Gamelan is surely not a foreign music. Its popularity has penetrated every continent and has created a new blend of jazz-gamelan music, gave birth to the institution as a learning space and the expression of gamelan music, to produce famous gamelan musicians. Gamelan music instrument can now be enjoyed in many parts of the world, but Yogyakarta is the most appropriate place to enjoy gamelan it since you can enjoy the original version.
Gamelan developing in Yogyakarta is Javanese gamelan, a form of gamelan is different from Balinese gamelan or Sundanese gamelan. Javanese gamelan has a softer tone and slow, in contrast to the dynamic Balinese gamelan and Sundanese gamelan highly dominated lilting voice and flute. The difference is reasonable, since Java has a view of life that is expressed in the rhythm of gamelan music.
Javanese philosophy of life expressed in gamelan music is the harmony of physical and spiritual life, harmony in speaking and acting so as not to create an explosive expression and create tolerance among fellow. Real form of music is the pull string fiddle that is, a balanced blend of sound kenong, saron drums and xylophone and gong sounds on every cover of rhythm.
There is no definite history of gamelan. The development is expected since the emergence of gamelan music gong, fiddle, clapping to the mouth, the friction on a thin rope or bamboo to familiar musical instruments from metal. Further development after named gamelan, the music was used to accompany wayang performance, and dance. Later it became independent as the music itself and equipped with the voice of sinden.
A set of gamelan consist of several instruments, including a set of similar musical instrument drum called a drum, fiddle and zither, xylophone, gongs and bamboo flutes. The main components that make up the gamelan music instruments are bamboo, metal, and wood. Each instrument has its own function in gamelan music show, for example gong music played to close a long and give the balance after the previous music rhythm decorated by gising.
Javanese gamelan is music with pentatonic melodies. A complete gamelan game consists of two rounds, namely slendro and pelog. Slendro has 5 tones per octave, ie 1 2 3 5 6 [C-DEGA] with a small interval difference. Pelog has 7 tones per octave, ie 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 [CD E-F # G # AB] with a large interval difference. Gamelan music compositions created by some rules, which consist of several rounds and pathet, bordered by one gongan and the melody was created within the unit that consists of 4 tones.
You can see gamelan as an independent music performance or a dance or performing arts such as wayang kulit and ketoprak. As a performance, gamelan music is usually combined with the sound of the Javanese singers (male singers and female singers called wiraswara called waranggana). Gamelan music performances that performance can be classical or contemporary gamelan. One form of contemporary gamelan music is jazz-gamelan music as a combination of pentatonic and diatonic.
