The textures of Central Javanese gamelan music

Transcription

1 NORIKO ISHIDA The textures of Central Javanese gamelan music Pre-notation and its discontents The idea of inner melody in Central Javanese gamelan music (karawitan), first presented by Sumarsam in 1975, was a bold departure from the pioneering notions about melodic texture that Jaap Kunst articulated in his monumental book Music in Java. Kunst s classification (1949:247) of the melodic instruments of the gamelan ensemble into three groups cantus firmus instruments; instruments playing a more or less independent counter-melody; and paraphrasing instruments always had its limitations. As is clear from the terms he chose, Kunst likened the gamelan composition known as gendhing to compositions of the European medieval period, which generally consisted of a nuclear theme (cantus firmus) and melodies around it, and he assigned supreme importance to that nuclear theme, which was played by the saron instruments. 1 Sumarsam, in contrast, argued that the saron melody alone is not sufficient to show the entire melodic line of a gendhing, and that there seems to be no single part in the ensemble that is solely responsible for guiding its melodic motion. There is an implicit melody in the minds of musicians, Sumarsam (1984:257-89) contended, that guides them in performance, and every melodic instrument extrapolates its own melody with reference to this inner melody. It is not the explicit saron melody, he asserted, but rather this inner melody that constitutes the basis of performance and allows the melodic parts of the gamelan orchestra to interact with one another as an organic entity. This concept of inner melody was quickly adopted by researchers and popularized via the sourcebook on karawitan edited by Becker and Feinstein (1984), especially inasmuch as it bridged the melodic lines of balungan and garap, which scholars recognize as the two categories of melodic expression in the gamelan ensemble, allowing them to flow together at some times and diverge from each other at other times. 2 Upon closer examination, however, 1 A saron instrument is a metallophone of six or seven keys played with one mallet. 2 Balungan may be provisionally defined as the saron melody, and for the moment, garap may be said to be the elaboration of the saron melody by the soft-playing instruments. NORIKO ISHIDA is lecturer at the Department of Japanese Literature, Faculty of Cultural Sciences, Gadjah Mada University, Yogyakarta. Her main field of academic interest is Javanese gamelan music. She graduated at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music. Noriko Ishida may be contacted at noriko@indo.net.id. Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde (BKI) (2008): Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde

2 476 Noriko Ishida inner melody has not proved a tool that can fully elucidate the melodic behaviour of gendhing. Marc Perlman (1993:303-12) provided several examples of problems with the register of balungan melodies that cannot be settled by means of the concept of inner melody. Perlman s thorough study of unplayed melodies in Central Javanese gamelan music revealed that the concept of inner melody still leaves problems unsolved: it has even given rise to new problems. As expressed by some researchers, the idea of inner melody is tantalizing (Tenzer 1997:174; Sumrongthong and Sorell 2000:78), but not satisfactory. Does inner melody really exist? Perhaps this fundamental question should have come first. As evidence of the existence of inner melody, Sumarsam (1984:262-3) offered only the humming of a certain melody by musicians try ing to remember parts of gendhing or while playing one particular part. Does such humming testify to the existence of an inner melody? In fact, the hummed melody is more often than not a collage of melodies played by various instruments of the ensemble that are spontaneously, informally, and arbitrarily compiled by the musician at that moment. 3 We can safely regard it as similar to the vocalized form of what Rahayu Supanggah (1990:120) calls performance in the heart. But how could such elusive melodies be transmitted from generation to generation without being transcribed or otherwise articulated? Gendhing have been handed down over hundreds of years without being notated the notation we have now dates back only a century, and inner melody, according to Sumarsam, has never been written down, has never been played on any instrument, and has never been explicitly uttered. Can anything so vague and fleeting be shared among musicians and transmitted between generations? Even if we can say that inner melody is the underlying feeling of gendhing that musicians absorb, inspired by the melody of the whole ensemble (Sumarsam 1984:303), this raises a crucial question: Which comes first, gendhing or inner melody? Clearly, it is the gendhing that comes first. What is called inner melody may be not some a priori phenomenon for guiding uninitiated musicians, but rather the essence of gendhing extracted and edited by experienced musicians after performing it many times. Therefore, our inquiry must begin with melodies that were actually played. In order to examine these explicit melodies, one must take into consideration the changes that have occurred over the course of time, because there are indications that the present confusion about the elusiveness of karawitan melodies has been caused by the use of notation, which came into vogue in the early twentieth century. Examining gamelan melodies and melodic texture at a time when this music was not yet notated, and charting the changes caused by notation, may help solve the long unsettled problem of gamelan melodies. Reconstructing the melodic texture of gendhing of the pre-notation era, then discussing the advent and the impact of notation on performance practice, and finally examining 3 See Perlman (1993:231-40; 2004:106-7) for an example of such humming.

