Gamelan Music
(Indonesia)
| Gamelan Music Consideration |
Typical Gamelan Music consists
of continuous sound of gongs. Flute sound or human voice are upon the sound
of gongs occasionally. Gamelan is a general name for musical instruments
of Indonesian music. Native people call their music "Karawitan." "Karawitan"
is classified by area, such as Java Karawitan and Bali Karawitan.
There are two music scales,
Slendro and Pelog. These are common in Java and Bali. Pelog includes half
pitches in the scales, while Pelog does not include them. Although both
scales have 5 notes basically, Pelog may consist of 7 notes, and Slendro
may consist of 4 notes. Pentatonic Pelog sounds like Okinawan music scale,
and Slendro sounds like Scotland music scale since it is a music scale
without half pitches. Slendro divides the octave into 5 evenly spaced frequencies,
and they are close to "C", "Eb", "F", "G" ,"Bb." "Automated Composing
System" transfers these notes to "A", "C",
"D", "E", "G" and uses them. Different musical
instrument sets are used for each music scale.
Java Gamelan has to include
both musical instrument sets of Pelog and Slendro, because a music tune
can include both Pelog and Slendro. There are some variations of Gamelan
regarding region and time. For example, musical instruments had been changed.
Therefor music scales were also changed. Futhermore, different musical
instruments were used for different purposes, such as sacred ceremony,
funeral, amusement. It is very hard to define gameral music scales, because
each musical instrument is tuned differently.
Gongs' tones vary from low
pitches to high pitches, and Gamelan music mixes these variations. Higher
notes are used more than lower notes per major. Although real Gamelan music
typically repeats the same pattern of 1 or 2 majors, "Automated Composing
System" tends to generate random notes more. |
|
Music Scale
|
Slendro "C", "D", "E", "G", "A" Pelog "C", "D",
"E", "F", "G", "A" ,"B" |
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Instruments
|
Gamelan (Gongs and other instruments) |
|
Sample by Automated Composing System
|
MIDI Data |
|
Links
|
"Balinese
Gamelan" page of "Ancient
Future" contains several MIDI files of Gamelan Music. Also some information
about Balinese Gamelan is available. |
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