As a Javanese, It's so mindblowing to hear your explanation. Pretty much all my life I listened to Gamelan on radio and entertainment events like shadow puppet, and that explains why it doesn't sounds out of tune at all to me.
Weirdly I never heard of it before this guys videos, but I have been obsessed with it since. It sounds very natural to me! I always tuned my instruments my own way, and I was never accurate to the tuner, but it sounded better to me then being tuned to the tuner. I play guitar in open tunings a lot, and I specifically tune a string to the major third of the open chord, and I leave it tuned justly, which is flat of the equal temperament 3rd in a key. It makes a beautiful resonant chord. But then any other scale degrees played on that string are off. But I wrote music specifically around the tuning I played in. It's a way different way to look at guitar. Because my strings weren't always en harmonic. Normally fret 5 is equal to the open string above it, but that fell apart in my system, so you had to use specific strings for specific parts and couldn't just play it on any string like normal. But anyway, gamelan sounds so perfect to me.
Makes sense if you've heard something your whole life! I'm in the US but for whatever random reason heard a lot of Middle Eastern music and it never sounds out of tune or weird to me even though some people her claim it is.
Bro i literally just come from your amazing comment in the "Java Suite" from Godowski, where you mention this scale. Now I'm going through post-1903 debussy, as tou recommended. Thank you very much
@@marioblancodiaz2250 Well, that was unexpected! I'm very, very happy that comment was useful to you, and hopefully to someone else too. Enjoy all of that amazing music!
Overall a well-researched video, and I appreciate that you mention the very salient point of how tuning is not consistent across octave registers (although the *reasons* for that are, I think, beyond the scope of this sort of explanation). What's missing though (and Sethares is guilty of this as well) is the indigenous music theory perspective and how tuning relates to the formation of scales and modes as they are actually used in practice. For example, the statement that there are "no fifths" in slendro or pelog is misleading. True, there are typically no *just* fifths of ~702 cents. Slendro is in fact conceptualized as a closed circle of five wide fifths and pelog an open circle of seven narrow fifths. These fifths ("kempyung") are considered the most important interval after the octave ("gembyang"). The importance of fifths is revealed both in notation and the system of modes ("pathet"). For instance, seven-tone pelog (because there are pelog ensembles with fewer tones) can be represented as a chain of narrow fifths (~660-690 cents): 4-1-5-2-6-3-7 ...with the interval 7-4 being analogous to the tritone in the Western diatonic scale. At least in the more well-known Central Javanese tradition, the three most common sub-scales are 4-1-[5-2-6-3-7] 4-[1-5-2-6-3]-7 [4-1-5-2-6]-3-7 ...meaning that despite being a seven-tone system, the actual *music* performed in pelog is essentially pentatonic with occasional "accidentals" or "modulations." Now, it's important to note that many compositions original to either pelog or slendro can be realized in the opposing tuning system (for the ones that cannot, it's more a matter of aesthetics/convention than a theoretical problem). This is only possible because a kempyung in pelog is assumed functionally equivalent to a kempyung in slendro despite the clear difference in tuning; pelog 4s and 7s typically become slendro 3s and 1s, respectively. For anyone interested in going deeper, I highly recommend Karawitan: Source Readings in Javanese Gamelan and Vocal Music (recently digitized and available through JSTOR). It's a compendium of writings by Javanese theorists translated into English.
Forgive the silly question, but are these "fifths" literally the fifth note of the scale? That seems amazing to me -- do you know whether the Sethares' theory picks it out as a particularly important interval? (As surely in a tuning with a prime number of notes before equivalence, any interval should make a "circle"...)
