Cueing the Gamelan in Javanese Wayang Performance

Any collective activity requires a method for signaling the participants to start, continue, modify or end this activity.A musical ensemble, especially when accompanying dance and theatrical performances, is an important example of a group activity which needs a system of signals for communication among its members.Such signals are culturally determined and in most cases standardized.Merriam refers to this practice as "cueing," which he says "... refers to the signaling means on the part of a song leader or a drummer; for example, what is going to happen next, when the end of a piece is approaching, and so forth."1McLean has extensively described such cueing in Maori chant.2The present paper is mainly concerned with cueing on the part of the dalang (puppeteer) in the Central Javanese wayang show.In Javanese ensemble music, at least in the gamelan orches tra, there are a number of ways to indicate the beginning and the end of a gending (orchestral composition).Often a call for attention comes from one of the musicians himself, usually the person playing the bonang barung (a gong chime).After a nod from the leader of the gamelan or from the drummer, he plays a standard cue which looks the same in both pelog and slendro when in Solonese notation: 652.2 ( 3 ) 5365 ( 3 ) 2.652 which means:attention to all musicians, we are about to begin.This is played throughout in a free rubato style, which, "trans lated" into western staff notation and if the next gending is in the pelog tonality, is:3 1

Aesthetics · Art · Visual arts · Asian Studies and History · Cultural and Artistic Studies · Folklore, Mythology, and Literature Studies · Psychology

• Reason and feeling

  Druid Posnett•Indonesia and the Malay World•1990

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