Lilah’s Blog.

It’s usually fairly easy to tell with western pop music, but with the music we’ve been listening to, I always wonder what the songs mean to the performers and often struggle to understand.

To me, the yodeling just sounds like fun, kind of a joyous celebration. The singers play around so much with pitch and octave and harmony, layering with each other, etc., it really seems that they’re just singing for the sake of singing, and it’s a beautiful thing. The music seems to be a pure positive outlet for them. I thought that especially about “Makala” and “Ejengi Ceremony,” probably because of the way that the singers played around together on those tracks.

The first thing I noticed that distinguished the Balinese gamelan beleganjur from the Javanese styles that we had previously listened to, was that the beleganjur had a cacophanous clanging. This was created by cymbals called ceng-ceng. In an ensemble, there are five to ten pairs of ceng-ceng that can either be played in unison or interlocking to create a rhythmic pattern known as kotekan. Kotekan, consisting of an on-beat and an off-beat, mimics intercourse, with the on-beat representing the male, and the off-beat the female. Before I understood the way the pattern worked and the significant symbolism of the pattern, I found the ceng-ceng to be quite abrasive, but it’s beauty was revealed.

Reyong, the small kettle gongs, create a kind of melodic kotekan, which cycles through the eight beat form, the beginning of which (on the eight beat) is marked by the largest gong — the “female.”

Once you’re tuned into them, the rhythmic intricacies are astounding. And the almost frantic energy that the components come together to create is truly exciting. Beleganjur songs are valued for the creativity of their composition, their innovations, and their ability to create such an energy. This is another area in which this style of gamelan seems to differ from the others. I may be wrong, but my impression was that in the other styles, conformity was key. Though I loved the other styles and their haunting beauty, I found myself engaging with this style much more.

One last thing that really struck me was that beleganjur gamelan is usually used in funerary processions. The fact that a style that rhythmically mimics copulation – linked quite obviously to the creation of life – should be used in a ceremony of the dead seems to be such a beautifully apt, though somewhat odd, way of fulfilling some cycle.