3 The textures of Central Javanese gamelan music 477 the consequent changes that occurred in melodic texture will make clear how the monogenetic texture of gendhing in the pre-notation era developed into the complicated one of today, shifting the basis of performance from the rebab (a two-stringed bowed lute) to the saron. It will also show how melodies were enriched in response to the use of notation. (This article deals only with the soft-playing compositions of the Solonese tradition, except where noted.) Composed melody, tracing, and texture How did gamelan composers in centuries past create gendhing, which are comprised of many melodic parts, instrumental and vocal, without notation? How did they guide their fellow musicians to learn a new piece at its first rehearsal? Almost all of the 157 gendhing listed in the Serat Centhini, which was put into final form in 1814, still survive today as popular pieces in the classical repertoire, 4 which means that they were composed, played, and handed down without notation for years before notation became widely used in the early twentieth century. Did they compose all the parts one by one, as composers in the Western tradition do, and then teach musicians the parts individually? The origins of a piece entitled Gadhungmlathi offer a good indication as to how gendhing were composed and transmitted. The Wédhapradangga 5 tells us that Gadhungmlathi was introduced by a female gendèr player named Jlamprang who had learned the piece from Kencanasari, 6 the spirit wife of kings of the Mataram dynasty living in and ruling the legendary realm of spirits in the Southern Ocean (Pradjapangrawit 1990:99-105). Jlamprang, who was an accomplished gendèr player in the court of Paku Buwana IV in Surakarta ( ), contracted cholera and died. While her family members were grieving, Jlamprang herself felt as if she was entering a wonderland, the realm of Queen Kencanasari, in the Southern Ocean, where she was asked to become a court musician. She refused, saying that she still wanted to serve at the court of Paku Buwana IV. Knowing that Jlamprang could not be forced, Kencanasari abandoned the idea, but she asked Jlamprang in return to take back a gift for Paku Buwana IV, a musical work called Gadhungmlathi, a gendhing gendèr, which is a gendhing whose introduction (buka) is played by the gendèr. A gorgeous gendèr was carried in and 4 Serat Centhini 1986:90-1. See Lindsay (1991:327:54) for some problems of identification of these pieces. 5 This history of Solonese gamelan from Java s mythological past to the period of Paku Buwana XI ( ) was written by R.Ng. Pradjapangrawit ( ) on the basis of what he had read and heard. He is better known by his last name of K.R.T. Warsodiningrat, a Surakarta-based master musician at the Kasunanan Palace and lecturer at Konservatori Karawitan Indonesia and Akademi Seni Karawitan Indonesia. 6 The gendèr is a metallophone of 12 or more keys played with two mallets.

4 478 Noriko Ishida Kencanasari began playing. After three repetitions, Jlamprang was order ed to play the gendèr herself. Because she was an extremely talented and welltrained gendèr player, she surprised Kencanasari with her performance by precisely imitating Kencanasari s example. Only when Jlamprang had demonstrated her mastery of the instrument and the composition was she allowed to return to life, just as her body was about to be bathed before burial. Whether this narrative of a near-death experience is a real story or fiction is irrelevant. Rather, its significance lies in how Gadhungmlathi was taught and how Jlamprang learned it. The tale insists that Gadhungmlathi is a gendhing gendèr, and that Kencanasari played only the gendèr. When Jlamprang showed that she could play the gendèr part precisely as Kencanasari played it, the lesson ended, meaning that the Gadhungmlathi composition had been transmitted to Jlamprang or, more precisely, that Jlamprang had completed the composition. Although this story concerns only the gender part, Jlamprang returned to play Gadhungmlathi for Paku Buwono IV not as a performance by solo gendèr, but with a full gamelan ensemble, which is how the work is still known (Pradjapangrawit 1990:103-4). Clearly according to this legend, orchestration was not included in the original process of composition: the implication is that other instruments were only added when the piece was performed by the full gamelan. This suggests that the task of the composer was to make a single melodic line for a single melodic part, and that the creation of melodies for the other parts was up to the fellow musicians. The composer did not worry about the possibility of incompatible melodies being put forward by them, because the principle of orchestration in karawitan was the simultaneous expression of the single melody by the other melodic instruments in their respective manners determined by their respective musical particularities. I refer to this method as tracing, and refer to the melody pre-composed in order to be traced as composed melody. Performing a gendhing seems to have meant that one person played the composed melody on one instrument and the other musicians traced it on other instruments. Such speculation may lack concrete historical evidence, but it is all but undeniable that the composed melody must have been of supreme importance as a source melody that directed all of the other melodies of the ensemble. The term gendhing gendèr in the story of Gadhungmlathi may shed some light at this point. There are several ways of classifying gendhing, one of which takes its cue from the instrument playing the introduction (buka). A piece whose introduction is played by the rebab is called a gendhing rebab. A piece whose introduction is played by the gendèr is called a gendhing gendèr. There are gendhing gambang (the gambang is a wooden xylophone) and gendhing bonang (the bonang is a small kettle gongs arranged in two rows) as well. Although our current understanding of the phrase gendhing X is only that it is a gendhing whose introduction is played by the instrument X, its original

