3 dhadha and note 5 lima in both sléndro and pélog. Thus the
numbering and
nomenclature correspond, and note 4 is treated as a feature of
pélog alone.) The
balungan melody can thus be shown as a sequence of numbers.
Dots between
notes can be rests, but usually double the duration of the
previous note; dots
below notes indicate the lower octave; those above indicate the
higher octave;
those without dots, the middle octave. This information is
necessary for the
elaborating instruments, though not for the ones actually
playing the balungan,
as they must fit it within their one-octave range. Thus no one
actually plays the
balungan exactly as notated below.
The simplicity of the kepatihan system and the minimal nature
of what is
chosen for notation mean that several hundred pieces can be
preserved in as
many pages or less. Housed in the music academies from which
they emanated,
and also online or on the shelves of gamelan enthusiasts around
the world, this

body of pieces has assumed the status of a canon.
▪ Notation and theory in practice: a case study
To demonstrate briefly the workings of melody, formal
organisation, and other
theoretical concepts discussed, as well as the kepatihan
notation, the following
examples give a snapshot from a well-known traditional
gamelan piece, Ketawang
Puspawarna (mentioned earlier in this chapter).10 The title
gives the formal
organisation (ketawang) found in several pieces, and also the
Javanese name
of this composition, which is from Sanskrit: pushpa (flower);
varna (variety or
colour). It is a kind of love-song to the harem of the ruler
(Mangkunegara IV),
as the different flowers listed in the nine verses of the complete
text celebrate
feminine virtues and attributes, though this can be extended to
human ideals
in general, and even to the nine rasas (sentiments) of ancient
Indian aesthetics.
Example 2.1 shows the extract in the kepatihan notation, as it
might appear in
collections of gamelan pieces: normally this would be just an
outline, showing
the balungan (by numbers) and main phrase-marking
instruments (by symbols).
ex. 2.1 Ketawang Puspawarna laras sléndro pathet manyura: the
opening of the second
section (ngelik) in kepatihan notation
OCM.indb 64 08/06/2015 10:10

2018 02:14:08 UTC
java
65
While simple and instantly intelligible to gamelan players, this
pared-down
example requires further explanation for the lay reader, which is
given below
in the fleshed-out version. In kepatihan notation, the balungan
melody is set
apart in four-beat units (which flow on in the same tempo).
Each unit, or gatra,
forms a crucial structural element in the music, enabling
musicians to work out
their parts from its shape and its final, cadential note. For that
reason, the gaps
between gatras assist reading and analysis.
The representation by numbers has only one disadvantage
(apart from its
unfamiliarity to those outside the gamelan community)
compared with staff
notation: a series of numbers cannot convey the shape and
contours of melodies
graphically. Thus an adapted staff notation has been devised to
show the same
extract from Ketawang Puspawarna (Example 2.3 overleaf),
with the addition
of some of the main elaborating instruments and voices. As the
piece is in the
sléndro tuning, its five notes fit conveniently on to the five

lines of the staff, and
even their (approximate) equidistance is maintained. The
principle also applies
to ledger lines, preserving the equidistant pattern, though
without the octave
equivalents of a normal staff. No clef is given, however, in
order to avoid an
association with precise pitches of the European system, and
drawing attention
to the anomaly just mentioned. Example 2.2 shows the pitches
required for this
extract.
ex. 2.2 Sléndro pitches on a staff
2 3 5 6 1 2 3 5 6 1 2 3
. . .
. . . .
lower octave middle octave upper octave
To save space and excessive detail, this extract is presented as
it might be
performed by the chamber gamelan known as gadhon,
comprising one balungan
instrument (slenthem) and the main soft elaborating
instruments: the rebab;
the gendèr barung (a metallophone played with both hands); the
gambang (a
xylophone, also played with both hands). While greatly reduced,
the ensemble
preserves the main layers of the music (the central balungan
with its supporting
phrase-marking structure, and overlay of different elaborations,
plus a simple
vocal line) and adequately conveys the essence of the music.

