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Balungan
The ''balungan'' ( jv, skeleton, frame) is sometimes called the "core melody" or, "skeletal melodic outline," of a Javanese gamelan composition. This corresponds to the view that gamelan music is heterophonic: the ''balungan'' is then the melody which is being elaborated. "An abstraction of the inner melody felt by musicians," the ''balungan'' is, "the part most frequently notated by Javanese musicians, and the only one likely to be used in performance."Anderson Sutton, Richard (1991). ''Traditions of Gamelan Music in Java: Musical Pluralism and Regional Identity'', p.xix. Cambridge University. . The group of instruments which play the closest to the ''balungan'' are sometimes also called the ''balungan'', or ''balungan'' instruments. These are the ''saron'' family and the '' slenthem''. In many pieces, they play the ''balungan''. However, they can also elaborate on the parts in a variety of techniques. It is possible that there is no instrument playing the ''balungan'', althoug ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Gamelan Institute
The American Gamelan Institute (AGI) is an organization devoted to promoting and documenting all forms of gamelan, the performing arts of Indonesia, and their international counterparts. The Institute was founded in Berkeley, California, in 1981; the office moved to New Hampshire in 1990. AGI publishes scores, recordings, monographs, translations and other material. AGI has an online library with a wide variety of monographs, collections of notation, and a font for the cipher notation commonly used for gamelan, called KepatihanPro. These materials may be freely downloaded for educational use. AGI maintains an extensive archive of notation and scores for both new and traditional gamelan music, scholarly writings on gamelan, as well as audio and video recordings. Its founder and director is the composer and gamelan musician Jody Diamond. The organization's scope includes gamelan music as practiced in Indonesia as well as around the world. The journal ''Balungan'' was started in 19 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Patet
Pathet ( jv, ꦥꦛꦼꦠ꧀, translit=Pathet, also patet) is an organizing concept in central Javanese gamelan music in Indonesia. It is a system of tonal hierarchies in which some notes are emphasized more than others. The word means '"to damp, or to restrain from" in Javanese. ''Pathet'' is "a limitation on the player's choice of variation, so that while in one ''pathet'' a certain note may be prominent, in another it must be avoided, or used only for special effect. Awareness of such limitations, and exploration of variation within them reflects a basic philosophical aim of gamelan music, and indeed all art in central Java, namely, the restraint and refinement of one's own behaviour." Javanese often give poetic explanations of pathet, such as "Pathet is the couch or bed of a melody." In essence, a pathet indicates which notes are stressed in the melody, especially at the end of phrases ( seleh), as well as determines which elaborations ( cengkok and sekaran) are appropriate ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mantle Hood
Mantle Hood (June 24, 1918 – July 31, 2005) was an American ethnomusicologist. Among other areas, he specialized in studying gamelan music from Indonesia. Hood pioneered, in the 1950s and 1960s, a new approach to the study of music, and the creation of the first American university program devoted to ethnomusicology, at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He was known for a suggestion, somewhat novel at the time, that his students learn to play the music they were studying. Biography Born and raised in Springfield, Illinois, Hood studied piano as a child and played clarinet and tenor saxophone in regional jazz clubs in his teens. Despite his talent as a musician, he had no plans to make it his profession. He moved to Los Angeles in the 1930s and wrote pulp fiction while employed as a draftsman in the aeronautical industry. After Army service in Europe during World War II, he returned to Los Angeles. He enrolled in the School of Agriculture at the Universi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ladrang Cycle Balungan
''Colotomy'' is an Indonesian description of the rhythmic and metric patterns of gamelan music. It refers to the use of specific instruments to mark off nested time intervals, or the process of dividing rhythmic time into such nested cycles. In the gamelan, this is usually done by gongs of various size: the '' kempyang'', '' ketuk'', '' kempul'', ''kenong'', '' gong suwukan'', and '' gong ageng''. The fast-playing instruments, '' kempyang and ketuk'', keep a regular beat. The larger gongs group together these hits into larger groupings, playing once per each grouping. The largest gong, the '' gong ageng'', represents the largest time cycle and generally indicates that that section will be repeated, or the piece will move on to a new section. The details of the rhythmic patterns depend on the colotomic structure ( jv, italic=yes, bentuk), also known as ''gendhing'' structure. There are a number of different structures, which differ greatly in length and complexity; however, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Saron (instrument)
The saron is a musical instrument of Indonesia, which is used in the gamelan. It normally has seven bronze bars placed on top of a resonating frame (''rancak''). It is usually about 20 cm (8 in) high, and is played on the floor by a seated performer. In a pelog scale, the bars often read 1-2-3-5-6-7 across (the number four is not used because of its relation to death) (in kepatihan numbering); for slendro, the bars are 6-1-2-3-5-6-1; this can vary from gamelan to gamelan, or even among instruments in the same gamelan. Slendro instruments commonly have only six keys. It provides the core melody (balungan) in the gamelan orchestra. Varieties Sarons typically come in a number often sizes, from smallest to largest: *Saron panerus (also: peking) *Saron barung (sometimes just saron) *Saron demung (often just called demung) Each one of those is pitched an octave below the previous. The slenthem or slentho performs a similar function to the sarons one octave below the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Slenthem
