Search Results

The particular types of gamelan of Bali, Indonesia; commonly distinguished from Javanese gamelan. Although many ethnomusicologists have categorized gamelan using a taxonomy developed by the Balinese state conservatory, which distinguishes ensembles as ‘old, middle, and new’ (kuno, madya, baru), definitive evidence regarding the emergence of pre-20th-century ensembles is lacking. Authors have alternatively attempted to categorize ensembles by their ceremonial and social function. However, new social and aesthetic contexts have shifted prior associations; practically all extant ensembles now appear in tourist, state, religious, and experimental contexts. Ultimately it might be simplest to organize the ensembles organologically. For information on individual instruments see separate entries. For bibliography see Gamelan.

Balinese gamelan appear primarily in bamboo and bronze, and rarely iron, varieties. Ensembles dominated by bamboo instruments are typically smaller and are often associated with secular or recreational social contexts. The joged (pajogedan, joged bumbung) ensemble combines six tingklik...

Idiochord tube zither of the Mnong people of central Vietnam. It is made from the stem between two nodes of the giant rlaa bamboo, the strings being cut from the surface along half its length and, remaining attached, raised from the tube by bridges. The six strings have the same names and the same order as the members of the Mnong ...

Mouth organ of the Êđê people of Vietnam. It has six bamboo free-reed pipes attached with wax through the gourd windchest in two groups of three, with the neck of the gourd serving as the mouthpipe. There is one fingerhole on each pipe, stopped with the thumb, index, and middle fingers of both hands....

[kerurai, keluri, keledi]

Free-reed mouth organ of the Iban community of Sarawak, Malaysia. It has seven bamboo pipes (the center pipe is mute) bundled in a circular formation and sealed with beeswax where they penetrate vertically into a gourd wind chamber 24 to 28 cm in diameter. The gourd encloses the brass reeds located near the bottom end of each pipe. The stem of the gourd serves as the mouthpiece, and the player can blow or suck to cause the reeds to vibrate. A reed sounds when a fingerhole in its pipe above the gourd is closed. Often a small cup-like resonator (terubong) is attached to the longest pipe to amplify it. The overall length of the Iban engkerurai can approach 80 cm. It is played for general entertainment and accompanies line dances. The Kajang, Kayan, and Kenyah people refer to a nearly identical instrument as keluri, keledi, keredi, and kedire...

[geum]

Long zither of Korea, the equivalent of the Chinese guqin. It has seven silk strings, and inlaid marks on the soundtable indicating finger positions to obtain harmonic overtones. Nowadays, as with many other traditional Korean instruments, it is used only in Confucian ritual music. Various modern Korean zithers use many more strings; for example, the North Korean ...

Small mouth organ of Burma. It consists of bamboo pipes (their number varies) with free reeds, mounted in a long-necked gourd or pottery windchest; the neck serves as the blowpipe. A typical example has ten curved pipes in two rows of five, ranging from about 13 to 56 cm exposed length, affixed to the gourd with a dense paste. Holes near the lower ends of the pipes are opened or closed by the fingers to sound the pipes. The ...

Mouth organ of minority cultures of southwest China, notably the Yi, Lahu, and Lisu in Yunnan province. Hulu sheng (‘gourd mouth organ’) is a Han Chinese name. Local names include ang (Yi), nuo or naw (Lahu), and maniu (Lisu). The instrument is constructed from a dried bottle gourd (hulu) with its narrow neck serving as the blowpipe and its enlarged rounded bulb as the windchest. From four to seven (usually five) bamboo pipes of graduated length (c20 to 45 cm) are vertically inserted through holes in the upper and lower walls of the gourd and secured with beeswax. The pipes are open at their top and bottom ends, the bottoms sitting flush with the outside wall of the gourd where their openings serve as thumbholes. Enclosed within the gourd, a free reed assembly of bamboo or bronze is attached to each pipe with hardened beeswax. The reed frame is rectangular, but the reed can be rectangular or triangular. Above the windchest, each pipe has one fingerhole in its side. The reed is activated upon closing its fingerhole (which couples the pitch of the reed to that of the pipe) and alternately exhaling and inhaling through the blowpipe....

Mouth organ of the Dai, Achang, Wa, and other minority cultures in southern Yunnan province, China. Hulusi is a Han Chinese name; local names include bilangdao (Dai), huluxiao (Achang), and baihongliao (Wa). The instrument has a bamboo melody pipe and one or two bamboo drone pipes inserted into the bottom (flower) end of a small bottleneck gourd windchest. Traditionally the pipes are secured with hardened beeswax though nowadays usually with a stronger adhesive. A thin blowpipe is similarly mounted in the neck end of the gourd. The melody pipe (c25 cm or longer) has six or more fingerholes and (attached near its closed end within the gourd) a thin, triangular free reed of bamboo, bronze, or silver in a rectangular frame, similar to the reed assembly of the bawu. On some instruments, one short drone pipe, with the same kind of reed, runs parallel to the melody pipe; more commonly nowadays, a second drone is attached to the opposite side of the melody pipe, either with its reed tuned to a different pitch, or without a reed for symmetrical appearance....