5 The textures of Central Javanese gamelan music 479 meaning may have been a little different. There are indications that a gendhing X is a piece composed on the instrument X. What is referred to as gendhing in this phrase is the composed melody. Composers must have composed that melody from the beginning (buka) to the end (the last gong note). Therefore, the fact that the introduction to gendhing X is played by instrument X is only a natural outcome of this process of composition. 7 If that interpretation is correct, which instrument would be the composer s choice as the carrier of the composed melody? That instrument has to be heard clearly so that other musicians can trace it easily. The instrument that distinguishes itself from the other percussion instruments with its sustained voice-like tone is the rebab, which is why gendhing rebab are the most numerous about 90% among the hundreds of pieces in the current repertoire of karawitan (Mloyowidodo 1977a, 1977b). The human voice has characteristics very similar to those of the rebab, and although there is no special term such as gendhing voice, there are many pieces based on vocal parts, among them bedhayan (especially those of the type called gendhing kemanak), 8 jineman, 9 dolanan, 10 the gen dhing sekar, 11 pieces based on poems of Mangkunegara IV, and the gendhing sri-sri. 12 Their introductions, called buka celuk or bawa, are all vocal. Although the introductions to Mangkunegara IV s pieces and gendhing sri-sri are now generally played by the rebab, they were originally introduced by bawa. 13 Some of them (bedhayan, jineman, and dolanan) are not performed by the full gamelan. The rebab is left out, because the established predominance of the instrument as the carrier of the composed melody might disturb the vocalist and confuse the other musicians as to which melody to follow: the rebab or the vocal melody. The Serat Sastramiruda 14 even claims that formerly the rebab did not even participate in the gendhing gendèr. 15 The human voice (female solo sindhèn and male chorus gérong) does find a place in gendhing rebab, but the style of singing or melodic expression in gen- 7 There are also indications that gendhing bonang was not composed on the bonang, but on the saron. The bonang s playing technique, called mipil (see Sumarsam 1984:282-9 for the technique of mipil), can be extrapolated only on the basis of the saron melody. In the performance of gamelan Sekatèn, when many gendhing bonang are played it is not the bonang player, but the demung (one of the saron instruments) player who determines what gendhing to play and who leads the performance (Sumarsam 1981). These facts indicate that gendhing bonang were actually composed on the saron. 8 Pieces accompanying the bedhaya dance. 9 Works featuring the solo female vocal part. 10 Children s songs arranged for gamelan. 11 Compositions featuring melodies of macapat, or sung poetry. 12 Pieces composed at the court of Paku Buwana X ( ) to commemorate various events held in the palace, the titles of which mostly begin with the word sri. 13 See Mangkunegara IV 1934:142-78; Nut sekar macapat tuwin sekar tengahan 1, A treatise on Javanese performing arts written by Kangjeng Pangeran Arya Kusumadilaga in Kusumadilaga was head of the court musicians at the Kasunanan Palace of Surakarta. 15 Kusumadilaga 1981:187. Gendhing gender iku pancen ora nganggo rebab.

6 480 Noriko Ishida dhing rebab is different from that of vocal gendhing. In vocal gendhing, the vocal melody covers the whole piece, whereas in gendhing rebab the vocal expression is only fragmentary (sindhèn), or it appears only in predetermined sections (gérong). For vocal gendhing played with full gamelan, there are particular reasons to play them in that way. In the case of gendhing sekar, it is because their vocal melodies are not newly composed melodies but well-known macapat melodies, so the status of the vocal part as the composed melody is not threatened by the presence of the rebab. In the case of Mangkunegara IV s pieces and gendhing sri-sri, composed vocal melodies are in the style of the gérong melody in gendhing rebab. These vocal gendhing seem to be comprised of only the gérong section of gendhing rebab, with the short linking refrain called umpak between stanzas, so performance with full gamelan in the style of gendhing rebab is quite reasonable. Why are gendhing gendèr and gendhing gambang all in sléndro, while there are no such gendhing in pélog? Pélog is a scale (laras) of seven tones (panunggul, gulu, dada, pélog, lima, nem, barang) and there are three modes (pathet) of five tones (pathet lima, pathet nem, pathet barang). 16 In the pélog set of gamelan instruments, there are two gendèr and two gambang. One gendèr or gambang is to play gendhing in pathet lima and pathet nem, possessing five tones (panunggul, gulu, dada, lima, nem). The other gendèr or gambang is to play gendhing in pathet barang, equipped with a different set of five tones (gulu, dada, lima, nem, barang). Although the prominent pitches in either of the three pathet of pélog are five, sometimes pélog melodies use the two excluded pitches in passing. As the pélog gendèr and pelog gambang do not have these pitches, they cannot express these melodic nuances themselves, which is why they never carry the composed melody. The method used to play Indonesian pop songs or other diatonic tunes on gamelan, which we hear now and then at concerts taking place in an informal atmosphere in the suburbs or rural areas, is also relevant to our inquiry. Those songs, using a diatonic scale, are accompanied by the gamelan, which is accomplished by having the melody instrument players trace the diatonic song melody, seeking out the closest notes on the gamelan. Generally, the musicians already know the popular song so well that, even without rehearsal, they can anticipate the tones to be played. The gamelan musicians, many of whom are semi-professionals who have not received formal education in how to play the gamelan, trace the song melody confidently and execute the orchestration without instruction, unquestionable testimony to the tradition of tracing as a technique of orchestration deeply rooted in the Javanese musician. The fact that rural female gendèr players tend to play melodies congruent with the saron melody (Perlman 1998) may be regarded as a remnant of the practice of tracing in peripheral areas, which usually adopt cultural changes more slowly, a phenomenon often observed in the distribution of linguistic 16 See Martopangrawit (1975:1-31) for three pathet in pélog.

