GAMELAN - of wayang

GAMELAN - of wayang
A gamelan (orchestra), using various combinations of instruments, is traditionally and essentially accompaniment to puppet shows, dances, feasts, and ceremonies in Java. Most of the instruments are bronze: tuned gongs, suspended vertically or horizontally; and instruments with tuned keys, suspended over tubular resonators or a resonant cavity in the base of the instrument. Other instruments include a two-stringed fiddle, xylophones, flutes, and drums. A full Javanese gamelan comprises two sets of instruments, one in each of two tuning systems: sléndro, with five tones per octave, and pélog, with seven. The three pathet used in the course of the wayang all have their distinct manifestations in both tuning systems. In the overall sound of the gamelan, no instrument predominates: each has an important function that relates to the whole. As for the music, rather than harmony and development in the Western sense, the primary organizing feature is locally-inspired modal polyphony of a highly melodic character. Gendhing composition) are quite formal, for all their quality of ethereal improvisation. Every gamelan piece is cast in one of a small number of forms defined by the mutually subdividing cycles of certain of the gongs, most prominently, the gong ageng (great gong). The cyclic organization allows great flexibility in the creation of pieces of differing character; even within a piece, subtle (or dramatic) shifts in feeling occur as cycles slow down or speed up. The Wesleyan Gamelan Ensemble has been in existence since the early 1960s and is one of approximately 100 in the country.