Indian Art and Letters

Author(s): India Society
Publisher: India Society

Page 78

The Music of Java of the complete pélog-scale, or they have loose keys or gongs, which can easily be changed.
The gamelan pélog and the gamelan sléndro comprise more or less the same instruments. But when they are not combined in a double orchestra, the instruments of a pélog orchestra are generally larger than those of a sléndro orchestra. Moreover, there are some kinds of small gongs, either suspended or in a horizontal position, which belong exclusively to one or the other of these two ensembles respectively. For instance, the kempyang only occurs in the gamelan pélog; the engkuk and the kemong belong exclusively to the gamelan sléndro.
Then there are some differences in the composition of the Solonese orchestras on the one hand and the Jogjanese orchestras on the other. Jogja, for instance, has a kind of bonang more, the "bass" bonang, called bonang panembung. The other differences are chiefly found in the construction and the structure of some instruments-viz., the rebab, the suling, the bonang, and the gambang kaju.
Now we come to some details of the functions of the different instruments in the orchestral ensemble. We may distinguish
(a) the instruments producing the essential melody ; (6) those that play the melody in its full development ; (c) the punctuating (colotomic) instruments; (d) the paraphrasing instruments; and
(e) the agogic instruments. The group of sarons, demung, and saron barung—all of which are metallophones with loose keys lying flat-play chiefly the essential melody, a kind of cantus firmus. This latter, called balunganing gending, played in two or three octaves, has a compass of about two octaves. And as the sarons have each a compass of one octave only, the essential melody is necessarily kept within the limits of this one octave: it is forced inside the limits of one octave.
By the highest saron, the saron panerus, peking or selukat, it is syncopated or rhythmically doubled.
in the strong compositions a slightly more elaborated melody is executed on some bonangs, which, sometimes, also have a paraphrasing function; in the softer pieces the melody, in a much more enriched form, is played on the suling and the rebab or executed by the voice (sinden), supported and alternated from time to time by a choir singing in unison (gérongan). The essen140