Note that the
balungan is written as it would be played (on the one-octave
slenthem) rather
than in its true register as shown in Example 2.1 above. The
phrase-marking
instruments would probably be restricted to just the large gong
ageng but in this
example the others – kenong, kethuk-kempyang and kempul –
have been added as
they require so little space in the notation. They are indicated
above or below the
balungan by the following symbols:
( ) gong ageng (largest hanging gong)
^ kenong (gongs supported from beneath)
OCM.indb 65 08/06/2015 10:10
2018 02:14:08 UTC
66
balungan
rebab
gendèr barung
gambang

gérongan
/ 0
(con 8ve)
Kem -
bang- ken cur ka car yan
/ 0
ang gung- - - - ci na tur
ex. 2.3 Ketawang Puspawarna laras sléndro pathet manyura: the
opening of the second section
(ngelik) in modified staff notation
OCM.indb 66 08/06/2015 10:10
2018 02:14:08 UTC
java
67
v kempul (smaller hanging gongs)
+ kethuk (smaller gongs supported from beneath)
O kempyang (paired with the kethuk)

The gong ageng (with the kenong) marks the end of each cycle
or main
section (comprising sixteen beats in the ketawang form); the
kenong also marks
the halfway point, which the kempul subdivides in the second
half of the cycle;
the kethuk sounds on the second beat of each gatra, sandwiched
by strokes on
its higher-pitched companion, the kempyang; the male chorus
(gérongan) is also
included. The words of this extract translate as ‘Flower of the
kencur [possibly to
suggest a young girl or virgin] always spoken of with
enchantment’ .
The irama of this extract is irama dados, in which the balungan
moves quite
slowly (about one beat every two seconds), allowing the gendèr
barung to fit
four notes per one of balungan and the nimbler gambang twice
that number.
This shows the complexity of gamelan polyphony, which is
often described
simplistically as heterophony, meaning different versions of the
same melody
occurring simultaneously at different speeds. The lines of the
rebab, gendèr
barung and gambang show how much more it is than that; at the
same time the
relationship between the rebab and gérongan shows the
occasional heterophonic
imitation. Otherwise what happens is a series of lines which
converge with
the balungan at important structural points, but otherwise
diverge in varying
degrees from it. The extract starts and ends with a stroke on the

gong ageng,
marking the principal section endings, and all parts meet on the
gong notes 6
at the beginning and 3 at the end. These notes of special
emphasis are also most
prominent in the hierarchy of the pathet (manyura) of this piece.
All parts again
converge on note 1 at the kenong (^) which marks the halfway
point, and also
on note 5 when the next most significant phrase-marking gong,
the kempul (v)
sounds.
A pair of kendhang (drums) would normally be included, but
since they are
not melodic and their part is notated as a series of symbols
unfamiliar to the
non-player, they have not been included in Example 2.3.
▪ Music theory
Despite its long and rich literary tradition, Java has no
comparable legacy of
musical studies, and those texts that do enjoy quasi-classical
status do not
delve deeply into music theory, and are mainly of recent origin
(since the early
nineteenth century). Music theory gathered momentum in the
early twentieth
century, when Javanese intellectuals formulated an equivalent
to the European
music theory of the Dutch colonialists. In the independent
Republic of Indonesia
(proclaimed in 1945) the establishment of music schools and
academies created
an even more fertile ground for the theoretical study of music as
well as its
practice.

The process of garapan – creating a piece from just the
balungan (a line
that at times becomes so sparse that one may wonder how it can
be used
as the basis for such rich polyphony) – points to the existence
of accepted
OCM.indb 67 08/06/2015 10:10
2018 02:14:08 UTC
68
conventions, which can be described as a kind of music theory.
The performers
are thus not only players and singers but also analysts and
theorists in action,
and vice versa: analysts and theorists are expected to perform.
This gives
rise to an interesting issue in gamelan music. At the beginning
of my studies
I was taught that the monumental Music in Java (first published
in 1934 as De
toonkunst van Java) by the Dutch scholar Jaap Kunst (1891–
1960) was marred
only by the fact that the author did not play the gamelan and
was thus basing
his information on the written and spoken words of others. His
student the
American ethnomusicologist Mantle Hood (1918–2005), who

