Gamelan inspired ensemble

Hey everyone.

I started this yesterday. I'm composing a gamelan type piece.

I just took some ideas I got from a listening guide for beginners pertaining to gamelan music.

The theme was actually composed by my boyfriend when he was messing with finale... he doesn't know what he is doing. I promised to make a piece for him though using that theme.

What do you guys think so far?

The second half is the planned middle of the piece. Eventually the notes subdivide to the point of simulating the original tempo where it will change back to the original time signature and speed to finish the piece in a calm whisper.

Sound interesting enough?

Hey, i'm fairly new to this forum. This is a really cool piece! I played in a Javanese Gamelan ensemble last semester, so will comment on your piece from my limited experience with gamelan music, if that's okay. Feel free to ignore, as these are mainly about how this piece relates to traditional gamelan music, which may or may not be terribly helpful for you, and this sounds spectacular as it is.

What i miss when comparing your piece to the gamelan music are the differently-lengthed cycles. Yes, gamelan music is repetitive, and you use this aspect of the music beautifully in your piece. But gamelan music is repetitive on many cycles of different lengths. Depending on the form of the piece, you might have people playing every 1/4 of a beat, 1/2 of a beat, every beat, every other beat, every fourth beat, every sixteenth beat, and the huge gong being struck every 64 beats (and this was a fairly simple piece to be played by us beginners). Not that you have to replicate such a detailed structure in your piece, of course, but it might be nice if we had a gong note every 16 bars, or something along those lines.

Ummm... to mediate that, a confession: i was kinda trained to listen for gong notes in gamelan music so that i could find my place when i was lost...

Also, something to think about: adding more melodic, sustained material on top of this would not be out of place in the context of Gamelan music, if you feel a need to do that as the piece develops. In our ensemble, we had suling (a flute), rebab (a 2-stringed fiddle) and voices.

Hope this didn't sound overly purist. Your piece is really amazing! I hope that, if you're interested, that someday you have a chance to play in a gamelan ensemble. It was an amazing experience for me. Cheers!

P.S. Susan McClary is amazing!

Originally Posted by queer_icecream

Hey, i'm fairly new to this forum. This is a really cool piece! I played in a Javanese Gamelan ensemble last semester, so will comment on your piece from my limited experience with gamelan music, if that's okay. Feel free to ignore, as these are mainly about how this piece relates to traditional gamelan music, which may or may not be terribly helpful for you, and this sounds spectacular as it is.

What i miss when comparing your piece to the gamelan music are the differently-lengthed cycles. Yes, gamelan music is repetitive, and you use this aspect of the music beautifully in your piece. But gamelan music is repetitive on many cycles of different lengths. Depending on the form of the piece, you might have people playing every 1/4 of a beat, 1/2 of a beat, every beat, every other beat, every fourth beat, every sixteenth beat, and the huge gong being struck every 64 beats (and this was a fairly simple piece to be played by us beginners). Not that you have to replicate such a detailed structure in your piece, of course, but it might be nice if we had a gong note every 16 bars, or something along those lines.

Ummm... to mediate that, a confession: i was kinda trained to listen for gong notes in gamelan music so that i could find my place when i was lost...

Also, something to think about: adding more melodic, sustained material on top of this would not be out of place in the context of Gamelan music, if you feel a need to do that as the piece develops. In our ensemble, we had suling (a flute), rebab (a 2-stringed fiddle) and voices.

Hope this didn't sound overly purist. Your piece is really amazing! I hope that, if you're interested, that someday you have a chance to play in a gamelan ensemble. It was an amazing experience for me. Cheers!

P.S. Susan McClary is amazing!

Thank you so much for taking time to comment on my piece QueerIC.

I don't know much about Gamelan at all to tell the truth. I've listened to a few pieces, the first two (and only) podcast of gongcast, and read some basic theory of kotekan, timbre and texture goals in gamelan ensemble and all that jazz.

I wouldn't even be able to name the instruments to tell you the truth.

Your advice is well welcome and needed. This is the skelton for a big piece I plan. I really want to participate in an ensemble and plan on it after next year.

I'll let you know my progress.

P.S. McClary changed my life!

I'll comment even though I don't really know a lot about gamelan music lol. Qc or Flint will probably come in later and give you a bunch of information.
The rhythm you used is interesting and carries the piece for a long way on its own, which is good. Even with it being gamelan-influenced, though, I felt like you put too much emphasis on the rhythmic aspect of the piece and didn't give enough in the way of melody. Gamelan music uses voice, strings, and a variety of folk instruments that are considered more melodic in nature, if that makes any sense lol. You might also consider playing with some different kinds of scales, as there are many different scales in that gamelan ensembles use.
There are a couple of scales that are really common, I don't remember the names right this second...the piece is already exciting and has an "exotic" sound that evokes a gamelan well. For "not knowing much about gamelan," you wrote a pretty good piece!!

I've heard a little about Gamelan music before, enough to get the impression that it is a very strict type of music and must be written very specifically. You could be completely undermining the whole concept of the Gamelan for all I know, but all *I* care about is what I hear... so I'm gonna go listen now. By the way, I hope you know that few marimbas actually go down to that low E. The range ends at A for most concert marimbas, I don't know if you had one of those in mind, or a more ethnic marimba - those I don't know anything about. In fact, in my opinion the marimba is really not worth scoring that low for, the sound with just get covered up later in the thicker textures and the tone is very dry and hard to distinguish pitch-wise because of the vast amount of overtones. You might want to transpose the lower marimba part up an octave. Are two players intended for the marimba, or just one? Just curious.

The first section lasted just long enough in my opinion. It built up nicely and I'm liking this new section cropping up now. And by the way, what's the matter with having a more rhythmic work than a melodic work? Go for whatever floats your boat.

So yessums, I like this so far... would like to see where you go with it. Adding a whooshing gong every once in a while would not only help fit into the concept of the Gamelan, but I think it would be a lovely spark to the ear, adding a bit of interest. So long as it isn't too frequent. Love the use of 5/8, by the way. Is the lack of grouping/beaming intentional?

Very cool...

I like the minimalist approach, and how the layering of rhythms builds. The second half is quite pretty, and again, develops nicely.

I think, to better develop it as a whole, it would be good to deconstruct it even a bit more. Perhaps right at the beginning, or in the middle, bring the energy WAY down. Paring each rhythm down to it base elements, or even just by further separating and distinguishing each part will help develop it rhythmically, and enhance the building of energy.

Some very cool material you have here, I hope you can explore it even a bit further...

As I said in the shoutbox, this reminds me of adams, which I listen to at the gym, so I associate this song with lifting weights. Not sure if that was the effect you were going for, but hey, who doesn't like lifting weights?

Anyways, yes, I like the layered rhythmic building effect as well. I want to hear the finished product so I can hear how the viola part develops. Bring it on, yo.