Page 4 | Gamelan selonding

The music

Contents

Gamelan selonding (1)

Tenganan Pegringsingan (2)

The instruments (3)

The music (4)

Seleh Notes Volume 2 Number 1 December 1994

© Mark Lockett

There is a seven-tone scale, which I will number 1 -7, but this has nothing to do with pelog. Within these seven tones are six different modes called saih similar to the Javanese pathet system.

The playing technique is similar to gender - a mallet in each hand - and key-damping is done with the wrists, side of the hands or, more often, with the handles of the mallets.

The kempul and gong are not damped and are played with two heavy curved mallets, shaped like pipes.

As in other styles of gamelan the lower instruments play less and the higher instruments play more but, in selonding, there is quite a lot of flexibility.

For example, sometimes the peneman and petuduh are played by one musician and carry a kind of balungan.

In other pieces the nyongnyong plays a melody while the peneman and petuduh play interlocking patterns around it - like the kotekan in gender music.

There are different repertoires for different ritual functions. Some of the pieces are secret and considered magically dangerous.

First there is geguron: music of the heavenly world used to call upon and greet deities. It is forbidden to record this music. One piece is now considered so sacred that it is no longer played.

Then there is the music of the human world, used mainly for dancing and the ritual encounters between the boys' and girls' associations.

It was from this repertoire that Pak Gunawan taught me during my daily lessons at his house.

There is also music for the underworld which, like the ritual spilling of blood and alchohol on the earth, is to pacify the earthly powers and keep them in balance.

 

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