Ensembles

(Tok Pisin for ‘bamboo band’).

Both a struck aerophone (alternatively, an idiophone) comprising a set of three or five tuned bamboo tubes, and the name for an ensemble including these instruments. It was featured in popular music in the Solomon Islands (its place of origin) and parts of Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu for several decades from the 1970s. The primary instrument is derived from the handheld tuned stamping tube, and comprises a set of 7- to 9-cm-diameter bamboos, open at both ends and graduated in lengths of up to 2 metres, arranged in raft form. A band will include at least three sets; each set is commonly tuned (to a guitar) 1–3–5–6–8 (or 1–3–5), usually in a low register, to sound one of the three primary chords in a given key. With flexible paddles players vigorously slap in succession one open end of each bamboo in a boogie-woogie rhythmic-melodic pattern that outlines a triad; sets alternate according to changes in harmony. The ensemble includes guitars and accompanies harmonized singing. A related Solomon Islands ensemble without guitars yet employing Westernized tuning, involves multiple sets of panpipes, ‘pantrumpets’, and the rack-mounted bass ...

Term for a xylophone or ensemble of xylophones and kettledrums of the Senufo people in the Korhogo region of the Ivory Coast. The ensemble normally comprises three or four frame xylophones, each with 12 bars slung on cords attached to the frame at each end. Under each bar is a gourd resonator with spider’s web mirliton. All the xylophones have the same pentatonic tuning; they are accompanied by three wooden kettledrums. The players wear iron jingles on their wrists. The ...

[tek-tek]

Processional ensemble of Banyumas, Central Java, Indonesia. The ensemble, developed since 2000, includes up to 20 kentongan (tek-tek) consisting of two tuned lengths of bamboo from 50 to 80 cm long cut in the manner of the calung bar, screwed onto a square frame of bamboo, and carried on a rope strung around the player’s shoulders. The bars are struck with a padded wooden mallet. Up to five musicians play beḍug, large homemade drums constructed from plastic barrels and rubber or plastic heads ranging from 30 to 45 cm in diameter and struck with large padded mallets. A single musician plays several small, one-headed drums and cymbals arranged in the manner of Western marching tom-toms. The melody is played by a single musician on a diatonic set of angklung rattles and doubled on a gambang xylophone. A small suling flute is added along with maracas and Western marching cymbals. The ensemble is played by youth groups in parades, at community centres, and sometimes in organized competitions in which female dancers and MCs are included. Its repertoire includes material adapted from Javanese ...

(1) Bamboo ensemble of the central Sikka region of Flores, Indonesia. A single performer plays two bamboo stamping tubes (boku) 40 to 50 cm long, one tuned slightly higher than the other. The tubes are closed by a node at the bottom and sounded by hitting them against the ground in alternation. Meanwhile three performers play bamboo idiochord tube zithers (toda), each about 60 cm long and 11 cm in diameter with one string, as in the Balinese guntang. One musician plays three todas; a second musician plays two; and a third musician plays one. They strike the idiochord with thin, unpadded sticks, performing complex interlocking rhythmic patterns. A cracked piece of young bamboo, called a waning ana, is sometimes added to this ensemble, and is struck on the beat with a wooden stick.

A similar ensemble involving four todas, each with its own player, and two drums (...

Gong and drum ensemble from Roti, Indonesia, named after the highest-pitched gong. The gongs are often cast locally of iron, but some bronze gongs are imported from Java. Eight to ten gongs hang from tree limbs by rope strung through two small holes drilled into their rims, which are about 4 cm deep. They are played by four or five musicians using unpadded wooden mallets. The gongs are divided into four sections. The lowest range, called the ina, with three gongs about 40 cm in diameter, are hung side by side and played by one musician. The middle range, called nggasa, includes two gongs about 35 cm in diameter, hung one above the other. They are played by one musician who damps both gongs by holding the rim in his left hand. The third, highest range is called the leko and includes two gongs about 25 cm in diameter, positioned and damped as the ...

