The Javanese gamelan is an orchestra of mostly tuned percussion. Each set of instruments comprising the orchestra is largely made in one workshop where the final stage is the tuning of all the instruments to the same scale. There is no attempt to make this tuning consistent with any other gamelan, each one is unique. The musicians may come and go, but the gamelan itself is the ensemble of instruments.
There are two scales in use, the slendro, a five-note scale, and the pelog, a seven-note scale. Here is one version of the pelog scale from Wikipedia. They don't say from which gamelan they derived this scale.
If you follow the Wikipedia link you can hear this scale. Here is a link direct to the sound file.
I have never previously been much attracted to anything outside the usual equal-tempered system though through an ex-girlfriend who was a harpsichordist I became acquainted with the historical tunings they use. I also recorded a piece for three guitars using quarter-tone tunings for a composer friend of mine. The ensemble he originally wrote it for had a lot of trouble with the rhythm! Which is odd because it is all quarter notes and eighth notes. But the patterns are very hard to predict. Anyway, I have an affinity for this sort of thing, so I triple-tracked it fairly easily. There is a lot of Japanese influence in this piece, particularly from the biwa. This is Streams I by Anthony Genge:
Anyway, I am now quite interested in tuning systems other than equal-tempered. I just checked and yahoo, Finale offers the option of using quarter-tones.
in that case Kyle Gann's The Arithmetic of Listening (out in physical and ebook format late last year) is going to be a must-read for you. :)
ReplyDeleteAlois Haba has a work for quarter-tones in guitar that I figure you probably already know about.
John Schneider's The Contemporary Guitar gets into different tunings for the instrument. I'm still fairly committed to equal temperament because that's in my budgetary constraints.
If you want to dig into quarter-tone stuff Ivan Wyschnegradsky is a must! Also get into Alois Haba and Ben Johnston string quartets for other not-equal temperament approaches to quartet music.
Thanks Wenatchee. I knew about most of those and have listened to a couple, but not lately. However, I think I am going to studiously avoid listening to any of them for now. My inspiration is really coming from non-Western music and frankly, I am more interested in what I am going to do than with what those folks have done. You know?
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