Influences on the music

Esthetic quality The talent and esthetic taste of Javanese and Balinese players show through their art. Their taste and their talent permeate art forms like dance, shadow play, music, architecture and sculpture. They have governed the evolution of these arts which have become what they are today. Arts forms are indissociable between themselves, belong to a same tradition and are bound together by this esthetic quality. After all, gamelan does belong to this artistic context and expresses this unity with noise, life and a delight of rhythm. For example, the Balinese taste for the ramé quality shows as much through their temples' sculpture as through their gamelan.

Drama On a technical level, the musical requirements of the stage arts have conditioned the music which is today very "narrative", "descriptive", even "dramatic", even when it doesn't accompany dance or drama. But it is also possible that, on the contrary, the music has had the same influence on the stage arts.

Indian dance ? We see that certain dances in India, Khmer court dance, dance in Java and in Bali share a common esthetic quality. They make up the tradition of Indian dance. Here it is useful to check what are our connotations of Indian dance. During the early stages of Indian dance in Java, the accompanying ensembles were certainly different from today's gamelans. Indeed, gamelans most probably didn't yet exist at that time although some independent gamelan-typed instruments (two-handed keyed and kettle-gongs) must have been present on the island. The music that is today most representative of Indian dance of Java and Bali is that of the gamelans, the two arts are closely associated. But there are gamelans not associated with dance (or at least this kind of dance), like the Balinese gambang and salunding ritual ensembles. These gamelans have no drums. There are also dances not accompanied by gamelans, like the gambuh danced theater. The ensemble is indeed percussive, and makes use of kendang. It would be worthwhile investigating how early in Java Indian dance and gamelan became associated. Did the gamelan develop out of the music that was played with dancing ? It is difficult to find an answer. The question itself is perhaps too broad. We can start by noting the strong association between dance and percussion. Indian dance, especially, is very rhythm-friendly, like gamelan is. There is even that ubiquitous instrument, the horizontal double-headed cylindrical drum. In both India and Southeast Asia, this drum has always been part of the dance's musical accompaniment. The Javanese temple reliefs are a good witness of that, when no gamelan are represented. Then, may we speculate whether the drumming of this drum influenced the rhythm of the developing gamelans ? As a next supposition, we could consider the need for melody, tune, mode, of the danced stories and characters. We would thus say that Java managed to fuse percussion with melody, to develop the narrative aspect while retaining rhythm. The drumming of kendang still has a central role in dance and other stage arts of Java and Bali nowadays. Between drum and other gamelan instruments, musical influences have been going in both ways. Gamelan rhythmics and orchestration have also conditioned and influenced drumming. The drums, or kendang, are integral instruments of gamelans. In Balinese gamelan, for instance, kotèkan is a rhythmic technique used by both kendang and gangsa, damping is present in the technique of both. Did some influence go the other way too ? Did some Balinese gangsa kotèkan originate in kendang rhythms ? It is not clear which one first started to influence the other. Now, we must ask ourselves whether the music that the gamelans play today bears a mark of this dance. Does gamelan give a sound to its gestures ? What historical, esthetic correspondences can we find between Indian dance and gamelan ? First problem, music in India is completely different from gamelan. And we already know that the dance in this country always seems out of context. Second problem, it is gamelan that could have influenced the dance. See also the India problem.

Instruments The type of instruments available to the players has most probably directed the music's evolution. The music is indeed a creation of the instrument. For example, the fact that bronze gongs and blades are difficult to tune has limited the music's modal aspect. The fact that melody is produced by percussion has favored the development of rhythm.

Other music Has other ancient Asian music, like the Indian or Chinese, influenced gamelan? Concerning the musical scales, we will notice similarities with music of the South-East Asian mainland, of China, of Japan, of India, of Ethiopia and of Black Africa.

Economic context South-East Asia, for the most part, is an environmental and artistic paradise, the first having favored the second. The tropical humid climate of the southern islands maintains a rich vegetation. This region doesn't know the deserts' aridity nor the severe colds of the northern continents. Volcanism enriches the soils. In addition to making food supply easier to man, this environment has determined their forms of habitation and ways of living. Of all this results a type of economy where the greater part of man's activity consists not in searching for food and shelter but in organizing ceremonies and maintaining the arts. The Javanese and Balinese have available time to practise their arts. This partly explains the abundance and the rich esthetic quality of their arts. Gamelan, one of these arts, could have developed only in such a context. It is also an integral part of these many ceremonies.