7 The textures of Central Javanese gamelan music 481 dialects. 17 After notation became popular among Solo musicians, the orchestration technique of tracing was replaced by another method, but it survives in the last two peripheral areas: in rural areas which are geographically on the periphery, and among female musicians who are socially on the periphery. In the notation era, the rebab ceased to be the carrier of the composed melody, and the saron instruments emerged instead as the reliable base of tracing, which is why these musicians, who belong to the notation era, trace not the rebab melody but the saron melody. In order to be traced by other instruments, the composed melody must be clear, but in current performing practice, the rebab melody is far from clear. It is sometimes so full of embellishments and ornaments that it is difficult to follow. 18 Composed melodies must have been much simpler, as is suggested by transcriptions of rebab melodies of the early nineteenth century recorded in The history of Java by Thomas Stamford Raffles (1982:470-1). As Benjamin Brinner (1993) has shown, the rebab melodies are very simple, almost as simple as the balungan today. Is this the result of the transcriptions having been made by a gentleman at Semarang (Raffles 1982:471), presumably a Westerner not trained as a musician of karawitan or an ethnomusicologist and therefore deaf to subtle nuances in the performance? Or was the performance really so simple that it could be written down by an amateur without a tape recorder? The technique of tracing is not in fact foreign to researchers of karawitan. Tracing a core melody is recognized as the technique of performing suluk. 19 The rebab, gendèr, gambang, and suling (bamboo flute) literally trace the vocal melody sung by the dalang (puppeteer). The method of performing gendhing may have been basically the same as that of suluk. The difference is that suluk is performed with a time lag and in free rhythm, while in gendhing every part moves on the beat, except for the sindhèn (female solo voice) and the suling. Melodies are monogenetically derived from the single source of the composed melody and made to flow together in the same direction, even coinciding with each other. The resultant texture can be called heterophony unison in its broadest sense. This heterophonic texture is neither monotonous nor homogeneous, because each instrument has a different tone quality (soft, sharp, sustainable, dry, and so on) and traces the composed melody in its own register and with its own distinctive note density. Some instruments, such as the gambang, traced the line of the composed melody with quick steps and created dense melodic lines with many short notes; other instruments, not suited for rapid movement, summed up the composed melody and expressed it in sustained tones. 17 For example, see Yanagida For examples of transcription of rebab performance today, see Brinner 1993: Songs sung by the dalang and accompanied by the rebab, the gendèr, the gambang, and the suling.

8 482 Noriko Ishida Some followed the composed melody beat for beat, while others marked only certain points of the melody in a fragmentary manner. Some moved up and down with the composed melody because of their multi-octave range, those with a limited range ignoring the register and playing the same notes as the composed melody, irrespective of register. The expression of each instrument was thus determined by its own particular characteristics. In other words, each component created its own specific melody, which could not be replaced or duplicated by others. In this sense, there was no discrimination among the tracing melodies, and the instruments expressing them all had the same status in the ensemble as tracers. The difference between them lay in their distance from the composed melody. Melodies created by the multi-octave instruments can be said to be closer to the composed melody, while those expressed by single-octave instruments are more remote. This structure can be described as the gradual, even diminution of the radiance of the lamp with increasing distance from the bulb. Benedict Anderson (1972:22) even uses this metaphor to describe the Javanese conception of the structure of the state. Perhaps we need not be surprised by this resemblance of the structure of the melodic texture of karawitan with the structure of the state: a gamelan ensemble too is a society, though not as large as a state. Applying Anderson s metaphor to karawitan again, we can say that gamelan performance in the pre-notation era was defined by the composed melody, not by its remote tracers. 20 The fact that Raffles s transcriber used melodies played on the rebab as an illustration of the nature of karawitan suggests that the performance was defined by the rebab melody, though it is not certain whether he chose the rebab part himself or did so on the advice of Javanese musicians. Indeed, there are indications that performance in the pre-notation era often made no use of saron instruments. No mention is made of saron instruments in some of the gamelan sessions portrayed in the Serat Centhini, even though other instruments are individually mentioned. 21 In this voluminous literature we cannot even find the word slenthem, the most representative saron instrument today. According to the Serat Centhini, when people felt like playing the gamelan, they set up a small ensemble. The instruments always included the rebab, the gendèr, the gambang, and the suling, as well as a female singer. These are the carrier of the composed melody and its close tracers. When there was no female singer, they apologized and immediately invited one (Serat Centhini 1989:237; 1990:72). When they had no suling, they ordered a piece of bamboo and made a suling on the spot (Serat Centhini 1989:266). An absence of saron instruments, however, required no such compensation. J.P.N. Land, who listened to the Mangkunegaran Palace gamelan ensemble at the Arnhem Industrial Exhibition in 1879, described this texture: The rabab plays the tune 20 [...] the traditional state is defined by its centre, not by its perimeters (Anderson 1972:29). 21 For example, see Serat Centhini (1988a:216-20; 1988b:129-36; 1989:161-8; 1990b:70-2).

