Williams-9-22-23-12

265

Balinese Gamelan

You Can Do It!

You are going to learn a very simplified version of the Balinese kecak (pronounced “keh-chak”) chant. It is used for a specific theater piece titled The R ā m ā ya ṇ a , which came to Bali from India. Part of the R ā m ā ya ṇ a story involves an epic battle between a good guy (Rama) and a bad guy (Ravana). A monkey army—symbolized by shouts of “cak!” (don’t forget to pronounce it as “chak!”)—rushes in and saves the day. This genre, also known as gamelan suara (or “voice gamelan”), is per formed at a high speed with interlocking patterns, rather like what you hear in the Balinese gamelan gong kebyar ensemble. Each of you should learn to say this eight-beat pattern:

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

cak!

-

-

cak!

-

-

cak!

-

Once you have mastered that pattern, have a second person start the same pattern off but begin on beat 2, so that the second person is one beat after the first person. Practice that for a few minutes. Now add a third person, beginning on beat 3. This is what it should sound like:

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

cak!

-

-

cak!

-

-

cak!

-

-

cak!

-

-

cak!

-

-

cak!

Do you see how these parts fit together? Each one is the same. If you have more people, add someone saying “pung” once on each beat to keep the tempo steady. This “pung” shouldn’t have much of a vowel, be cause it is in imitation of a small kettle gong. Add someone saying “sirrrrr” (roll those r’s!) on beat 1 and another person singing a short, high-pitched “mong!” on beat 5. Keep this going as long as you can, and then switch the parts around. This experience helps you to understand the interlock ing patterns at work in this kecak genre, but also gives you a sense of how challenging it is to do things on your own when it feels as if everything is chaotic all around you. After you have experimented with kecak, look it up online. Good luck keeping up! - PROPERTY OF OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS kecak—Balinese vocal performance with interlocking patterns cak! - cak! - - cak! -