wayang kulit
shadow puppet show — all night epic of ne erending battles of light and dark
dalang
virtuoso puppetier
gamelan
orchestra of amily bronze instruments
aspects of gamelan music
orchestras featuring bronze instruments, compositions guided by a core melody, polyphonic texture, colotomic structure, paired families of tuning systems, stress at the end of metical cycles
pelog
a tuning system of seven pitches per octave with some adjacent intervals significantly larger than others
slendro
tuning system of five pitches per octave with the adjacent intervals close to the same size
aluz
refined style
kasar
coarse style.
buka
a bonang or a rebab seem to play off handedly but it is actually a modal character introduction
balungan
the core melody played by the saron metallophones that is heard
lagu
the central melody of the piece, though this is never explicitly heard it exists only in the minds of the musicians
kembangan
melodies with more notes per beat than the balungan, literally “flowerig” of the music
cengkok
patterns on which elaborating variations are made that ultimately coincide with the balungan
patet
guiding structure of melody in pelog and slendro tuning systems, “mode” but includes hierachy of pitches and characteristic melodies.
colotomic structure
pattern of regular punctuation of the composition by certain gong strokes. fixed and repeated
gongan
large phrase defined by the duration between successive gong notes
kenong
the second level of punctuation
kempul
same frequency as kenong but in between those strokes
wela
first kempul beat may be left silent, this is that
ketuk
next highest level of punctuation
kempyang
optional highest level of punctuation
irama
relationships between the rhythmic densities of various instruments to the beat
kepatihan
cipher notation
pipilan
a new melody is created mostly by alternating between pairs of balungan tones
kebyar
the ability of the entire orchestra to stop and start on a dime to play seemingly nonmetrical rhapsodic sections.
gamelan gong kebyar
most popular type of gamelan,
ugal
lead metallophone player
selisir
fivetune subset of pelog
pokok
core melod of kebyar
gangsa
metallophones that play fast figuration
ugal
low gangsa
pemade
high gangsa
kantilan
highest gangsa
topeng
mask dance
tabuh
short repeated melodies
angsel
bold movement by dancers cuing the drummer who cues gamelan who then place cadence
kecak
balies most famous forms of music. composed of shouts and chants by men.
belanganjur
processional gamelans
kotekan
type of figuration in the kebyar style
barong
mythical dragon-like animal that is the holy protector of a village