@@j_lsw The short answer is, no, the kempyung never serves as the fifth note because the scales/modes in question are all pentatonic. People unfamiliar with musical practice often describe pelog as a 7-note scale (in which case, the kempyung WOULD span five tones), but it is really 3 overlapping pentatonic scales. Sethares analyzes the spectra of keys (Javanese saron and gender) and kettle gongs (Javanese bonang) and finds that the region around 1.5 f is relatively consonant. One of the sticking points, however, is that the gender has an overtone around 1.48 f (a flat kempyung indicative of pelog), whereas the bonang has one around 1.52 f (a sharp kempyung indicative of slendro). So Sethares' hypothesis is that keyed instruments like gender led to pelog and kettle gongs led to slendro, which contradicts what we know about the historical development of the music: the gender was originally exclusive to slendro, and the bonang was originally exlusive to pelog. Nowadays, both types of instruments are used in both tuning systems, and there isn't any sense that a given instrument is "more consonant" in one system or the other. Sethares hints at it, and other authors have looked deeper into it, but the discrepancy probably has to do with how the inharmonic timbres of the metal instruments interact with harmonic timbres, especially the voice (sung poetry is a major but frequently ignored component of Javanese/Balinese music). When you combine an inharmonic and harmonic timbre, it is perceived as a kind of third, composite timbre with new peaks of consonance. There are lots of weird perceptual things in this music that don't make sense mathematically, like instruments that sound out-of-tune when played in isolation but in-tune when heard in an ensemble setting. Harmonic timbres (voice, flute, plucked zither, bowed spike fiddle) never exactly match the metal instruments' tuning, yet they somehow "work" when heard in context.
I've always found something entrancing about Indonesian music. It makes us aware music has many levels of harmony outside of the 12-tone temperament that has taken the world, it can achieve a different dimension of expression because it harmonises in a way western temperament does not. In a way, as 12-tone became more dominant across the world, we are actually constricting our musical imagination if we do not preserve these unique harmonies of other cultures.
Aa! This is so cool, I played the Gamelan as the child ( Saron and Gong Agung player) and now i understand why foreigners find it so fascinating! You have made a wonderful video, thank you very much. Come to Indonesia when you can, and I hope you watch the live Gamelan shows in Jogja and Bali 🙏🇮🇩 thank you very much
The explanation in this video is very useful. Actually I come from Indonesia, Central Java to be exact. when I was in elementary school I played gamelan with my friends taught by my teacher. but I never knew what the theory in gamelan was like because I only played it. now when i grow up and watch this i understand about what i used to play. but it's a shame nowadays gamelan music is fading and very few people still play it.
Sama mas , saya juga hanya bisa memainkannya , itupun saat masih sekolah dasar di Batu - Jawa timur. Kemudian saya ikut orang tua ke Sumatera sampai remaja.
How to save tradition in 2022: slap rapping on it and add EDM drums and bass and talk about money, women, drugs and power. That's the only way to preserve something in this day and age. Don't forget to add a music video shot at a rich guy's swimming pool with models in it.
@alejandro matas it is easier to find like-minded people in internet rather than in reality sometimes. Very few people play gamelan in indonesia and it isn't easy to find gamelan concert. Many people doesn't have interest about it anymore, just like most of the west people doesn't listen to classical music.
The very simple idea of basing your tuning on the metallophone instruments instead of a string blew my mind away. I am going to share this in a music producer group. It totally makes sense! Also it made me realize why I was struggling to fit in bell like sounds in music.
The insight about gamelan tunings relating to the spectra of metallophones is mind blowing. That makes so much sense. Makes me wonder if similar relations could be found in other music traditions that contain non-western intervals. I guess if those traditions have flutes or string based instruments at their core though it's unlikely, unless the construction of their particular instruments introduces inharmonicity. VERY INTERESTING AMAZING VIDEO.
I want to explore that as well! I expect it will be some sub set of Just Intonation, just like the Western tuning once was before we tempered it out to 12tet
Eivind Groven write about this in his essay Naturskalen where he traces back the odd quartertone scale of norwegian music back to overtone flutes and horns
Out of the tens of thousands youtube videos I’ve watched over 18 years this might be one of the most interesting. So well researched well presented, well edited, and well written. I will be sharing I hope your channel blows up man this is great
Even in Western Classical music, there is, indeed, such a thing as C-flat. You were right even in your own context, but people like to talk without knowledge
This is the most informational crisp video I've seen recently. The visuals and editing are perfect for explanation. Your clarity of the scientific concepts helped me expand my understanding a lot more.
very cool. i came here after searching "gamelan music theory". i wanted to know why the music sounds so dissonant, and i think this answers my questions very well. it's interesting that the tuning of the instruments is so different to western tuning.
I had not even considered about different scales arising due to the different spectrum of the instruments. This video has given me many things to think about and I now realize how tied to the nature of strings our Western music is. It makes me wonder what would have happened if we didn't bother with Pythagoras and his strings and had focused on other instruments instead. Thank you!