Gourd and bamboo mouth organ. The term is used primarily by Kayan and Bahau peoples of Indonesian and Malaysian Borneo, although similar instruments have been played by many Borneo peoples, including the Iban, Kanowit, Dusun/Kadazan, Murut, Sebop, Kenyah and Punan (see Indonesia §VII 1., (ii), and Malaysia, Federation of §III). While organological details vary from group to group, these instruments generally consist of a dried gourd wind chamber, into which are inserted five to eight bamboo pipes. The Dusun/Kadazan and Murut of north-eastern Borneo (Sabah, Malaysia) organize the pipes into two parallel ranks of four tubes each. Peoples of the central highlands and adjacent areas to the east, west and south, usually arrange the tubes into a circular formation. With the exception of one mute pipe (typical of instruments from Sabah), the ends of the tubes sealed inside the wind chamber are equipped with free reeds. These vibrate when the player fills the reservoir with air by blowing into the neck of the gourd. Some instruments can also be made to sound by inhaling. Different pitches are produced with the fingers, either by covering one or two small holes on the exposed part of each tube, or by stopping the open end of the tube itself. A drone pipe is present on many instruments....

A modern keyed zither of Bali, Indonesia. It resembles the Japanese taisho-goto. Four to six guitar strings are stretched across the resonator, a shallow wooden box approximately 55 cm long and 20 cm wide, often elaborately carved, painted, and gilt in the manner of many Balinese gamelan instruments. The instrument is placed on the ground before a musician sitting cross-legged. The strings are hitched at the right end of the box and cross a metal bridge over which a wooden guard is placed where the player rests his right hand, strumming all of the strings together with a guitar pick. A small soundhole pierces the soundtable to the left of the bridge. The strings then pass under a keyboard of seven to 12 metal levers with small circular touches resembling typewriter keys, which, when depressed by the fingers of the left hand, each bring a metal bar down upon all of the strings, stopping them against a narrow wooden board (equivalent to a fingerboard) glued to the top of the box. The strings then pass over a metal nut (the same shape as the bridge) and are tuned with small guitar tuners at the left end. Tuning is not standard but most players tune the first two strings to the same pitch, two more an octave above. Some players tune one or two of the strings to the fifth....

Free-reed mouth organ of minority upland peoples in Cambodia. It has five or six bamboo pipes with free reeds, mounted in a circle, the lower ends (including the reeds) inserted into a gourd windchest. A similar instrument is called khim by the Samrê people and m’boat by the tribal peoples of northeastern Cambodia near the Central Highlands of Vietnam, where such instruments abound. Other similar types appear in neighbouring areas of southern Laos and elsewhere in mainland Southeast Asia....

Metal jew’s harp of the Turkmen, Uzbek and Yakut peoples. In Uzbekistan it is also known as the chang-qobuz and is played by groups of women or children; among the Yakut peoples of Siberia it is played by male ensembles. In the past women’s groups (consisting of 4–5 women) of the Surkharndarya-Kashkadarya region played the ...

(from Sanskrit: ‘that which is heard’)

Small bellows-pumped Reed organ of India. It provides a drone in popular and, sometimes, classical music, assuming the function of the Tambūrā; nowadays it sometimes also functions melodically. In Indian music theory, śruti (sur in north India) is the smallest audible interval, a microtone; especially a microtone as opposed to a scale degree (svara). According to the Nātyasāstra of Bharata (early centuries ce) there were 22 śruti to the octave and seven svara, spaced at intervals of two, three and four śruti. Bharata’s demonstration of this theory using two vīṇā proves only that the śruti were regarded as equal in size, and that the scales were tuned by ear. The relationship of intervals to string lengths is first discussed in the works of Hṛdaya Nārāyana and Ahobala Paṇḍita (c1660). From the 18th century the relevance of Bharata’s śruti concept to current practice became a matter of contentious debate among both Indian and European scholars, fuelled both by Orientalist interest in parallels with ancient Greek scale theory, and by an indigenous re-evaluation of music as an ancient Hindu tradition....

[trompong misi bruk]

Rare xylophone of Bali. It has bars of wood or bamboo suspended over individual resonators made of coconut shell (beruk). The instrument typically has eight bars tuned to either the slendro or pelog tuning system, although slendro appears to be the more common. It is played by a single player with two unpadded wooden mallets in the manner of the more common bronze ...