Soul Shaper Of Gamelan

Javanese Gamelan is the traditional ensemble music in Indonesia,and as well,the carrier of spiritual values of the Javanese in ritual ceremonies.The music of Gamelan,in the Javanese minds,is not only a form of entertainment,but also a medium of communication between Javanese people and the universe,their ancestors and the gods.It is an elegant and sacred artistic form.The Javanese and Gamelan are bound to together inextricably with time goes by.Javanese people create and develop the content and forms of Gamelan music,and Gamelan music,in turn,enriches the spiritual world of Javanese people.As one of the classical music in Java,Gamelan has its own complete system of scale,tonality,rhythm and structure with mature musical terms and notation rules.Collective improvisation is one of the most important features in Gamelan music,among which drum is the key.It is the uniter of the whole Gamelan performance and even the soul shaper of the music of Gamelan.The whole Gamelan is performed with the sound of drum as a signal throughout the performance,no matter in its beginning,transformation,ending or even the shaping of music style.In this paper,with study on the role and status of drum in Gamelan,the author will do an in-depth investigation and study on noumenon features of Gamelan and how drum plays its role in Gamelan performance so as to explore the inner connections between Gamelan and Javanese culture.Fieldwork is a basic approach to get the data and information for ethnomusicology.In order to truly and comprehensively understand the music of Gamelan and the Javanese culture,the author went to Indonesia to conduct the field work starting from September 2015 to August 2016,and meanwhile,studied how to play Gamelan and Indonesian language as well in Institute Seni Indonesia Surakarta(ISI Surakarta)as a visiting scholar.All those are to help the author build the ability of bi-musicality to better understand Gamelan as an insider.