Gamelan Gunung Biru: Live in Concert
A rare performance of Sundanese gamelan by WCU’s Low Tech Ensemble
Traditional music from Java, brought to life in the Blue Ridge Mountains
A gamelan is an orchestra of tuned metal percussion instruments characteristic of Java, Bali, Malaysia and other island cultures in Southeast Asia. Each gamelan has its own name, its own tuning system, and its own distinctive “personality.” Our gamelan's name means “Venerable Blue Mountain,” which we selected as tribute to its new home: the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. Featuring polished bronze and elaborately carved wooden stands, it was built in 2002 by Tentrem Sarwanto of Surakarta, Java.
The gamelan degung is a small gamelan with a gapped 5-tone scale that corresponds roughly to the Western tones: do, ti, sol, fa, mi. The distinctive playing style and repertoire of the gamelan degung developed in the late 19th century in the western part of Java, known as Sunda.
Compositions for gamelan degung can be repeated to create very long cycles, and the internal structure of the music is sometimes quite complex. As you will hear, repetition and recurrence of particular phrases occurs both within a piece and between pieces in the repertory. Although increasing in popularity in Indonesia, the gamelan degung is still quite rare in North America.
The instruments of the gamelan degung are listed below:
Suling: small end-blown bamboo flute used to ornament or create countermelody
Bonang: 3-octave set of pot-shaped gongs used to play elaborations of melody
Peking: 2½-octave metallophone (saron) used for melodic elaborations
Panerus: 2½-octave metallophone an octave lower than peking, plays at slower rate
Demung: one-octave saron pitched pitched in same range as jenglong
Gender: 3-octave keyboard with tuned resonators; played with mallets in each hand
Slentem: one-octave keyboard with tuned resonators; may substitute for jenglong
Jenglong: 6 or 7 horizontal gongs that outline the "nuclear melody" (balungan)
Kemput: intermediate hanging gong used to punctuate cyles of the music
Gong Ageng: large hanging gong used to mark end of musical cycles
Kendang and ketipung: pair of double-headed drums used to signal and keep time
Current estimates place the number of gamelan in the United States at 150-200, mostly on the coasts and at the larger music schools. There are only a handful of other gamelans in the Southeast (in Georgia, Florida, Virginia, and West Virginia); three of these are also at Western Carolina University: an iron gamelan degung, an iron Central Javanese slendro tuning gamelan, and a bronze gamelan angklung from the island of Bali, purchased with a grant from the Horowitz Foundation.
The iron sets are available on loan to schools in the region. Western Carolina’s Low Tech Ensemble performs on all of these gamelans in concerts on campus and around the region.
Dr. Will Peebles School of Music
Western Carolina University
Cullowhee, NC 28723
(828) 227-3258
Email: wpeebles@wcu.edu