Bali

Bali

Bali is an Indonesian island located in the westernmost end of the Lesser Sunda Islands, lying between Java to the west and Lombok to the east...

 is an Indonesia

Indonesia

Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...

n island that shares in the 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....

 and various other Indonesian musical styles

Music of Indonesia

The music of Indonesia demonstrates its cultural diversity, the local musical creativity, as well as subsequent foreign musical influences that shaped contemporary music scenes of Indonesia. Nearly thousands of Indonesian islands having its own cultural and artistic history and character. This...

. Bali, however, has its own techniques and styles, including kecak

Kecak

Kecak is a form of Balinese dance and music drama, originated in the 1930s Bali and is performed primarily by men, although a few women's kecak groups exist as of 2006....

, a form of singing that imitates the sound of monkey

Monkey

A monkey is a primate, either an Old World monkey or a New World monkey. There are about 260 known living species of monkey. Many are arboreal, although there are species that live primarily on the ground, such as baboons. Monkeys are generally considered to be intelligent. Unlike apes, monkeys...

s. In addition, the island is home to several unique kinds of gamelan, including the gamelan jegog

Gamelan jegog

Jegog is a form of gamelan music indigenous to Bali, Indonesia played on instruments made of bamboo. The tradition of jegog is centered in Jembrana, a region in Western Bali. In recent years jegog has started to become popular in other regions of Bali with a few groups being established in...

, gamelan gong gede

Gamelan gong gede

Gamelan gong gede, meaning "gamelan with the large gongs", is a form of the ceremonial gamelan music of Bali, dating from the court society of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and associated historically with public ceremonies and special occasions such as temple festivals.- Style :Usually...

, gamelan gambang

Gamelan gambang

The Gamelan Gambang is a type of gamelan ensemble in Bali, which uses four gambangs, a xylophone-like instrument , as well as two sarons. It is considered an ancient and sacred ensemble, and is used for temple and funeral rites. It uses seven tones.-External links:**...

, gamelan selunding

Gamelan selunding

Gamelan selunding is a sacred ensemble of gamelan music from Bali. The selunding ensemble is from Tenganan, a village in east Bali; the ensemble is rare. Selunding means "great" or "large." Selonding is also a musical instrument made of iron.-References:* Broughton, Simon, et al., eds. World...

 and gamelan semar pegulingan

Gamelan semar pegulingan

Gamelan semar pegulingan is an old variety of the Balinese gamelan. Dating back from around the 17th century, the style is sweeter and more reserved than the more popular and progressive Gamelan Gong Kebyar. Semar pegulingan is derived from the ancient flute ensemble gamelan gambuh which utilizes a...

, the cremation music angklung and the processional music bebonangan

Gamelan bebonangan

Gamelan bebonangan is a type of ensemble processional music that is native to the island of Bali. This form of gamelan uses a 7-tone scale and cymbals but no keys.-External links:* *...

. Modern popular styles include gamelan gong kebyar

Gamelan gong kebyar

Gamelan gong kebyar is a style or genre of Balinese gamelan music. Kebyar means "the process of flowering", and refers to the explosive changes in tempo and dynamics characteristic of the style. It is the most popular form of gamelan in Bali, and its best known musical export...

, dance music

Dance music

Dance music is music composed specifically to facilitate or accompany dancing. It can be either a whole musical piece or part of a larger musical arrangement...

 which developed during the Dutch occupation and 1950s era joged bumbung, another popular dance style. In Balinese music you can also hear metallophones, gongs and xylophones.

Characteristics

Balinese music can be compared to Javanese music

Music of Java

The Music of Java embraces a wide variety of styles, both traditional and contemporary, reflecting the diversity of the island and its lengthy history...

, especially that of the pre-Islam

Islam

Islam . The most common are and .   : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...

ic period. During that time, Javanese tonal systems were imported to Bali.

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....

, a form of Indonesian classical music, is louder, swifter and more aggressive than Javanese music. Balinese gamelan also features more archaic instrumentation than modern Javanese gamelans. Balinese instruments include bronze

Bronze

Bronze is a metal alloy consisting primarily of copper, usually with tin as the main additive. It is hard and brittle, and it was particularly significant in antiquity, so much so that the Bronze Age was named after the metal...

 and bamboo

Bamboo

Bamboo is a group of perennial evergreens in the true grass family Poaceae, subfamily Bambusoideae, tribe Bambuseae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family....

 xylophone

Xylophone

The xylophone is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars struck by mallets...

s. Gong

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 and a number of gong chime

Gong chime

A gong chime is a generic term for a set of small, high-pitched bossed pot gongs. The gongs are ordinarily placed in order of pitch, with the boss upward on cords held in a low wooden frame. The frames can be rectangular or circular , and may have one or two rows of gongs...

s, are used, such as the solo instrument trompong, and a variety of percussion instrument

Percussion instrument

A percussion instrument is any object which produces a sound when hit with an implement or when it is shaken, rubbed, scraped, or otherwise acted upon in a way that sets the object into vibration...

s like cymbal

Cymbal

Cymbals are a common percussion instrument. Cymbals consist of thin, normally round plates of various alloys; see cymbal making for a discussion of their manufacture. The greater majority of cymbals are of indefinite pitch, although small disc-shaped cymbals based on ancient designs sound a...

s, bell

Bell (instrument)

A bell is a simple sound-making device. The bell is a percussion instrument and an idiophone. Its form is usually a hollow, cup-shaped object, which resonates upon being struck...

s, drums and the anklung (a bamboo rattle

Rattle (percussion)

A rattle is a percussion instrument. It consists of a hollow body filled with small uniform solid objects, like sand or nuts. Rhythmical shaking of this instrument produces repetitive, rather dry timbre noises. In some kinds of music, a rattle assumes the role of the metronome, as an alternative to...

). There are two sizes of bamboo flute

Flute

The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...

s, both used in theatrical music, and a rebab

Rebab

The rebab , also rebap, rabab, rebeb, rababah, or al-rababa) is a type of string instrument so named no later than the 8th century and spread via Islamic trading routes over much of North Africa, the Middle East, parts of Europe, and the Far East...

 (two-stringed spike fiddle).

Modern forms of Balinese gamelan include kebyar, an energetic style played by clubs, which generally compose their own music.

External links

• An Introduction to Balinese Music by Michael Tenzer