The slenthem (also slentem or gender panembung) is an Indonesian metallophone which makes up part of a Javanese gamelan orchestra. The slenthem is part of the gendér family. It consists of a set of bronze keys comprising a single octave: there are six keys when playing the slendro scale and seven when playing the pelog. These keys are suspended by leather cords over individual bamboo tube resonators in a wooden frame, which are cut so that the placement of the bamboo's node causes the functional length of the resonator to be shorter for higher notes. The instrument is played by striking the keys with a mallet, called a ''tabuh'', which has a short handle and a thin wooden disk edged in cloth or rubber. One hand is left free to dampen notes. It is a low-pitched instrument with a softer sound than the saron demung. Like the saron barung and demung, it generally plays the most basic form of the melody (balungan) in a composition. However it also sometimes uses techniques simi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gendhing
''Colotomy'' is an Indonesian description of the rhythmic and metric patterns of gamelan music. It refers to the use of specific instruments to mark off nested time intervals, or the process of dividing rhythmic time into such nested cycles. In the gamelan, this is usually done by gongs of various size: the ''kempyang'', ''ketuk'', ''kempul'', ''kenong'', '' gong suwukan'', and ''gong ageng''. The fast-playing instruments, '' kempyang and ketuk'', keep a regular beat. The larger gongs group together these hits into larger groupings, playing once per each grouping. The largest gong, the ''gong ageng'', represents the largest time cycle and generally indicates that that section will be repeated, or the piece will move on to a new section. The details of the rhythmic patterns depend on the colotomic structure ( jv, italic=yes, bentuk), also known as ''gendhing'' structure. There are a number of different structures, which differ greatly in length and complexity; however, all of t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gamelan Instruments
Gamelan () ( jv, ꦒꦩꦼꦭꦤ꧀, su, ᮌᮙᮨᮜᮔ᮪, ban, ᬕᬫᭂᬮᬦ᭄) is the traditional ensemble music of the Javanese, Sundanese, and Balinese peoples of Indonesia, made up predominantly of percussive instruments. The most common instruments used are metallophones played by mallets and a set of hand-played drums called ''kendhang/Kendang'', which register the beat. The kemanak (a banana-shaped idiophone) and gangsa (another metallophone) are commonly used gamelan instruments in Bali. Other instruments include xylophones, bamboo flutes, a bowed instrument called a '' rebab'', a zither-like instrument ''siter'' (in Javanese ensemble) and vocalists named '' sindhen'' (female) or '' gerong'' (male).Sumarsam (1998)''Introduction to Javanese Gamelan'' Middletown. Although the popularity of gamelan has declined since the introduction of pop music, gamelan is still commonly played in many traditional ceremonies and other modern activities in Indonesia, both ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jaap Kunst
Jaap Kunst (12 August 1891 in Groningen – 7 December 1960 in Amsterdam) was a Dutch musicologist. He is credited with coining the term "ethnomusicology" as a more accurate name for the field then known as comparative musicology. Kunst studied the folk music of the Netherlands and of Indonesia. His published work totals more than 70 texts. Early life Kunst was born in 1891 in Groningen. Both of his parents were musicians, and his father was a music-school teacher. He began to study the violin at only 5 years old, and continued to play the instrument throughout his life. Kunst was drawn toward folk music as a result of vacations to the island of Terschelling. Kunst decided to pursue a career in law. While studying law, Kunst published the results of his first musical research. Kunst earned a degree in law from the University of Groningen in 1917. and pursued a career in banking and law for the next two years. However, he soon tired of this work. Work in Indonesia In 1919, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kepatihan Notation
Notation plays a relatively minor role in the oral traditions of Indonesian gamelan but, in Java and Bali, several systems of gamelan notation were devised beginning at the end of the 19th century, initially for archival purposes. Kepatihan Kepatihan is a type of cipher musical notation that was devised for notation of the Indonesian gamelan. History The system was devised around 1900 at the ''Kepatihan'' (the Grand Vizier's compound) in Surakarta, and was based upon the Galin-Paris-Chevé system, imported in the nineteenth century by Christian missionaries to allow the notation of hymns. It superseded several other notation systems of Javanese origin devised around the same time. Notation The pitches of the seven-tone pélog tuning system are designated by the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7; while the five-tone slendro pitches are notated as 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6. The octaves are noted by dots above and below the numbers, as in Chinese jianpu, although of course the pitches ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sumarsam
Sumarsam (born 27 July 1944) is a Javanese musician and scholar of the gamelan. Life Sumarsam was born in Dander, Bojonegoro, East Java, Indonesia. He first performed gamelan at the age of seven. He began his formal gamelan education in 1961 at the Konservatori Karawitan Indonesia (KOKAR, now Sekolah Menengah Karawitan Indonesia) in Surakarta. He graduated in 1964 and began to teach, and in 1965 began to study at the newly opened Akademi Seni Karawitan Indonesia (ASKI, now Sekolah Tinggi Seni Indonesia in Surakarta). He graduated in 1968 and did some co-teaching with Martopangrawit. ASKI participated in government programs to promote Indonesian culture abroad, and in 1970 Sumarsam was invited to Expo '70 in Osaka, Japan, where he worked seven months. In 1971 he was invited to teach at the Indonesian Embassy in Canberra, Australia. Afterwards he moved to the United States to become a visiting artist at Wesleyan University. Inspired by Western academia, he pursued a master's de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Melody
A melody (from Greek μελῳδία, ''melōidía'', "singing, chanting"), also tune, voice or line, is a linear succession of musical tones that the listener perceives as a single entity. In its most literal sense, a melody is a combination of pitch and rhythm, while more figuratively, the term can include other musical elements such as tonal color. It is the foreground to the background accompaniment. A line or part need not be a foreground melody. Melodies often consist of one or more musical phrases or motifs, and are usually repeated throughout a composition in various forms. Melodies may also be described by their melodic motion or the pitches or the intervals between pitches (predominantly conjunct or disjunct or with further restrictions), pitch range, tension and release, continuity and coherence, cadence, and shape. Function and elements Johann Philipp Kirnberger argued: The Norwegian composer Marcus Paus has argued: Given the many and varied el ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
