Back on my first day of the school holidays, I headed across London to East Finchley were I was due to perform with my Gamelan group for the Anglo-Indonesian society's picnic at the Indonesian Ambassador's residence.
In case you are wondering what a Gamelan is, the word Gamelan is the Indonesian word for 'orchestra' and is the collective term for a set of instruments which all have individual names. In the gamelan, nearly all the instruments are percussion instruments- ones you hit or shake- mostly the former. There are metallophones - bronze bars of different sizes/pitches in various sizes, bronze gongs, bronze mini-gongs of different sizes which are suspended on ropes to make a row from low to high pitch, double headed drums- hit either with hard beaters of the hands, a time-keeping instrument- another nobbled gong suspended on ropes on a wooden base.
There may also be bamboo flutes and a two stringed string instrument.
If you would like to TRY these instruments, head over to this link here: https://pad.philharmoniedeparis.fr/gamelan/index.html?_ga=2.238034377.871447270.1592844796-1250210365.1592844796
where you can try various gamelans from different parts of Indonesia. Once you load each one, wait and then click or hover your mouse above the metal parts of the instrument or the drum skins. Honestly, do give it a go- they are really fun and it's much easier to understand what I'm talking about once you've had a go!
We were performing on the Balinese Gamelan Angklung. This is sadly not featured in that interactive gamelan. In a nutshell, this type of gamelan is portable and tiny. It only uses 4 pitches and is very chirpy and cheerful sounding, even though it is used for cremation ceremonies in Bali. It is our summer gamelan that we play for outdoor gigs in the Summer!