A very complete explanation, there is a pelog scale in a wind instrument that you don't know about, namely a wooden tube flute with a harmony pelog scale 😊
I think we should drop saying "ethnic" and "indigenous" music and start using "classical Indonesian/Jawanese" etc. to give it the same respect as European classical music.
by the way, there are three kind of gamelan. Javanese, Sundanese and Balinese. Sundanese also incorporate their own system. Both Javanese and Balinese gamelan only have two kind of tuning, slendro and pelog, while the Sundanese have three, slendro, pelog and degung.
Its been my dream to see this music performed live. I thought it was just a rare and forgotten form of music but I went to Indonesia and I heard it in many places. At the airport, on the street and a few other places. And I was lucky enough to see it performed live several times. I heard it coming from a Hindu temple in Bali and they were nice enough to invite me in and watch them practice and record them. They even invited me to their next practice. So amazing. I loved Indonesia.
For someone who is not as deep in the topic it would have made sense to demonstrate with sound examples. I wanted to know more about the gamelan scales and your video is full of information but I could not understand half of it because I had no idea how it sounds, for example the differences between the two gamelan scales and how they are different from western scales. Your video is very helpful nevertheless. Thank you very much!
Yo awesome video! I'm trying to recreate some of the sounds of a gamelan with FM synthesis and this was super comprehensive with the tuning system. Thanks!!! :)
Hi! I watched your video, because I listened to the #IHarmU challenge and it sounded quite the same, after listening to it half an hour. Gamelan was a nice change to my ear. I was lucky to live in Indonesia in the 80ies and have been listening to it live. Thanks for the superb job on explaining this Musik and the tuning behind it. I watched your other videos as well. So great explanations! Thanks a lot!
Wow, thanks for sharing such information, this makes a lot of sense! It leaves me wondering about the synth patches I make and how well the timbre of them could be suited to alternative tunings. This is pandoras box i fear,,, but I think this is possibly the future of music theory
Just want to say that your videos are very good and you should make more about the sethares theory of harmony because I had a hard time understanding it until I found your channel.
I fell in the music theory hole. Started with getting recommended what pop songs are not in 4/4 time signature -> every time signature explained as Nintendo Music -> Forgotten Isle - Super Mario Odyssey -> this video.
the information in this video is incredibly thorough, thank you so much for making this! i'm indonesian and i used to play gamelan when i was a kid, but i had no idea about the music theory behind it, so this is very helpful.
would be interesting if there's further study about the different kind of frequency tuning that related with the different nature of biological ear frequency response between ethnically.. as scale is same in pentatonic but maybe on each note there's a slight different in frequency value maybe between Javanese and Sudanese or even among Asian that their traditional music use pentatonic scale..
Excellent science in the vibrations and harmonics, could be better on the the theory and what is gamelan section. Not a gamelan maestro, but I've played and taught it for 12, hit me up if you'd like to update your info!.
12:28 I am pretty sure minor seventh minima corresponds to 7:4, not to 9:5. You can even see how it appears at the moment when fourth harmonic of the higher sound touches the sevenths harmonic of the lower one. And the unmarked minimas are 7:5 (the tritone one) and 7:6 (subminor third).
you are right, by construction he can only produce dips at frequency ratios between the first seven harmonics and so cannot resolve a 9/5 dip, which would be at 1017 cents anyway instead of 968. it makes me wonder if 7/4 is the more natural minor 7th rather than 9/5, I had assumed they were just two different choices you could make, but now I wonder if a preference of 9/5 is more an artifact from a bias towards 5-limit tunings and the fact that its closer to the 12tet tuning. if the 9/5 minor seventh really is important harmonically still, then it makes me question that higher harmonics are “not important” to this analysis, because you cannot resolve certain dips without them
Lots of interesting things here, but I'd suggest that for gamelan the tuning shapes the instruments far more than the instruments shape the tuning. As someone who has played lots of different Balinese gamelans, instruments tuned to slendro can be physically virtually identical to instruments tuned to pelog. I haven't done a harmonic analysis on the instruments as you have, but this suggests to me that the maker shapes the overtones to match the dissonance curves of the desired tuning rather than the dissonance curves shaping the tuning. It is interesting either way, but is a different causality.
A spectral synth engine like SUMU from Madrona labs might prove interesting to use with the concepts outlined, as you can import spectra into their additive synth directly
Thanks for making this video, it's really clear and well researched! I was wondering if you could explain/link the method for deriving the graph at 12:20 from the simple dissonance curve at 11:50? I understand the general idea but I'd love to be able to construct it myself in Excel so I can apply it to other non-harmonic timbres as you've done for the Saron. Thanks!
