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CHAPTER 12 Indonesia

In Balinese as in Javanese gamelan, certain instruments create the structural foundation, while others perform something like a main melody and its variations and elaborations. In Central Javanese music, you heard the balungan or the skel etal melody, plus other instruments playing around it, decorating it with other notes, duplicating notes, and generally filling in the space between the main balun gan notes with related ones. In Balinese gamelan, the main melody is called the pokok (pronounced “pōkōk”). The pokok is played on the jegogan , a low-pitched metallophone in which the keys—played with soft mallets—are suspended over resonating chambers. Melodic elaborations are performed by players on gangsa , smaller versions of the jegogan, but with twice as many keys played with hard mal lets. In addition, a single-row gong-chime instrument called reyong —played by four players—has two important roles of providing both high-speed elaborating patterns that are based on the pokok (main melody), and a strong percussive ac companiment using different parts of the instruments and mallets. Of course— this being gamelan music—many more instruments fill in the parts (Figure 12.7). If you listen closely to any gamelan piece, each one has its own internal grid that re veals itself over time. Unlike in the gamelan music of Central Java, however, impro visation here is virtually impossible because of the ways musicians must coordinate with each other to perform such tightly arranged works on twenty-five different instruments, each one of which has a name and individual playing techniques.

FIGURE 12.7 Women’s Gamelan Gong Kebyar ensemble, Bali. pokok—melodic framework for Balinese gamelan music PROPERTY OF OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS