Page 4 | A brief history of gamelan

Soft instruments and other additions

Contents

A history of gamelan (1)

The earliest gamelan (2)

The influence of Islam (3)

Soft instruments and other additions (4)

Division and the Dutch (5)

Courts and Kêris (6)

Diverse styles (7)

Seleh Notes Volume 2 Number 2 March 1995

© Tim Byard-Jones

The gender in Java still has a special role in wayang accompaniment which, until recently, was provided by a special gamelan wayang rather than a full ensemble.

Incidentally the gender panerus may be only a century or so old, having been invented to provide the gender with a 'baby sibling' analogous to the bonang panerus and the saron panerus.

The use of the gambang as a domestic instrument for solitary playing is attested by the fact that, when Professor Crotch transcribed the playing of Raden Rana Dipura in England in the 1820s, it was the gambang that Rana Dipura chose to play to him, even though other instruments were available.

Of the other 'soft' instruments in the modern gamelan, the suling is a folk instrument of presumably great antiquity, though added to the gamelan at a relatively recent date, while the celempung is said by some Javanese musicians to be an 18th century attempt to copy the sound of the European harpsichord.

The rebab is undeniably of Arabic origin, putting its entry into the gamelan firmly into the Islamic period.

Most surprising of all, the modern style of women's singing - sindhenan - was invented only around the time of the First World War, though it quickly dominated the gamelan's soundscape, particularly since amplification has been available.

 

Amplification has also contributed to the disappearance of the old gamelan wayang ensemble, as a puppeteer can now make himself heard by turning up the volume rather than by the careful selection of a small ensemble.

In three years in Java, I only heard an authentic gamelan wayang once; and that was in an arts festival presenting a reconstruction of wayang beber, a now defunct form of theatre which used painted scrolls to show scenes from the story instead of puppets.

Perhaps the most bizarre (to Western ears) experiment with enlarging the gamelan came in 19th century Yogyakarta, when a selection of instruments from the Western military band was added to the pelog gamelan for loud-style pieces.

This consisted of a trumpet, a clarinet and two trombones playing the balungan, and a snare drum.

The effect has to be heard to be believed, but is mercifully rare nowadays.

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