9 The textures of Central Javanese gamelan music 483 in the character of leader; [ ] the others play the same tune, but figured, and each for himself and in his own way; the sáron resumes the motive or tune (Ellis 1885:509). For a Javanese description of this texture, we may look to the Serat Centhini, with its many scenes, albeit idealized, of gamelan performance. For example, a harmonious and therefore pleasant performance is often described as rempeg, or all the same, with none differing from the other (Robson and Wibisono 2002:614). The term runtut, or harmonious, is also used (Robson and Wibisono 2002:638). While these words may be applied to any good ensemble and not only to the gamelan, several other examples can be fully understood only if the texture depicted is woven from a single composed melody and other melodies tracing it. The text speaks of situations in which sarancak tangkêpe sami (Serat Centhini 1988a:103), or all the instruments of the ensemble coincided with each other. 22 This notion also finds expression in the phrase sarancak ungêle kamot jroning kawa (Serat Centhini 1988b:142), or the sound of all the instruments of the ensemble was contained in the strings of the rebab. Finally, we read: Mukêt wilête barungan rêbab, [ ], samya angungas bêsus, lir pênjalin sinigar palih, swara mot jroning kawat (Serat Centhini 1989:237-8), or the melody of the sindhèn was well mixed with the melody of the rebab. They both showed off their skill. They were as similar as a piece of rattan split into two. The voice of the sindhèn was contained in the strings of the rebab. Such language, even in its somewhat formal exaggeration, confirms that the rebab was the carrier of the composed melody, which was traced by others so closely that they all merged into its sound. Can historical recordings of karawitan verify such assertions? Performances captured on 78 rpm records produced in the 1930s reveal the predominance of the vocal part sung by either male or female singers or by both. 23 Female singers in particular are far more eloquent on these discs and offer more melodies than one hears today. While in current practice the melodies are in free rhythm, extended seemingly to the limits of the performer s breathing capacity, and almost always ending up far behind the others, the melodies on the historical recordings are in free, shrunk rhythm, sometimes almost metrical, so as to end at the same point with the other instruments. Unlike in contemporary performance practice, female singers on older recordings even correspond beat by beat with the saron or the gendèr melody, 24 and sometimes 22 All the translations are mine. These phrases are in verse, but I have translated them in prose, and rather freely at that, for the sake of clarity. 23 I am grateful to Rob van Albada and Wim van der Meer for allowing me the access to 16 pieces from their 78 rpm records. 24 In Gendhing Lobong sléndro pathet manyura (Columbia GJX10), Gendhing Gandrung Manis pélog pathet barang (Odeon A39603a), and Ladrang Kutut Manggung sléndro pathet manyura (Columbia GJ234).

10 484 Noriko Ishida they are literally in unison with the other instruments. 25 These moments of correspondence and unison sometimes result in a saron melody that is significantly different from contemporary saron melodies. 26 There is also at least one historical recording in which the rebab almost coincides with the saron melody, anticipating the notes to be played. 27 All these treatments, which might be interpreted as an effort to carry out or encourage faithful tracing, create a texture that sounds more solid than that of the more modern performances we are accustomed to hearing today. This conjecture about the texture of gendhing in pre-notation times is dependent on the hypothesis of the single composed melody and the orchestration technique of tracing. Describing the texture of contemporary gen dhing, which is so complex and rich in variety that it perplexes uninitiated listeners by its elusiveness, is considerably less straightforward. In fact, gen dhing that one hears in the twenty-first century apears to have two poles balunga n and garap around which the melodies intertwine, a phenomenon often described by researchers. When, how and why did this monogenetic texture evolve into the complicated one performed today? My next conjecture is that the changes are rooted in the use of notation. 25 In Ladrang Sekar Gadhung sléndro pathet manyura (Odeon Jab129), Jineman Glathik Glindhing sléndro pathet manyura (Odeon A39630a), and Ladrang Janggleng Ireng sléndro pathet manyura (Columbia LJ441). 26 For example, the third kenong section of the first gong cycle of Ladrang Clunthang sléndro pathet sanga (Columbia @. 6!. j5!6 n5 saron (GJ231) n5 saron (standard) n5 27 Part of the second and the third gong cycles of Ladrang Uluk-Uluk pathet sanga (Columbia GJ272). In current practice, this part is considered to be very challenging because the saron melody is apparently in sléndro pathet nem, while the designated pathet is pathet sanga. So the rebab is expected to work out melodies that provide the feeling of pathet sanga. There are several solutions, but the melody as shown below might be the last resort for musicians today. (the upper row: rebab, the lower row: saron) j. j 3 j5j 6 jk35j. 3 j. 3 jk56j.6 j. j 6 j6 jk n3 j.j jk35 k53j. k21j 5 k52j j. k. 3k53 j3jk.5 k2 j3j. g g2 k.k k3k53 3 j2 kj56 6 j.j 5! k6!j6 nj6 j n6 k.3j5 5 3 k56j. 6 j5j6 k6!j6 n

11 The introduction of notation The textures of Central Javanese gamelan music 485 The oldest notation of gendhing is a form of staff notation called nut ranté, 28 which seems to have been formulated in the circle of court musicians of Surakarta in the late nineteenth century. 29 It seems visually uncomplicated, at least compared to the sheet music of ensemble compositions from the same period in the West: Figure 1. Nut ranté. Part of Gending Titipati sléndro pathet nem (from Nut ranté gendhing Surakarta, Museum Sonobudoyo) 28 This notation is called chain notation. Nut or enut comes from the Dutch noot, or note, which means notation, while ranté means chain, on account of its appearance. 29 The earliest extant manuscript of nut ranté is dated in the Javanese year 1809 ( ~ ) (Perlman 1991:59). For the rise of nut ranté, see Pradjapangrawit 1990:146, 166-7; Sindoesawarno 1960:61; Perlman 1991.

