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Traditional Indonesian Music

I always remember when in was child, the two thing that make me sleepy is my mom stories and when i listening music on the radio. The music wasn’t like now. At that time, there is no other music except traditional music. It’s because at that time we only have one radio channel. It’s national channel. And we only have to hear traditional Indonesian music like gamelan and kroncong. But i love it very much.

Gamelan is traditional Indonesian music on families of tuned gongs, xylophones, and metallophones. Gamelans may use cymbals, drums, flutes, and fiddles. Originally court music with Hindustani influences. Gamelans moved to rural communities after the Dutch made Indonesia a colony in the 1800s.

Gamelan was played as an accompaniment to ceremonial occasions, dancing, and Puppet Theater. In Central Java, general categories of tuning exist, sléndro and pélog. Javanese uses a seven-tone pélog scale, and Balinese prefers a five-tone sléndro scale. Actually the inspiration of Gamelan music is Western composers such as Claude Debussy.

Now gamelan makes some improvisation. Gamelan now is more complete. Instruments were added to the basic drum-and-gong ensemble, with several varieties of metallophones. Gamelans require more than 30 musicians to create the best music composition and beautiful performances.