The low-price budget range of gamelan metallophones is designed for young players and for schools and players making their first foray into the wonderful sound world of gamelan. There are three sizes, each tuned an ocatave apart and this is the biggest of the three. A gamelan is a traditional music ensemble of Indonesia, featuring metallophones, drums, chimes, gongs and sometimes other instruments. Gamelan are visually and aurally exciting, they're great fun to play, they give a fantastic sense of achievementto the players and deliver showstopping performances for parents. They're also educationally important for a number of reasons: � Gamelan playing teaches listening, concentration and teamwork skills � It's extremely accessible as the music is made up from simple repeated patterns � It's wonderfully cross-curricular and links brilliantly to dance, story-telling, culture, geography and religion. The metallophone keys are made from recycled steel and the instrument cases are made from plywood and have bamboo resonators for each key. The tuning is authentic Balinese pelog and is consistent with our 7 key budget metallophones but not with our standard and premium models, or with the 4 key instruments (which are tuned to the slendro scale). Gamelan gong kebyar is a modern 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.
Gong kebyar music is based on a five-tone scale called pelog selisir (tones 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6 of the 7-tone pelog scale), and is characterized by brilliant sounds, syncopations, sudden and gradual changes in sound color, dynamics, tempo and articulation, and complex, complementary interlocking melodic and rhythmic patterns called kotekan.
Almost every instrument in a kebyar ensemble is paired with a male and female counterpart. Each instrument in a pair is tuned differently from its counterpart, one higher and one lower. Played at the same time, the higher instrument (known as pengisep or "inhaler") and the lower instrument (known as the pengumbang or "exhaler"), produce a beating effect (ombak), creating an overall shimmering, pulsating quality. The female instrument is tuned lower, while the male instrument is tuned higher. For example, one note on a female gangsa pemad� might be tuned to 220 Hz, while the male gansa pemad� might be tuned slightly higher to 228 Hz. A kebyar ensemble is usually tuned so that the number of beats per second stays consistent throughout the range of the ensemble, although sometimes an ensemble is tuned so that the beats are slightly faster for higher frequencies.
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