12 486 Noriko Ishida Since this example represents an orchestral piece, one would expect a full score or notation for the respective parts, rather than what appears to be a single melodic line with no clue as to the instrument assigned to play it. Such expectations ignore the fact that gendhing performance consists of a single composed melody and accompanying tracing melodies, for which reason no score or notation for the various parts is necessary. Notating the composed melody is sufficient to represent the whole melodic texture. And especially if we take into consideration that variation is almost always at work during performance, the notated composed melody can be no more than approximate. The melody notated in nut ranté expressed by four notes per measure (gatra) should be regarded as no more than a rough line of the composed melody. Some researchers regard this notated melody as the saron melody, 30 a notion unsubstantiated by manuscripts containing nut ranté. The fact that the notation attempts to indicate the register of melodies that go beyond the range of the six pitches of the six-line staff 31 suggests that this is not the transcription of the melody actually played on the saron, whose range is limited to six pitches corresponding to the six lines of nut ranté. 32 We can also tell from the titles of manuscripts that the notators were not attempting to represent the saron melody, but quite purposefully wrote down the composed melody (gendhing). For example, we find manuscripts entitled Nut Gending ( notation of gendhing ), but not Nut Saron. 33 Because this new system was difficult to write and read, its popularity remained limited. It was particularly inconvenient for use at gamelan rehearsals with amateur musicians, a situation that inspired a Surakarta nobleman to revise it. He gave numbers to the pitches and called them by their numbers. Pitches of pélog were numbered one to seven (from low to high) while those of sléndro were numbered one to six. This notation was called nut angka. 34 It is not clear when this cipher notation system was introduced, but the manuscript dated earliest, from 1906, 35 shows that the basic principles were already established by the early twentieth century. As the revised transliteration of nut ranté, nut angka continues to be the notation used of the composed melody, as in the example in Figure 2: 30 For example, Becker (1980:11-25) and Sumarsam (1995:106-13). 31 On ways of indicating register, see Perlman (1991:50-1). 32 The six lines in the nut ranté staff for a sléndro piece represent, in ascending order, the pitches barang, gulu, tengah, lima, nem, and high barang. Many older sléndro saron have six keys, while new saron in Solo have seven, adding a key for low nem. 33 Perlman 1991:58-9. Several manuscripts in Behrend (1990) are listed under different titles made by the annotators. 34 Angka means number. This notation is called titilaras kepatihan or nut kepatihan as well. On the invention of nut angka, see Pradjapangrawit 1990:168-9; Sindoesawarno 1960; Becker 1980: This is the Nut gendhing Radyapustaka of Museum Radyapustaka in Surakarta written by Demang Warsapradongga, who was the father of Warsodiningrat and who before his death in 1911 was master musician of the Kepatihan, the prime minister s official residence.

13 The textures of Central Javanese gamelan music 487.yt. ty ytent.yt. ty ytent wety etew..wt wetny y g2 Figure 2. Nut angka. Part of Gending Titipati sléndro pathet nem The ease with which nut angka can be written and read led to its widespread adoption, both by musicians writing down gendhing they knew and by amateurs learning to play gendhing, a situation that led to important changes in the development of karawitan. The birth of garap By the turn of the twentieth century, having a functional dominant notation system, as well as several less popular ones, meant that the composed melody could now be written down and shared by musicians. Gendhing could now exist outside of performance contexts. Previously, if performing musicians did not know the gendhing well, the player of the composed melody, most often the rebab player, had to articulate it as clearly as possible so as to be traced correctly by other players. Now each musician had a reliable and independent relationship with the composed melody, which released the rebab player from the responsibility of leading the entire ensemble. Rebab players found that slight deviations from the composed melody, far from harming the performance as a whole, added a certain charm. The importance of this exciting discovery is hard to overestimate. Competent rebab players could now begin to create alternative melodies, with more ornamentation, embellishment, and variation, in a bold manner, that is they began to do garap. Although we can pinpoint the circumstances of the birth of garap in karawitan, the word itself is difficult to translate. Nggarap, which is the verb form, means to work at or on, to do (Robson and Wibisono 2002:231). In the context of karawitan, nggarap gendhing may best be translated as arranging gendhing, and as far as the melodic aspects are concerned, nggarap gendhing or arranging the composed melody may mean playing the composed melody not as it was composed, or more specifically, intentionally creating a counter melody to the composed melody. 36 This was an aspect of perform- 36 See Rahayu Supanggah (1990:119) and Perlman (1993:575-7) for other definitions of garap.

