Page 2 | Gamelan selonding

Tenganan Pegringsingan

Contents

Gamelan selonding (1)

Tenganan Pegringsingan (2)

The instruments (3)

The music (4)

Seleh Notes Volume 2 Number 1 December 1994

© Mark Lockett

The layout of the village is quite unlike any other in Bali and its symmetrical design is considered to be a god-given system promoting territorial, physical and spiritual purity. There are no vehicles apart from a few motorbikes.

The surrounding walls have four entrances: east, west, north and south, the latter being the main one called lawangan kelod. The wide earthen streets or awangan on which children play and water buffalo graze also function as the front yard of the houses that line them.

There are four awangan running north to south through the village, intersected by three streets running east to west. In the centre there are two awangan facing each other separated by an irrigation channel.

There are three long meeting pavilions, or balé petemu, each of which houses a set of selonding instruments. Although very old and sacred, these ensembles are considered to be man-made, but are tuned from the three divine keys and are thus the embodiment of the voice of Batara Bagus Salunding.

 

They are always played by groups initiated in the sacred music, the senior members of which are called juru gambel and are responsible for maintaining the divine energy of the instruments.

If the selonding is touched by anyone else, or if part of it accidentally falls on the ground, this energy is greatly weakened and can only be restored by a complex purification ritual in which the sekehe taruna carry the selonding and the three divine keys to a holy spring to the north of the village.

 

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