You can use the program I made for that purpose. It can be dowloaded here github.com/SevaDer14/xen-explorer It has readme with how to run it on windows. You can export graphs as txt file and import them to Excel. However I am currently building web version of it so it is easier to use, it will be available in several weeks and I will post a video about it
I think you say somewhere that a gamelan can only play one mode. But on a modern Balinese semaradana gamelan, you can play 3 different modes - selisir, tembung and selendro.
Hello Seva! I am glad to tell you that your video is a great help for me, as I am currently writing a paper about balinese gendèr wayang and the musical compopsition within. The graphs you have used showing the dissonance distribution are very interesting. I have two questions for you in hopes you can help me. - at 14:21 you have shown the dissonance curves following the example of Plomb & Levelt, but adapted to different instruments in slendro. You have mentioned getting the data from casadamusica. However I would like to find the "median" tuning for gendèr barung and the gendèr panerus. Can you explain further how you created the dissonance spectra? - I have seen that you have created your own xentonality app. (It is so well done, congrats!) The direction of my paper is a different one, since I want to condense the basic rules of gendèr wayang into a PureData patch witch a visual and interactive landscape for learning purposes. However I would like to refer to you and your great work. So: is it okay for you if I put a ink to your xentonality app in my paper? Thank you for all your time and effort!
Hi! So the way I did it for the video is I recorded several samples of individual notes of one instrument from casadamusica library and analysed their spectrums in audacity. It is prone to error as you pick and choose which partials you consider impacting tuning and which not. Many partials in spectrum are just a part of attack so they dissappear from sound very quickly but audacity will still show them in the spectrum. The way I would do it now is that I would have longer samples (around 10 seconds) and look at their spectrograms. This way you can see which partials stay in the sound for the longest time, such partials should be considered as playing role in the harmony. Then note down frequencies of such partials for each note and find their relationship to fundamental (frequency_of_partial / frequency_of_fundamental). You will have a collection of ratios for each note that should be similar so you can average between them. Sometimes some notes have a partial that is not present in other notes, I just removed them to make life easier. In the end of this process you get an "average" spectrum for some instrument in the ensemble. Then I would've put it into the old version of newtonality app (xen-jmju0jgyc-sevader14.vercel.app/lab) to get the dissonance curve. Hope that helps))) Yes absolutely you can site my work, I am very happy that it is helpful! Send the link to the paper when you publish it, would be interesting to read)) You can also use the code of the newtonality app in any way you want, it is opensource on Github.
The fascinating thing about these "foreign", sometimes "alien" sounding tunings, is that as much as their tunings sound to us, OUR western tunings sound alien to THEM!!! I tell my students that music is just like language, what you don't understand will sound novel and out of this world, just like Chinese would sound to an American, even though both languages are made with the same structures of the mouth!!! Micro tonality is so fascinating!!!!!
Hello! I really enjoyed the video. I just have a question. I wanted to recreate the "gamelan metallophone sound" through synthesis. I should use additive synthesis and create beatings between the frequencies in the spectrum right? I am using a slendro pathet to write the piece, but i ve got no clue on how to recreate that dissonance, or would it jus tbe easier with an lfo? idkk synthesis' not my strong suite n this is for my exam :) plz help
Hi! I guess it depends on how close you want to get to the real thing. To get right dissonances you need correct spectrum and matching scale, no need for lfo. However in Balinese Gamelan there is this special effect name of which escapes me right now but it sounds like constant tremolo effect. That can be emulated with lfo, however real orchestra achieves this with very specific tuning and spectrum, but that would be very tricky to synthesise. So what I would've done is use a sample of the instrument you are interested in (from the library in description) and use it to emulate just an attack portion of a sound ( the hit of the hammer) so the envelope should be very short and it should not get transposed depending on what note you play. And for sustain you can use just a sine wave (low effort) or generate a sample using newtonality.net synth based on original sample spectrum. Hope that helps))
Traditional Javanese music group named themselves after the set of gamelan they're playing. So, instead of who's playing the group is more what's playing. Maybe because of how difficult it is to change the tuning of a set. That makes each set of gamelan is considered sacred. For example "Gamelan Kyai Kanjeng". Kyai kanjeng is the name of the gamelan set, not the people playing it. But this makes it expensive and difficult for a group to perform in far away places considering how heavy a set of gamelan is and like many other traditional things, it's not drawing that much money nowadays.
