Geography of gamelan
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Geography of gamelan |
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While traveling throughout the world, listening to traditional music, three music regions prove to be rich in ensembles of percusso-melodic instruments :
Three geographically well distinct regions, even though the third one owes a lot to the people who left the second. The first region, however, has remained isolated from the two others, subject to possible but little known influences.
South-East Asia contains a multitude of music traditions among which three are important and related :
One has to stop, would it be just a moment, at other music traditions :
Given the historical, geographical and ethnic links, comparison between gamelan and other South-East Asian traditional music is natural, but it is worth leaving the region and seeing what is happening in the rest of the world. One can be surprised by some little known forms from other musical traditions. Gamelan raises perhaps questions going further than one is thinking.
Comparison with the music of India proves to be unfruitful. That is surprising after having witnessed the strongly Indian esthetic quality of Javanese and Balinese dance, and the important contribution from India into these islands' literature. The India problem raises essential questions that will have one day or the other to be clarified.
More to the west, but not too north, one comes across another musical area, that of Black Africa. Comparisons with gamelan are much more fruitful. The case of Africa reveals disturbing similarities.
In Central America and in the Caribbean, two ensembles catch the attention :
1. Like gamelan, steel band is made up of percusso-melodic instruments. The comparison is even more interesting when gamelan is metallic. Thus, the tones are highly comparable. In the playing technique, the differences become obvious : In metallic gamelan, each sound is struck then damped, which gives two types of rhythmical events ; In steel band, the mere striking is the only type of event. In gamelan, the players are seated on the floor whereas they are standing in steel band. Steel band plays a crossbreeding between European music and African rhythm. European music is very remote from gamelan because it is of harmonic character. Steel band's rhythms of African influence are not, a priori, those of gamelan. Steel band uses the European scale, gamelan uses its own scales. It is thus a matter of two different music.
2. Marimbas of Mexico, Guatemala and other countries of the region are a musical heritage from Black Africa. During the Spanish conquest of the 16th and 17th centuries, these xylophones were part of the Black slaves' musical knowledge. Its very name is of African origin. (Zaire : madimba.) The marimba is of the same type as the timbila of Eastern Africa. It is thus an elaborate instrument, comparable to the gendér of gamelan, apart from the material : the gendér's blades are in metal. The marimba-type xylophone is rare in South-East Asia : one finds it in Bali, in the pejogèdan ensembles for example. Like for steel band, xylophones don't use damping but only striking. The musical comparison between the marimba ensembles and gamelan is of the same order as between steel band and gamelan.
Whether the origin of the instrument with bars/blades is African or South-East Asian, it is impressive to watch its long journey throughout the continents and one wonders about its antiquity.
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| About the site… | Date of this page : 21 SEP 2005 |
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