coined the term
‘bi-musicality’ , placed learning through playing at the heart of
his gamelan
program at UCLA, and his ideology has become the norm. The
criticism of
Kunst did not take into account the fact that he was a fine
musician; what
prevented him from playing was the attitude prevalent in that
colonial era – a
Dutch official could not sit down with the Javanese and play
their music. This
kind of criticism also ignored the contribution of Javanese ‘non-
playing
captains’ who, around the same time as Kunst, spearheaded a
nationalist music
theory. In their work, the noun ‘classicisation’ (a conscious,
active process,
motivated by national assertiveness as well as intellectual
curiosity) is perhaps
of greater significance than the familiar and relatively inert
adjective ‘classical’ .
Furthermore, theory and notation can empower those who
formulate and use
them, as they imply a literate elite, and even intellect over
intuition.11
▪ Today
Javanese gamelan music has achieved a longevity comparable to
that of the
classical music of Europe or the Indian subcontinent, and the
tradition is
being sustained by the growth of music academies and the
worldwide gamelan
community. The ancient craft of gamelan manufacture is also
being supported by
the demand for new sets, often for export. But the process of

transplanting music
from a royal location to an urban milieu and public concert hall,
as happened
with other classical musics, only applies in limited ways to
Javanese gamelan
music. The Javanese courts remain important cultural centres,
maintaining high
standards in music and the other arts and cross-fertilising with
more modern
institutions such as the radio stations and music academies.
And gamelan still flourishes at village level: it is scarcely more
an urban
tradition than it was in the heyday of the royal courts in the
century leading up
to independence, though the growth of teaching institutions in
large cities such
as Solo and Jogja has drawn young players from the villages to
study in an urban
environment. This limited migration has had some effect on the
selection and
training of musicians. Some come from families of hereditary
musicians, and
some small towns are known as artistic centres: for example,
Klaten, midway
between Solo and Jogja, is famous for its families of
puppeteers. From this head-
start of childhood training, many students move on to the urban
academies and
Above: Wayang (shadow puppets) from central Java, in a scene
from ‘Irawan’s Wedding’
in the mid-twentieth century
Below: A shadow puppet performance of the story ‘Gathutkaca
Winisuda’ by the
celebrated master Ki Manteb Sudharsono at the Bentara Budaya

Institute, Jakarta
▶
OCM.indb 68 08/06/2015 10:10
2018 02:14:08 UTC
java
69
OCM.indb 69 08/06/2015 10:10
2018 02:14:08 UTC
70
continue their training in more formal surroundings. What is
now the largest
academy of the arts in Indonesia started in an annexe of the
main court in Solo
in 1965, shifting to its own greatly enlarged campus in the
1980s, and has drawn
students from all over Indonesia and the world.
Experience of gamelan in the West has drawn on its value as an

ideal
mixed ability ensemble, with great educational benefits. These
have long been
understood in Java, where the gamelan is open to a wide
spectrum of ages
and abilities and has also acquired a new social dynamic thanks
to the growth
of women’s groups which play for pleasure. Other clubs
existing for social
reasons are drawn from the ranks of bankers, doctors, army
officers and
Chinese merchants. Expert players routinely rub shoulders with
novices, and
competitions between amateur groups are common. Radio
Republik Indonesia
has become a major patron of professional groups, while the
schools and
academies offer teaching employment to expert players, and
extra income can be
earned through performances at weddings and wayangs.
▪ Influences
There are two main reasons for the gamelan’s global fame. One
is that
ethnomusicologists spearheaded the incorporation of gamelans,
along with
Indonesian teachers, into American universities, with their
example being
followed thirty years later in Britain; meanwhile the
Netherlands already had a
significant home-grown gamelan tradition from its colonial
past. Many other
European countries, as well as Australia, New Zealand and
Japan, have also
adopted the gamelan. The other reason lies in the interest shown
by leading