I may be dumb but I don't understand modes of vibration. In what sense does the guitar string vibrate at two frequencies at the same time? Must I imagine small waves on a big wave? Or do the different types of vibration succeed each other in time? What I want to avoid is a confusion between abstract mathematical decomposition of the Fourier series and an actual physical phenomenon.
It a very good question that I dont know how to explain well)) Different frequencies are present at the same time and are largely independent from one another. Small waves on a big wave is a good picture. You can also think of a loud speaker, it can produce almost any spectrum, certanly several notes at the same time and it is a single surface. Vibrations of that surface is a sum of all individual vibratios. If you havent watched my older video "Spectrum and hearing" you can give it a shot. There is an example how several sinewaves can result in a sqare wave and how it is decomposed back into a sinewaves inside our ear.
À 12:30, Il y a une erreur d'interprétation dans le graphique Sensory Dissonance. Ce n'est pas minor 7th (9:5) mais (7:4). En cents, (7:4) c'est 969 et (9:5) c'est 1018. Par ailleurs les deux autres notes blues, (7:6) à 267 et (7:5) à 583, sont clairement distinguées.
From a physics standpoint it's not technically correct to say that non-modal frequencies get attenuated out. They are not produced in the first place. When you pluck the string, the shape left by the plucking motion travels away from the point of contact as two copies traveling in opposite directions. These traveling waves then get reflected by the bridge and the nut resulting in a periodic waveform. Periodic waveforms consist of harmonics which are discrete and separated in frequency. The reason you see all frequencies in a spectrogram is because of the initial discontinuity of sound and a tradeoff between time and frequency resolution of Fourier transforms.
You are definately correct in ideal case, but I am not sure it perfectly applies to real case where stiffness of the bridge is finite and strings are not ideal. But generally speaking yes, you cannot exite non-modal frequencies on string instruments.
@@new_tonalityNot perfectly, but the stiff bridge attenuates non-modes very very quickly. I think a vibration has to go up and down at least once to count as a frequency. The rest I would classify as transients that are not well represented by Fourier or related transforms. Anyway... The video was excellent and I'm just nitpicking for fun here.
Does someone knows a text about what he is explaining but in spanish? I can understand some of the information but i guess because the name of the terms are different in spanish I miss a lot of info and it gets harder to follow 😢
In the cultural background which gamelan was invented - the Javanese people believe in harmonic composition of multiverse within layers, all of them are represented in gamelan ( "Gamel" means mastery (Based on Sanskrit language), and "Gamelan" might be intepreted as sets of disciplinaries to mastery life, performed as an ensamble).Some of composition are performed in particular time of special events & places as contemplative ceremony. Perhaps,...there's something related with "Binaural frequencies".
Sorry, but the term gamelan is most likely derived from "gambel," meaning hammer or mallet. Today, the verb "nuthuk" (to hit) is still used in reference to playing gamelan, as well as "nggamel" (ng + gamel / an). In fact, the literary term for the ensemble is not gamelan but rather "gangsa," referring to bronze.
@@new_tonality I have learned that the 19edo scale has worse fifths than our standard 12edo, but therefore better thirds. An interesting solution for this would be a system of two 19edo keyboards, which are tuned a perfect fifth away from each other. This would be a very logical 38 tonestep system with and alternately longer and shorter interval, and from each tone you would be able to build a fifth and a third.
Yeah that will work. I think way back in a day before 12edo they were building pianos with split sharps to get rid of wolfs fifth. Similar thing of having 2 flavours of the same note
Back in the early days of computers I experimented with generating many alternative scales based on both arithmetic and geometric progressions. The strange thing was that after listening to the scales being repeated in a loop for a minute or so, they stopped sounding so 'dissonant'. My brain started to adapt to hearing them as normal. (maybe that's just me though, I've always enjoyed dissonance)
Do they also make these instruments tuned to chromatic (or pentatonic etc) scales? Nothing against the traditional tuning. I just advocate for compatibility. I think people from all over the world should be able to play in tune with each other.
I dont think so. I dont think people that are building those instruments are in full control of the tuning. The first metal plate you make is influensing the rest of tuning decisions. In that sence different orchestras are not compatible with each other, not saying other cultures)) So the entire approach is very different from Western. It is art and craftmanship from the start, much less concearn about unification. What I saw is that there are attempts to integrate Gamelan by borrowing musical form and compositional techniques. You can find Gamelan inspired electronic music and piano performances. But that is not the same thing at all I think.
