Bonang
A set of small tuned kettle gongs resting horizontally on a wooden frame, played with two padded sticks. It elaborates the melody rather than stating it.
Clothing & Artefacts
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Culture-specific expressions
Terms, definitions, context, variants, usage examples, and references from diverse East Javanese cultural communities.
Demung
The largest and lowest metallophone of the saron family, with broad bars and a heavy mallet.
Clothing & Artefacts
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Gambang
A xylophone with wooden bars spanning several octaves, played with two flexible mallets in rapid parallel octaves.
Clothing & Artefacts
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Gamelan
A traditional Javanese musical ensemble consisting of instruments such as gongs, kenong, saron, bonang, and others.
Performing Arts
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Gamelan — Demo Multimodal
A demonstration entry showing how a single lexicon entry can simultaneously include image, audio, video, and 3D model representations. This is not a final scholarly record and is used…
Performing Arts
Noun · 4 mediaOpen entry →
Gamelan Jawa
The Javanese gamelan ensemble: a tuned set of bronze percussion instruments, together with drum, bowed and plucked strings, and flute, treated as a single instrument owned and tuned…
Performing Arts
NounOpen entry →
Gender
A metallophone of thin bars over tube resonators, played with two disc-shaped mallets in interlocking patterns, one hand damping while the other strikes.
Clothing & Artefacts
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Gendhing
A composed piece of karawitan, identified by its melodic skeleton, its cycle length, its tuning and its mode rather than by a fixed score.
Performing Arts
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Gerong
The male chorus of karawitan, singing in unison in fixed passages, in contrast to the free line of the solo singer.
Social Structure
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Gong ageng
The great hanging gong, struck at the close of the longest cycle. Its stroke marks the boundary of musical time and is treated with ceremonial respect.
Clothing & Artefacts
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Karawitan
The art of Javanese gamelan music: an ensemble practice governed by tuning system, mode, and a repertoire of composed pieces, performed on its own or as accompaniment to dance and…
Performing Arts
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Kempul
A smaller hanging gong, or set of them, struck within the cycle to mark subdivisions between the great gong strokes.
Clothing & Artefacts
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Kendhang
A double-headed drum played with the hands, which sets the tempo, signals changes of density, and brings the piece to its end. Its player leads the ensemble.
Clothing & Artefacts
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Kenong
A large kettle gong resting horizontally in its own frame, struck to divide the cycle into equal parts.
Clothing & Artefacts
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Kethuk
A small kettle gong with a dry, damped sound, struck on the offbeats to keep the inner pulse of the cycle.
Clothing & Artefacts
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Laras
A tuning system: the set of pitches a gamelan is tuned to. Two are in use, and instruments of one cannot be played with the other.
Local Knowledge
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Niyaga
A gamelan player. The role carries an etiquette of its own: how to sit, how to enter a piece, and when not to play.
Social Structure
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Pathet
The modal system within a tuning: which tones may end a phrase, which are avoided, and where in a night-long performance a piece belongs.
Local Knowledge
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