composers: from Debussy to the present we can trace a
continuum, starting with
limited understanding and involvement, and moving towards
total immersion.
Debussy’s encounter with the gamelan (and dance) of Java at
the 1889 Paris
universal exhibition is well known, but whether he imitated the
gamelan, even
in a stylised and indirect way, is debatable. There is a big
difference between
his hyperbolic written remarks about Javanese music, on the one
hand, and
his compositions, especially the piano piece ‘Pagodes’ (the
work most cited as
his response to the gamelan), on the other. ‘Pagodes’ is
certainly an example
of musical Orientalism and is largely pentatonic, with deep –
some would
insist gong-like – resonances and filigree patterns. But to
relate such vague
resemblances specifically to Javanese gamelan music, without
any evidence
beyond Debussy’s admiration for it, is stretching the point.12
Leading figures from the next generation of French composers
made matters
clearer by acknowledging their use of gamelan elements. Olivier
Messiaen
(1908–1992) did so in his Turangalîla-Symphonie of 1948, and
Francis Poulenc
(1899–1963) imitated the Balinese music he heard at the 1931
Paris exhibition
so closely that it approaches transcription, notably in his
Concerto in D minor for
two pianos and orchestra of 1932. Benjamin Britten (1913–76)
achieved a similar
effect in his ballet The Prince of the Pagodas (1957), but there

the relationship
to the Balinese source was even clearer, as the composer had
visited the island
during his tour of Asia (1955–56) and had made transcriptions
of some of the
OCM.indb 70 08/06/2015 10:10
2018 02:14:08 UTC
java
71
music he heard. But neither he nor Poulenc learnt to play
gamelan instruments,
and Britten’s first encounters with Balinese music were through
playing
transcriptions by the Canadian composer Colin McPhee (1900–
64) at the
beginning of the 1940s during his stay in the United States.
McPhee is better
known as a pioneering ethnomusicologist than as a composer;
his studies of
Balinese music and culture from the 1930s remain among the
most extensive
and penetrating available in English. Moreover, these
composers imitated the
gamelan by using Western instruments rather than gamelan ones
(making
Britten’s orchestral imitation of a Balinese gamelan in his ballet
a challenge

extraordinarily well met). As field trips to Indonesia became
common among
ethnomusicologists, performers and composers, attempts at total
immersion
were made, leading to compositions for the real gamelan
following traditional
principles. Not surprisingly, a rift developed between
performing groups
dedicated to the pursuit of traditional gamelan music, and those
who sought to
use the gamelan as a stimulus to a new kind of composition. Yet
some managed
to combine the two harmoniously, most notably the American
Lou Harrison
(1917–2003), who combined field trips, playing experience and
composing for
the gamelan (of his own construction). He followed traditional
Javanese models,
earning criticism from some Javanese musicians and praise from
others. The
British composer Michael Nyman (b. 1944) has epitomised a
diametrically-
opposed approach. He was commissioned to write a piece for
the 1983 UK tour
of the English Gamelan Orchestra (which existed from 1980 to
1983 under
my direction), though he had not studied gamelan as Lou
Harrison had. The
resulting piece, Time’s Up, had nothing to do with balungan,
pathet, garapan
and Javanese phrase-structure, but was instead ‘echt-Nyman’ .
The Javanese
musicians involved in its performances, clearly baffled by a
work that followed
none of the methods to which they were accustomed,
nevertheless committed it

all to memory between the first rehearsal and the next a few
days later.
Everyone seems to love the sound of a gamelan, but what draws
people from
all over the world to attempt to play it? The answers include the
beauty of the
instruments, the gentle ordering of sounds, the refinement of the
music and the
conduct of the players: it is all a lesson in restraint, and a check
on inflated egos.
One of the attractions lies in there being no pressure of
expectation: one does
not have to be trained in music, nor does one have to be able to
read it. Moreover,
the gamelan’s openness to new influences and its sheer
versatility (even to the
extent of mixing different tunings and extraneous instruments)
protect it from
accusations of being a ‘museum culture’ , or even an elitist art.
The Indonesian
word klasik – neither the exact equivalent of ‘classical’ nor
used anything like as
frequently – can be used to distance gamelan music from pop,
but tends to be
used more to distinguish between strands within gamelan music,
for example
between the traditional models (klasik) and various modern
types (kontemporer)
which admit influences from pop music and even from the
Western classical
avant-garde.13 But what may appear simple on the surface
conceals a wealth of
subtle detail. The variety of non-Javanese responses to gamelan
may be dazzling,
but they have often tended towards a standardisation that is
contrary to the whole

