Philosophy

Though Gamelan is famous with its many instruments and kinds it has a meaning that related with life. The Gamelan shows the relationship between God and human beings. The human beings must behave good in their life with create a harmony in life. The harmony of physical and spiritual living are expressed in gamelan music. Harmony of speaking and behaving takes the role of life as to control our emotion and make a good tolerance eachother. The application in gamelan is the pulling of rebab string, combination of kenongs voice, saron, kendang, gambang, and gong as the closing.

Those are the general philosophy of gamelan. Actually, each instrument has own philosophy :

• Rebab : Represent the breath of human being.
• Bonang : A sign of a baby birth with its cry
• Kendang: it has some philosophies that depends with the kinds of gendhing (rhythm)
  • LADRANG which is slow and steady
  • KETAWANG which is careful andblessed by the God
  • LANCARAN with fast rhythm
• Gong: from the word,'Hong' that means praying for safety. It's a sybol of human being who live in a safety.