Gong ageng
Encyclopedia
Gong
A gong is an East and South East Asian musical percussion instrument that takes the form of a flat metal disc which is hit with a mallet....
s in the Javanese and Balinese gamelan
Gamelan
A gamelan is a musical ensemble from Indonesia, typically from the islands of Bali or Java, featuring a variety of instruments such as metallophones, xylophones, drums and gongs; bamboo flutes, bowed and plucked strings. Vocalists may also be included....
orchestra. Unlike the more famous Chinese
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
or Turkish
Culture of Turkey
The culture of Turkey combines a largely diverse and heterogeneous set of elements that are derived from the Ottoman, European, Middle Eastern and Central Asian traditions...
gongs, Indonesian gongs have fixed, focused pitch
Pitch (music)
Pitch is an auditory perceptual property that allows the ordering of sounds on a frequency-related scale.Pitches are compared as "higher" and "lower" in the sense associated with musical melodies,...
, and are dissimilar to the familiar crash cymbal
Crash cymbal
A crash cymbal is a type of cymbal that produces a loud, sharp "crash" and is used mainly for occasional accents, as opposed to in ostinato. The term "crash" may have been first used by Zildjian in 1928....
sound.
It is circular, with a conical, tapering base of diameter smaller than gong face, with a protruding polished boss
Boss (architecture)
In architecture, a boss is a knob or protrusion of stone or wood.Bosses can often be found in the ceilings of buildings, particularly at the intersection of a vault. In Gothic architecture, such roof bosses are often intricately carved with foliage, heraldic devices or other decorations...
where it is struck by a padded mallet.
Gongs with diameter
Diameter
In geometry, a diameter of a circle is any straight line segment that passes through the center of the circle and whose endpoints are on the circle. The diameters are the longest chords of the circle...
as large as 135 centimeters (54 inches) have been created in the past, but gongs larger than about 80 centimeters (32 inches) are more common especially to suit the budget of educational institutions.
The gong ageng is considered the most important instrument in a gamelan ensemble: the soul or spirit of the gamelan is said to live in it.
Gong ageng are often proffered ritual offerings of flowers, food and or and incense before performances to appease spirits believed to inhabit it.
Commonly, less expensive iron gong ageng or a slit-type gong are made to fulfill the role of the bronze gong, though at the loss of sound quality- for poorer regions and villages.
The cost of expertly pure cast & beaten bronze has seen a rise in bronze-plated and bronze-laminated iron gongs for the undiscerning expatriate.
Acoustics
Traditionally, it is the first of the instruments to be made. A highly skilled gong-smith will smelt and cast, then supervises the hammering process, but will be solely responsible for the final fine tuning of the gong ageng pitch- the rest of the ensemble is tuned (and named) according to the qualities of the gong ageng.It is the single most costly and lengthy item to fabricate- and often requires multiple re-castings due to stress-cracks created in the beating process of forming it and undesired tonal or timbre
Timbre
In music, timbre is the quality of a musical note or sound or tone that distinguishes different types of sound production, such as voices and musical instruments, such as string instruments, wind instruments, and percussion instruments. The physical characteristics of sound that determine the...
qualities. The pitch desired is very deep, distinctly pitched rumble that sound like thunder or the "rolling waves of the sea".
Slight differences in the opposite halves of a gong create a desired "beating" in the sound. It is named according to subjective poetic descriptive images for different speeds of beats, comparing slow beats with waves of water and faster beats with Bima’s laughter (Bima is one of the Pandawa brothers in the Mahabharata
Mahabharata
The Mahabharata is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India and Nepal, the other being the Ramayana. The epic is part of itihasa....
epic
Epic poetry
An epic is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation. Oral poetry may qualify as an epic, and Albert Lord and Milman Parry have argued that classical epics were fundamentally an oral poetic form...
).
The gong is fabricated to resonate at the lowest thresholds of human hearing (20 Hz to 20,000 Hz). Actual pitch will vary, but a fine gong ageng of example of the Nusantara Museum of Delft
Delft
Delft is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland , the Netherlands. It is located between Rotterdam and The Hague....
was measured to have a fundamental tone of 44.5 Hz. The Gong Ageng has about a dozen prominent exponentially decaying partials, with some component frequency ratios that closely correspond to harmonics and others that are enharmonic. Many of the partials have a slow amplitude and frequency modulation of a few Hertz, and a faster modulation around 20 Hz.
The instruments of the gamelan are then fabricated on the fundamental tone of the gong ageng pitch is basis of the slendro pitch "6" (enam, or nem) of It is typically pitched to match the 6 of the gamelan.
