Teaching you Indonesian Gamelan Music! (Lancaran Kotek)

JJ RIORDAN: (BACKGROUND MUSIC) Hey guys, JJ Riordan. Today I'm in the UCC music department in the gamelan room.

A gamelan is a Indonesian percussion ensemble mainly consisting of gongs,

metallophones, horizontal pot gongs, and drums. Today I am recording a traditional piece

called Lantrang Kotek. Let's begin. Gamelan music is constructed around a skeletal melody

called the belungan. Belungan literally means skeleton in Indonesian. As we go through

this video, I'm going to have the belungan at the bottom of the screen so you guys can

keep tabs of what's happening and keep on top of the melody as we do it. In Lantrang Kotek,

the piece that we're looking at today, there are two main parts to the belungan. The first part is

rest three, rest six, rest three, rest six, rest three, rest six, rest three, rest two.

Here it is played on a damang. (MUSIC) Now with all of the metallophones. (MUSIC)

There's one metallophone in particular called the peking, which is the highest pitch metallophone,

which actually doubles up every note. It goes three, three, six, six, three,

three, six, six, and so on and so forth. (MUSIC)

The melody is then punctuated by the horizontal kenang gongs,

the kempul small hanging gongs, and the large gongs here behind me.

Right here. In the notation, we see semicircles, which are used to denote where the

kenang and kempul notes fall. Wherever there's an N, there's a kenang note. Wherever there's a little

U, there's a kempul, one of the smaller gongs. And wherever there's a circle around the note

at the end of the phrase, that indicates that there's a gong. That sounds a bit like this. (MUSIC)

Gamelan music is an end-weighted music, so rather than the emphasis being in the first note,

it's actually on the last. The very, very last phrase of the cycle, there's the gong again,

which is the large, black hanging gong. Those rests are punctuated as well. They are punctuated

by the ketuk, which is a little timekeeping gong, and the bow nines. Now, the bow nines are a little

bit more intricate. Here we go. Let's learn this. Each belonging is divided into sections

known as gotros. One gotro, for example, is rest three, rest six. Another one could be rest three,

rest two. The last note in each gotro defines which note the bow nine is going to play. In the

case of rest three, rest six, the bow nines play the six. In rest three, rest two, they play two,

they play on the rest. The bow nine plays the sixes in the rest three, rest six gotro,

and twos in the rests of the rest three, rest two gotro, and so on. In the case of rest three,

rest six, we're going to have bow nine three, bow nine six. That sounds like this with just

the bow nine barring. (MUSIC) The bow nine panarus, the higher pitched set of the two, plays a rhythm

known as a gembyangan. It's a little bit funky, it sounds like this. (MUSIC) The drums play every pitch,

so rest (TAPPING) three, rest six, rest three, rest. Every time there's a compule note, they play a bass

note on the larger drum, and that sounds a bit like this. (MUSIC) To begin a gamelan piece, traditionally

we play something called a buko, which is a word for an opening. This piece has a buko bow nine,

meaning it all begins on the bow nines over here, and it sounds like this. (MUSIC) This is an end-weighted

music. The instruments all play their last note first and then begin the cycle. Six is the last

note that every instrument plays in the full cycle. Rest five, rest three, rest two, rest one,

rest three, rest two, rest one, rest six. When they play that sixth, the large gong sounds,

and we're off. I think that's it. This is what the whole thing sounds like now. Enjoy. (MUSIC)

That's constructing a Japanese lantran. If you did enjoy this, or if it was helpful,

drop a comment, leave a like, subscribe, all that jazz,

and I will see you on the next video. Thanks a million. Bye.