source file: mills2.txt Date: Wed, 17 Jul 1996 09:50:51 -0700 Subject: Simulating Gamelan From: John Chalmers The following appeared on the Gamelan list, but I think much is relevant to recent discusions on psychoacoustics, instrumental simulations, and "translating" music such as Harry Partch's for different orchestral forces. Date: Mon, 15 Jul 1996 12:12:56 -0800 From: Kenneth Newby Subject: Electroacoustic Composition from Gamelan Al Nurbandana wrote: >I still do not know >what to do to find the appropriate 'kendang' sound especially the >'kendang batangan'. I just cannot imagine how 'ciblon' can be played >in keyboards. Well, it's tough using samples of "other" instruments, although it sounds like you're exploring the processing part of your instruments. With respect to the ciblon, one thinks of the cello parts sometimes heard in Kroncong, which mimic (quite effectively) pitch and rhythms similar to ciblonan. With appropriate control of dynamic envelope you should be able to achieve a similar quality with a sampled cello. >A friend of mine >gave me an idea to use my computer - but I do not have the program. Do >you know what program I can use and where to find it ? You might consider using Max. (By Opcode for the Macintosh) It's a little more demanding than a conventional sequencer, but if you're interested in modelling musical behaviour like Karawitan (a very interesting challenge) Max is useful in that you can program variations into the individual parts and come up with something closer to the "dynamic steady state" that's essential to this music. An interactive system like this provides compositional challenges and opportunities that point to some of the deeper levels of intercultural creativity discussed on the list in the last few days. With respect to tuning (embat); Al's posting to the gamelan list in Bahasa Indonesia several months back elaborated on some of the possibilities inherent in the tuning of a gamelan: (also check out Polansky on "Paratactical Tunings" and Wendy Carlos on "Tuning", both in past Computer Music Journals for more fruitful musings.) 1. 'mbat Pleng: in which the tone an octave above agrees with the pitch below. Usually used for dance with Mataraman-style pieces. 2. 'mbat Larasati: in which the tone an "octave" above is raised slightly higher than a "true" octave (more than 1200 cents). Actually this can be quite subjective and dependent on the nature of the timbres being tuned, as the problem of tuning the somewhat inharmonic low strings of the piano has shown. 3. 'mbat Sundari: where the tone an "octave" above is lowered slightly lower than a "true" octave (less than 1200 cents). Al mentions that the effect of this tuning is similar to that of 'mbat Larasati. I haven't heard much mention of this type of "compressed" tuning in Karawitan, the stetched or spiral tuning seems to be more common. (Our gamelans in Vancouver use 'mbat Larasati) Does anyone know 'mbat Sundari is commonly used? ________________________________________________________ Kenneth Newby, Vibrant Arts! newby@sfu.ca 921 East 10th Avenue Vancouver, B.C. Canada V5T 2B3 604 872-2864 ________________________________________________________ Received: from eartha.mills.edu [144.91.3.20] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Wed, 17 Jul 1996 18:51 +0100 Received: from by eartha.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) for id JAA05803; Wed, 17 Jul 1996 09:51:55 -0700 Date: Wed, 17 Jul 1996 09:51:55 -0700 Message-Id: Errors-To: madole@ella.mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu