Gamelan

Almost every where in Yogya,, in Karatons, in the market, in the villages, in the hotel's lobby, you should hear the magical melodious percussion music - the gamelan Javanese orchestra.

In his book 'music of Java' Jaap Kunst says, "Gamelan is comparable to only two things, moonlight and flowing water. ...mysterious like moonlight and always changing like flowing water ...".

Gamelan music is an integral part of all cultural activities in Java such as wayang kulit (leather puppets) performance, court dance, uyon-uyon (symphony orchestra performance), etc. There are two kinds of laras (tuning) in gamelan, namely slendro (comparable to minor key in Western music) and Pelog (major key). A complete set of gamelan consist of two sets of different instruments of Slendro and Pelog