spirit of the gamelan, and of Javanese creativity.
OCM.indb 71 08/06/2015 10:10
2018 02:14:08 UTC
72
Further reading
An excellent and concise way into Javanese gamelan music is
Benjamin
Brinner’s Music in Central Java, which has the considerable
advantage
of a CD and guides for listening to its many tracks. Intended
also as a
compact guide, with some contextual information and a notation
and
analysis of a gamelan piece, is Sorrell’s A Guide to the
Gamelan. Following
in its footsteps but greatly extending its technical information,
and aimed
at players and readers who want to get beyond the basics, is
Richard
Pickvance’s A Gamelan Manual. Sorrell’s book was designed to
fill the
enormous gap between Jaap Kunst’s monumental 1973 study of
Javanese
music (Music in Java) and Jennifer Lindsay’s brief introduction
Javanese

Gamelan. The former gives an unsurpassed depth relating to the
music
as it existed in the 1930s but is not always easy to relate to what
one sees
and hears today, while the latter gives an excellent overview of
the culture,
but does not concern itself as much with the nuts and bolts of
the music.
The remaining books suggested tend to be more for a specialist
readership
and have the advantage of recent scholarship by many of the
biggest
names in gamelan studies. A special place must be given to
Sumarsam’s
Gamelan, as it not only has the authority of a Javanese musician
and scholar
but also provides the best history of the music, with some
fascinating
insights into how and why gamelan music evolved in the way it
did. Judith
Becker and Alan Feinstein’s Karawitan is a collection of
writings by other
Javanese musicians and scholars (including Sumarsam) which
delve
mostly into music theory, while Marc Perlman’s Unplayed
Melodies gives
the theory a fascinating new interpretation and relates it to
Western music
theory. Although relating to the decades immediately after
Indonesian
independence, Judith Becker’s Traditional Music in Modern
Java is an
excellent study of the modern popular repertoire. The questions
of who the
actual musicians are, how they think about music, how they
interact and

other issues that give the essential social context to the music
are skilfully
addressed by Brinner’s Knowing Music, Making Music. Finally,
as wayang
kulit is so central to Javanese culture, a concise, informative
and illustrated
introduction is Edward Van Ness and Shita Prawirohardjo’s
Javanese Wayang
Kulit.
OCM.indb 72 08/06/2015 10:10
2018 02:14:08 UTC
java
73
Recommended listening
Indonesia, Java – Court Gamelan (3 vols), Nonesuch Explorer
Series, 972044,
2003. These excellent recordings from the 1970s were made in
three of the
four major palaces in Solo and Jogja, one CD per palace, and
the piece
studied in this chapter (Ketawang Puspawarna) is featured in the
first two
volumes.
Indonésie, Java Centre, Gamelan de Solo, le Jeu des Sentiments
(Indonesia,

Central Java, Solonese Gamelan, A Garland of Moods), Inédit,
Maison des
Cultures du Monde, W 260125, 2006. A 4-CD set from 2006
providing fine
examples of klenèngan (gamelan music for its own sake) and
also many
excerpts from the wayang repertoire.
Gamelan of Central Java (15 vols), Dunya-Felmay records,
FY8041-2, 8073-5,
8103-4, 8119-20, 8144-5, 8166-8, 8181.
Gamelan of Java (5 vols), Lyrichord, LYRCD 7456-60. A varied
collection of
20 CDs curated by the Italian composer and record producer
known as John
Noise Manis.
OCM.indb 73 08/06/2015 10:10
2018 02:14:08 UTC

Boydell & BrewerBoydell Press Chapter Title Java.docx

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

Similar to Boydell & BrewerBoydell Press Chapter Title Java.docx

Similar to Boydell & BrewerBoydell Press Chapter Title Java.docx (20)

More from jasoninnes20

More from jasoninnes20 (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

Boydell & BrewerBoydell Press Chapter Title Java.docx