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Java is an island of great density of gamelans, like in its eastern neighbor Bali. There are also many types of small ensembles, more or less percussive. Although these ensembles are not true gamelans, they often comprise gamelan instruments. The frontier between such an ensemble and a gamelan is not clear-cut anyway. Also a large deal of gamelans comprise non-percussive instruments, typically the suling, rebab, clempung, voice.
In the island the types of gamelans are more varied than most people (locals as well as foreigners) imagine. An explanation of this relative ignorance is that some types are confined to small regions while others have become percieved as standard when history has been profitable to their generalization. But there is also a more modern phenomenon : The local people involved in studies about the island's musical traditions originate understandably from the urbanized and intellectualized circles. These circles have specific musical standards and practices that do not encompass the total variety of gamelans in the island. It is only natural that the studies reflect this limitation and the same can be said about people involved in publishing and mass media.
In the present-day configuration of musical regions a broad west-east partition can be roughly outlined. It applies to the types of gamelans. This division does not coincide with the linguistic areas.
In the eastern region the horizontal gong chime is typically arranged in two rows. Another characteristic is the modern dominating influence of Yogyakarta or Surakarta in practice, terminology and listening habits.
The western region can be characterized by the presence of single row gong chimes in several forms of gamelan. And these gamelans are pentatonic pèlog. Pentatonic pèlog instruments, of gamelan type, are found in the eastern region, such as the gendér, but one has to reach Bali to find in the east full pentatonic pèlog gamelans.
Seléndro (pentatonic) gamelans are common in both the western and eastern regions. It must be also pointed out that the eastern region is a major source of influence on the western region since the Mataram II period.
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