Gamelan, A Symbol of High Culture

**Tourist** · 16-01-2012, 16:23

Gamelan comes from the word gembelan, means played by striking on it. To get the harmoniously, gamelan must be blended with another instruments, such as bonang, kendang, saron, peking, gong, gender, slenthem, ketuk, bonang penerus, siter, rebab, gambang, and suling.

The best quality of gamelan has made from bronze and stell. Some materials, such as wood, leather and rope, put on the gamelan as accessories. Some peoples says, hearing the gamelan instruments make soul feels relax and calm.

The development of gamelan was begun from Wawa King (Syailendra family who commanded at Kingdom of Majapahit). Then, gamelan has fast development in the Orde Baru period. Some schools, from elementary to senior high school, making kerawitan group, a gorup of gamelan musician, perhaps 30-40 students involved in the karawitan.

The player gamelan must becomes the leader to themself, also have a capability to match the rhythm of other instruments. To play gamelan, besides being skilled, the player must have a good sense of hearing the instruments. While playing gamelan, the player could sharpen their sensitivity of sound from other
instrument sound. The ability to maintain the emotion is necessary for the players. While playing gamelan, you could not be egoist and dominated. But, tried to be patient and share.

Before playing gamelan, the player must be understand the tone of gendhing, a scale which played in gamelan music. For example, Gendhing Pathet Lasem is used to accompany war scene in wayang kulit performance. In Javenese myth, gendhing was used to accompany Javanese ceremonial, such as Sekaten Night Market.

Now, gamelan has becomes the heritage of Indonesian culture. Indonesian is the owner of gamelan. But, some foreigns, such as Australian, United States, Malaysia, Japan, Filipina and Canada, have visited to Indonesian to learn gamelan. Many gamelan festival that you may find in Jogja, such as Festival Gamelan
Yogyakarta, Fesival Kesenian Yogyakarta, Children Art Biennale, etc. Most of the festival are involved gamelan musician as their part perform.

Source: tourjogja.com

photo: wikimedia.org

photo: cumbriacrack.com