14 488 Noriko Ishida ance unknown to musicians of the pre-notation era. In the Serat Centhini, the Serat Sastramiruda, and the Serat Kyahi Gulang Yarya, which is another treatise on Javanese performing arts written by R.M.H. Tondhakusuma in 1870, 37 the phrase nggarap gendhing never comes up. The ambitious, creative, and enterprising musicians of that time may have greeted the idea of garap with enthusiasm as they became absorbed in creating new phrases, thus enriching their musical vocabularies. While using traditional phrases, they gradually created new ones, and their efforts expanded into various experiments. For example, the same written phrase in two different pathet (modes) could be treated differently. Then again, the same rebab melody might be applied to portions that differed in notation. They could transpose gendhing in sléndro to pélog and vice versa, or to different pathet, and they experimented with new irama (wirama) 38 as well, playing gendhing traditionally assigned to irama dadi in irama wiled. I have often heard from elderly musicians how enthusiastically in their youth they sought new garap for the old well-known gendhing. In this sense, the early twentieth century seems to have been a golden era in the history of karawitan. The performance of gendhing as we know it today seems to have been developed during this period by a relatively small number of musicians with easy access to notation. Certainly, they were elite court musicians of Surakarta led by K.R.T. Warsodiningrat ( ), S. Mloyowidodo ( ) and R.L. Martopangrawit ( ) being the youngest among them. They organized small study groups, including Pananta Dibya, Panti Sari, and Ngèsthiraras (Wiranta Wijayasumarta 1972:v-vi; Pradjapangrawit 1990:172-3), in which they seem to have analysed and experimented with gendhing in search of the best garap. They may have referred to notation when discussing or testing tentative garap, 39 and once a certain garap was agreed upon and established, they always used it as a mark for distinguishing themselves from other musical groups, perhaps with a sense of rivalry and pride. Once initiated into the garap technique, musicians were no doubt entranced by its charms and challenged to search for better garap. Because they never seem to have considered returning to the bare composed melody and its mere tracing, this old style disappeared from their performance practice. After the independence of Indonesia and the opening of the national conservatory (now Sekolah Menengah Karawitan Indonesia) and the national academy of karawitan (now Institut Seni Indonesia Surakarta) in Surakarta in the decades after World War II, these musicians taught their garap 37 Tondhakusuma, a son-in-law of Mangkunegara IV, was a dancer and the creator of langendriya n, which was a dance drama performed only by female dancers. 38 See Martopangrawit (1969:1-3) for an explanation of irama. 39 They never looked at notation while performing. A player consulting notation on stage was laughed at as kethèk ngilo a monkey looking in a mirror (personal communication with Mloyowidodo).

15 The textures of Central Javanese gamelan music 489 to their students in more formal settings. Among the most vocal and influential propagandists for the new style was Martopangrawit, who while teaching gendèr in often told me that players who did not play this part of gendhing in this way were not playing this gendhing in its true sense. In this way, the garap they played and taught rapidly assumed standard, authoritative status in Solonese karawitan. Further changes in melodic texture Notation gave freedom to the carriers of composed melody to nggarap, or to spin their own melodies. Traditionally, there were four carriers of composed melody in soft playing pieces: the rebab, the gendèr, the gambang, and the voice. Of interest at this point is the rebab, for a variety of reasons. The gendèr and the gambang, whose sounds do not stand out clearly in the ensemble, have almost totally surrendered their few gendhing to the rebab, so that most gendhing gendèr and gendhing gambang now appear to be gendhing rebab. The human voice is not so active in garap, which by its very nature is conducted by a solo player and therefore cannot be applied to the chorus. Many gendhing featuring a vocal solo are based on well-known sung-verse melodies, from which the vocalist cannot depart too far. Therefore, when talking about garap it is always the rebab that will be the object of investigation. Since the introduction of garap in the performance of gendhing, the rebab has become much more important than before. How free is the rebab? This question introduces two different issues: how far the rebab may depart from the composed melody, and to what extent the garap-ed rebab melody exerts influence on other instruments of the ensemble. Even after the introduction of garap, the old orchestration principle of tracing may have been maintained for some time. The rule was that other instruments traced the rebab melody wherever it went. However, blind obedience to this rule brought about an embarrassing result: if all of the other instruments followed the garap-ed rebab melody, the piece performed would become something other than what had originally been composed. Furthermore, if the other instruments continued to trace the rebab melody as loyally as before, the rebab s freedom from the duty of leading the ensemble would disappear. In fact, because the melody was now different from the original composed melody, the rebab was again put in the position of guide. Its freedom would be lost and, even more regrettably, the charms and thrills created by the tensions between the composed melody and the garap-ed rebab melody would be lost as well. In the pre-notation era, a change in the gendhing melody, whether intentional or not, would not have been so problematic, and it would have been accepted as a reasonable metamorphosis not uncommon in any oral tradition. Sometimes it may even have passed unnoticed. But now the composed

16 490 Noriko Ishida melodies existed in notation. As is common with many forms of traditional art everywhere, people in Java respected authoritative documents made and used by court musicians and regarded them as something that had to be followed exactly. The composed melody, gendhing, had to be played as notated, while at the same time its carrier (the rebab) was to be granted freedom to depart from it. How could this contradiction be resolved? Reorganization of the division of labour in the gamelan ensemble was the solution. Now that the assigned carrier of the composed melody (the rebab) was released from its former duty, quite naturally the task of playing the composed melody was entrusted to the saron instruments, because the notated composed melody was almost the same as what they had been playing in the ensemble all along. Other instruments continued to trace the rebab melody, but the melody they traced was the new garap-ed melody. The new carriers of the composed melody were the group comprised of the loud-playing instruments, while those that traced the new rebab melody were the soft-playing ones. This division of labour and the composition of each group were not strictly fixed. Some instruments could switch from one task to the other depending on performance conditions, deter mined by tempo, irama and the purpose of the performance: whether for a concert, dance accompaniment, or wayang accompaniment. This new division of labour divided melody instruments into three groups: those that played the notated composed melody (the loud-playing instruments), those that nggarap-ed the composed melody (the rebab), and those that traced the garap-ed melody (other soft-playing instruments). Although the second and third groups may seem very different, because the former led and the latter followed, they interacted freely, so much so that they could logically be grouped together. In this way, the melodic instruments were generally divided into just two groups: the composed melody group and the garap group. The instruments of the latter group had the freedom to create their own melodies, while those of the former group were strictly bound to the composed melody. If they too participated in garap, then the composed melody, or gendhing, would be lost so they had to play the composed melody unaltered. Garap could become bolder and bolder if the composed melody continued to be played clearly as the foundation. These changes constituted a total restructuring of the melodic texture, in which there was no longer a definitional centre. Melodies were no longer monogenetic but began to weave around two focal points: the composed melody and the garap-ed rebab melody. Strictly speaking, however, this model of two foci is somewhat inaccurate, because these two points were different in their nature and their power was not balanced. Following the shift of the composed melody from the rebab to the saron instruments, the original linear melody assumed the shape of a line of stepping-stones, and all the garap

