One of the first westerners to hear the gamelan was the English explorer Sir Francis Drake (c1540-96). He described the music: “which though it were of a very strange kind, yet the sound was pleasant and delightful.”
Gamelan is a traditional music from the islands of Indonesia. The word “gamelan” means to hammer. The islands of Java and Bali both have long traditions of gamelan. It is always played by a group of players, never by just one person. Sometimes the gamelan sounds very gentle and delicate, dreamy and shimmering; sometimes it sounds harsh, loud and frantic.
Grade 6 students have started exploring principles and technics of gamelan. Each student shared their findings about Indonesia and different types of gamelan. But the interesting part of this project is that the students are going to perform Javanese gamelan in a common form called Lancaran Cobowo (pronounced lancharan cho-bo-woh) on their iPads! Each student is assigned a part or a layer that they need to learn. The challenging part of playing gamelan is that every player has to listen carefully to keep with ensemble, and play musically to enhance the music of the other players.
