Gamelan

One of my favorite parts of being a music major is getting join really cool ensembles, and this quarter I decided to play with the Balinese Gamelan Ensemble.  Gamelan is an important musical tradition from Indonesia, and the term refers to the set of instruments.  Each Gamelan is uniquely built and tuned so the instruments between different sets are rarely interchangeable.  There are two types of Gamelan, Javanese and Balinese.  Javanese is more structured, while Balinese is more free-spirited and sporadic.  This reflects how outside countries and political upheaval during the early twentieth century affected the traditions of the Bali people, allowing them to maintain their culture and traditions, while dramatically altering them.  Gamelan Angklung is the most widespread type of Gamelan orchestra.  It is primarily used for ceremonies, particularly cremations.  The word angklung refers to an older type of ensemble, angklung bambu (one tone rattle bamboo), and is actually onomatopoetic with the purpose of evoking the sound of the bamboo rattle.  Gamelan angklung differs from other Balinese traditions with its four-tone scale (deng, dung, dang, ding), saih angklung.  The instruments typically used for this are two jegogan (low pitched metallophones), four gangsa gantung gede (ten-keyed, high-pitched metallophones), four gangsa gantung barangan (metallophones), an eight-pot reong (a set of knobbed kettles), a set of ceng-ceng (large cymbals), a suling (bamboo flute), and a pair kendang angklung (small cylinder-shaped drums played with a mallet).  

Here is a picture of the UCLA Gamelan from quite a while ago.

Here is a sample, it's pretty awesome.  Enjoy.