17 The textures of Central Javanese gamelan music 491 instruments traced this fixed composed melody. Tracing in the pre-notation era was dynamic because it meant moving together, but this new tracing was rather static, because the composed melody was now fixed. Only the garap instruments moved together, when the rebab decided to nggarap. In principle, the rebab traced the composed melody, but it could depart from that melody at will. Thus, the melodic texture of the notation era can be described as the melodies tracing the fixed composed melody, with the sporadic addition of passages of garap-ed melodies intertwined around the rebab as their limited dynamic centre. What makes it appear complex is this coexistence of stasis and dynamism in an unbalanced state. The establishment of the theory of pathet Did the rebab have unconditional freedom to develop its own melodies? Of course not, because unlimited freedom would confuse the ensemble. The rebab had to follow rules in order to live harmoniously with the instruments carrying the composed melody. So what kept the rebab s melodies within a certain frame? The coincidence of tones of the rebab melody with the composed melody at important points would keep their lines roughly consonant with each other. The minimal melodic unit of gendhing is the measure (gatra), and the strongest and therefore most important beat in the four-beat measure is the last (the fourth) one, called sèlèh. 40 The most basic rule for the rebab was to come back to the sèlèh note, that is, the rebab melody was required to land on the note played by the saron on the last beat of every measure. On rare occasions the landing might be suspended for a few measures by skipping over several sèlèh notes, but this was not done arbitrarily. Once the points of coincidence were agreed upon, the next issue was how the rebab was to travel from one sèlèh note to the next. If the rebab were allowed total freedom, it could create an infinite number of routes, at least in theory. However, when various rebab melodies were played with the notated saron melody, some melodies were felt to be more suitable, pleasant, acceptable, or at least tolerable, than others, and pathet was the deciding factor. This discussion hypothesizes that elaborate theories of pathet, such as that of Martopangrawit (1969, 1975) explaining pathet by referring to the range, cadential patterns, tonic, dominant, enemy tone, and so on, were achievements of later years and were not yet codified in these very early years of the notation era, although there must have been an awareness of those factors. Pathet, which can be translated roughly as mode, had been known for a long time, as is shown by the list of gendhing titles mentioned in the Serat Centhini, which classified gendhing neatly into six pathet (Serat Centhini 1986:89-91). 40 Sèlèh means to put something somewhere (Robson and Wibisono 2002:662).

18 492 Noriko Ishida What was pathet at that time? The definition of pathet, one of the most controversial issues in karawitan, is obviously beyond the scope of this paper. With this in mind, the understanding of pathet presented here is a minimally valid one, for the purpose of the present discussion only. Pathet is, in a very limited sense, a zone of pitches arranged in a certain order. A certain pathet occupies a higher or lower zone than other pathet in the total range. In order to determine the zone, we need a standard pitch, which is generally given by the gamelan instruments. If there is no standard pitch, we cannot perceive or distinguish pathet, in either sléndro or pélog. Traditionally, every gendhing was assigned to a certain pathet. Musicians must already have intuitively and empirically shared the specific feeling associated with each of the six pathet. Perhaps musicians would have assigned a certain gendhing to a certain pathet according to the final gong note and the final passage leading to that gong note. The melodic line of a gendhing did not have to stick to one pathet from beginning to end. It was sometimes allowed to venture into the territory of other pathet or linger briefly in an ambiguous area, as long as the melody came back to the assigned pathet at the final gong stroke. In the pre-notation era, when gendhing seem to have been played almost in unison, a certain gendhing may have been assigned to a certain pathet in this macroscopic way. This simple attitude toward pathet underwent revision as the practice of garap gained in popularity. Musicians may have begun to feel that the designated pathet was strengthened or weakened by the garap-ed melodies played sideby-side with the composed melody. If the garap-ed rebab melody supported the feeling of the designated pathet, it was regarded as appropriate. If not, it was felt to be improper. In this way, pathet served as the moral code that restrained the melodic behaviour of the rebab. This new role assigned to pathet required the garap of gendhing to be consistent within the designated pathet. Whether a certain garap-ed rebab melody was appropriate to the designated pathet had to be examined measure by measure in order to maintain consistency from the beginning (buka) to the end (the last gong note). Pathet, which until then had been felt only macroscopically, now demanded a microscopic treatment. Measures taken in the effort to maintain consistency included: Standardizing finger positions for the rebab for each pathet. 41 Standardizing the zones of the octave (gembyang) and the fifth (kempyung) for the sèlèh of the patterns (cèngkok) of the gendèr. 42 Establishing alternative rebab melodies for the pathet-less ascending passages See Martopangrawit (1975:13-21) for finger positions for each of the six pathet. 42 See Martopangrawit (1969:37-9) for the zones of the octave and the fifth. 43 See Rahayu Supanggah (1990:122-4) for examples of the alternative rebab melodies for Gendhing Cucurbawuk, sléndro pathet manyura.