While hidden in semi-obscurity back home, Indonesia’s gamelan
instruments have managed to penetrate the experimental mindsets of
Western musicians.
There are several forms of gamelan, depending
on the region. There is the Javanese gamelan, the Sundanese gamelan and
the Balinese gamelan, among others. Each of them has a different sound,
scale, playing method and tools.
A gamelan ensemble can consist of 20 or fewer
players playing various bronze bell-like instruments, brass
glockenspiels, stringed zithers, wooden flutes or gongs.
The gamelan is largely overlooked as a niche
art form in mainstream Indonesian society. However, it has attracted the
appreciation of musicians in the West because of its interesting
complexities. This is the topic that American PhD candidate and
ethnomusicologist Jay M. Arms has chosen to delve deeper into. He feels
that the gamelan, with its many forms, details and techniques is worth
researching about as a result of its hidden significance in the global
music character today.
The first notable exposure of the gamelan to
the West can be traced back to the 1889 Paris Expo, during which a
then-budding French composer by the name of Claude Debussy came across a
Javanese gamelan orchestra and fell in love with its soft dissonant
tones and non-rhythmic structure. He then incorporated the sounds of the
Javanese gamelan into his piano pieces.
Read also: Siswa Sukra a British gamelan affair
Debussy’s integration of the gamelan’s scale
and lack of dominant melodic structure later spread to the works of his
fellow Impressionist-era peers, including Erik Satie, who himself had a
penchant for composing piano works that lacked time signature and
dominating melodies.
In recent decades, the gamelan has made its
way