Function
Gong ageng demarcates the larger phrase structure or gongan. Within the gongan' structure, Between, the gong suwukan and kempul punctuate the subdivisions of time. A gongan is the time span between the gong ageng strikes , which are subordinate to the tempoTempo
In musical terminology, tempo is the speed or pace of a given piece. Tempo is a crucial element of any musical composition, as it can affect the mood and difficulty of a piece.-Measuring tempo:...
: irama
Irama
Irama is a concept used in Javanese gamelan music, describing melodic tempo and relationships in density between the balungan, elaborating instruments, and gong structure. It is distinct from tempo , as each irama can be played in different tempi.One way to think of irama is to use the most...
, and length of the structure (bentuk). the gongan is the longest time-span in the colotomic structure of gamelan.
In larger gendhing
Gendhing
The gendhing is a class of gendhing structures used in Javanese gamelan music. Gendhing can also be used to refer to gamelan compositions in general....
(compositions), only the gong ageng is employed. Some gamelan sets for cost considerations will use the gong ageng for both pélog
Pelog
Pelog is one of the two essential scales of gamelan music native to Bali and Java, in Indonesia. The other scale commonly used is called slendro. Pelog has seven notes, but many gamelan ensembles only have keys for five of the pitches...
and sléndro
Slendro
Slendro is a pentatonic scale, one of the two most common scales used in Indonesian gamelan music, the other being pélog.-Tuning:...
scale systems. A truly full set in a keraton(palace) will have two gong ageng.
The gong suwukan or gong siyem is the smaller gong in the set used for smaller phrases. It is generally pitched higher, and at different pitches for pélog and sléndro. Frequently gamelans will have more than one gong suwukan, for different ending notes, and different pathet
Pathet
The pathet is an organizing concept in gamelan music. It is difficult to explain, but is similar to the melody types, that is, for example, modes, ragas, or maqamat, of other musics....
.
Most common is a 1 for pathet sanga and lima, and 2 for pélog pathet nem and barang, and sléndro pathet nem and manyura. Usually a 1 can be played for gatra
Gatra
A gatra is a unit of melody in Javanese gamelan music, analogous to a measure in Western music. It is often considered the smallest unit of a gamelan composition....
ending in 1 or 5, and a 2 for 2 or 6. A few gamelans include a gong suwukan 3 as well.
The goong ageung plays a similar role in Sundanese gamelan (e.g. degung). The kempur in Balinese gamelan is similar to the gong suwukan (and not to be confused with the Javanese kempul
Kempul
A kempul is a type of hanging gong used in Indonesian gamelan. It is often placed with the gong suwukan and gong ageng, hanging on a single rack, at the back of the gamelan, and these instruments are often played by the same player with the same mallets...
). In other Indonesian and Philippine cultures, its analog is the agung
Agung
The agung is a set of two wide-rimmed, vertically-suspended gongs used by the Maguindanao, Maranao and Tausug people of the Philippines as a supportive instrument in kulintang ensembles...
.
Cultural Aspects
The gong ageng is central and fundamental to the gamelan orchestra. Similes between the gong ageng are made in relations to Indonesian, and particularly the Javanese and related Balinese society cultures. A very large (and expensive) gong ageng is often commissioned for prestige State-sponsored projects. Two famous ones include the Surabaya Naval Dockyard statue (weighing over 2000 kg) and in the seaside resort of Ancol in JakartaJakarta
Jakarta is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Officially known as the Special Capital Territory of Jakarta, it is located on the northwest coast of Java, has an area of , and a population of 9,580,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political centre...
(approximate diameter 3 metres, weight several thousand kilogram). These two former gong ageng can be heard a distance of 20 kilometers out to sea.
On auspicious or important occasions a gong ageng is often struck in the same way in Western society may cut a ribbon or smash or pour a champagne bottle (commissioning of a building or ship, launching a project, finalizing a major business deal among many others).
In the houses of the wealthy, mainly Javanese aristocrat families of Jakarta
Jakarta
Jakarta is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Officially known as the Special Capital Territory of Jakarta, it is located on the northwest coast of Java, has an area of , and a population of 9,580,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political centre...
gong ageng are is used to herald the arrival of guests. Less important guests are heralded by the kempul
Kempul
A kempul is a type of hanging gong used in Indonesian gamelan. It is often placed with the gong suwukan and gong ageng, hanging on a single rack, at the back of the gamelan, and these instruments are often played by the same player with the same mallets...
.