[bin bādy]

In Cambodia, the primary classical ensemble played at court ceremonies, some Buddhist festivals, to accompany the large shadow theatre, masked drama, and dance drama. Both the ensemble and its name are closely related to similar ensembles in Thailand (piphat) and Laos (sep nyai/piphat). Ensembles vary in size from minimal (five instruments) to large. A basic ensemble consists of ...

[Samullori]

Korean percussion group whose name (roughly meaning ‘playing of four objects’) was adopted for a recently developed genre of Korean traditional music. The first performance of this type of music by the original group took place in February 1978 at the Space Theatre in Seoul, when the members were Kim Duk-soo (Kim Tŏksu, changgo), Kim Yongbae (kkwaenggwari), Lee Kwang-soo (Yi Kwangsu, puk) and Choi Jong-sil (Ch'oi Chongsil, ching). After a number of personnel changes, only Kim Duk-soo (b 1952) remains from the original group. The group had enormous success in Korea and many international tours after 1982, making several recordings and collaborating with jazz, rock and orchestral musicians.

While the music of Samul Nori is largely derived from parts of traditional Korean farmers' band music (nongak or p'ungmul kut), it is played only on two drums and two gongs (rather than by a large band), is played seated on an indoor stage (instead of dancing outdoors), and has a much more developed, professionalized and virtuoso style. The music undergoes constant development and modification, the four most popular pieces being ...

(Lat.; Gk., usually plural, kroupezai or kroupala)

Ancient percussion instrument consisting of foot-activated clappers (it is classified as an idiophone). It took the form of a sandal with a thick wooden sole hinged to a similarly shaped block of wood on the ground. To each of the wooden parts hollowed clappers of varying materials were attached.

The Hittite word h̬uh̬upal may refer to some such instrument, which was comparatively rare in Greece but became relatively prominent in Rome with the general expansion of instrumental usage there. It found a place in the orgiastic music of Dionysiac festivals, but it was most commonly used by a tibia player to emphasize dance rhythms when accompanying a group of pantomimi, or acting as leader to such a theatrical instrumental ensemble (see also Greece §I 5., (i), (b)). This player was called the scabillarius, and the Roman organization of theatrical musicians, the collegium scabillariorum, was named after him. The scabellum appears also with some frequency in Roman representations of cult music....

[selundeng, salunding, selonding]

Ancient Balinese gamelan ensemble associated with pre-Hindu villages. It comprises six metallophones with iron bars suspended over a shallow wooden trough, played with unpadded wooden mallets. Each instrument begins on a different tone of the seven-tone pelog system. The lowest instrument, referred to as the gong, has eight bars. The higher inting gede and inting cenik have four bars each and are played together by a single performer. The mid-range penem and petuduh have four bars each and are connected to form a single instrument but are played, like the Balinese reyong gong chime, by two musicians performing complex interlocking patterns. The higher nyonyong gede and nyonyong cenik have eight bars each and may each be played by one or two musicians. The nyonyong performers typically carry the principal melody in their right-hand patterns, doubled two octaves below on the inting. Ceng-ceng cymbals may be added when accompanying dance works. The ...

[tuddukan, tuddukat]

Slit drum ensemble of three, sometimes four, instruments of different sizes and pitches, used in the Mentawai Islands, Indonesia. They are used for signalling as well as for musical purposes. The drums are housed in a small covered structure raised approximately three metres above ground level and are audible up to five kilometres away. Each drum consists of a long piece of palm or other tree trunk, the ends of which are narrowed so that the middle third is ovoid, with a long slit about the width of two fingers. The drums rest horizontally on sticks on the wooden floorboards, and the player beats the middle upper edge of the slit. The largest drum, called ina (‘mother’), can be about 300 cm long, with a middle diameter of about 30 cm. The other two are called toga siboito (‘small child’) and toga sikatelu (‘third child’, about 150 cm long). Some have carved decorations. There is no standard tuning but a set in central Siberut plays approximately ...