Page 3 | Semara dana - Balinese gamelan - the next generation

Gamelan gong kebyar

Contents

Semara dana (1)

Historic gamelan (2)

Gamelan gong kebyar (3)

Gamelan semara dana (4)

Seleh Notes Volume 10 Number 2 March 2003

© Andy Channing

Around 1915 the explosive gamelan gong kebyar was born, the result of experimentation with traditions, forms and styles.

In particular this was a fusion of gamelan gong gedé and gamelan pelegongan, and, like its parents, utilising the five-tone selisir mode.

One innovation was the expanded role of the reyong which did not exist in semar pegulingan and pelegongan, and were less important in gong gedé.

Gong kebyar came to dominate musical life in Bali for the remainder of the century, absorbing the repertoire and adapting aspects of other musical styles, its very flexibility threatening to drive other, older, gamelan genres to extinction.

In fact, following the dissolution of the Balinese courts (in 1908) many court gamelan were melted down to be recast as the revolutionary gong kebyar.

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