Lot of work went into it, but you as a video maker need to kind of demonstrate what you are talking about and make it a bit more exciting than just showing graphs and talking in a monotoneous voice.
As a Javanese, It's so mindblowing to hear your explanation. Pretty much all my life I listened to Gamelan on radio and entertainment events like shadow puppet, and that explains why it doesn't sounds out of tune at all to me.
Weirdly I never heard of it before this guys videos, but I have been obsessed with it since. It sounds very natural to me! I always tuned my instruments my own way, and I was never accurate to the tuner, but it sounded better to me then being tuned to the tuner. I play guitar in open tunings a lot, and I specifically tune a string to the major third of the open chord, and I leave it tuned justly, which is flat of the equal temperament 3rd in a key. It makes a beautiful resonant chord. But then any other scale degrees played on that string are off. But I wrote music specifically around the tuning I played in. It's a way different way to look at guitar. Because my strings weren't always en harmonic. Normally fret 5 is equal to the open string above it, but that fell apart in my system, so you had to use specific strings for specific parts and couldn't just play it on any string like normal.
But anyway, gamelan sounds so perfect to me.
Makes sense if you've heard something your whole life! I'm in the US but for whatever random reason heard a lot of Middle Eastern music and it never sounds out of tune or weird to me even though some people her claim it is.
Why is this video so unknown? The amount of research and detail is marvelous. Thank you!
Bro i literally just come from your amazing comment in the "Java Suite" from Godowski, where you mention this scale. Now I'm going through post-1903 debussy, as tou recommended. Thank you very much
@@marioblancodiaz2250 Well, that was unexpected! I'm very, very happy that comment was useful to you, and hopefully to someone else too. Enjoy all of that amazing music!
Overall a well-researched video, and I appreciate that you mention the very salient point of how tuning is not consistent across octave registers (although the *reasons* for that are, I think, beyond the scope of this sort of explanation).
What's missing though (and Sethares is guilty of this as well) is the indigenous music theory perspective and how tuning relates to the formation of scales and modes as they are actually used in practice. For example, the statement that there are "no fifths" in slendro or pelog is misleading. True, there are typically no *just* fifths of ~702 cents. Slendro is in fact conceptualized as a closed circle of five wide fifths and pelog an open circle of seven narrow fifths. These fifths ("kempyung") are considered the most important interval after the octave ("gembyang"). The importance of fifths is revealed both in notation and the system of modes ("pathet").
For instance, seven-tone pelog (because there are pelog ensembles with fewer tones) can be represented as a chain of narrow fifths (~660-690 cents):
4-1-5-2-6-3-7
...with the interval 7-4 being analogous to the tritone in the Western diatonic scale. At least in the more well-known Central Javanese tradition, the three most common sub-scales are
4-1-[5-2-6-3-7]
4-[1-5-2-6-3]-7
[4-1-5-2-6]-3-7
...meaning that despite being a seven-tone system, the actual *music* performed in pelog is essentially pentatonic with occasional "accidentals" or "modulations." Now, it's important to note that many compositions original to either pelog or slendro can be realized in the opposing tuning system (for the ones that cannot, it's more a matter of aesthetics/convention than a theoretical problem). This is only possible because a kempyung in pelog is assumed functionally equivalent to a kempyung in slendro despite the clear difference in tuning; pelog 4s and 7s typically become slendro 3s and 1s, respectively.
For anyone interested in going deeper, I highly recommend Karawitan: Source Readings in Javanese Gamelan and Vocal Music (recently digitized and available through JSTOR). It's a compendium of writings by Javanese theorists translated into English.
Nice insight about the Pelog's circle of fifth
Thank you very much for taking out your time to spread this knowledge
Forgive the silly question, but are these "fifths" literally the fifth note of the scale? That seems amazing to me -- do you know whether the Sethares' theory picks it out as a particularly important interval? (As surely in a tuning with a prime number of notes before equivalence, any interval should make a "circle"...)
@@j_lsw The short answer is, no, the kempyung never serves as the fifth note because the scales/modes in question are all pentatonic. People unfamiliar with musical practice often describe pelog as a 7-note scale (in which case, the kempyung WOULD span five tones), but it is really 3 overlapping pentatonic scales.
Sethares analyzes the spectra of keys (Javanese saron and gender) and kettle gongs (Javanese bonang) and finds that the region around 1.5 f is relatively consonant. One of the sticking points, however, is that the gender has an overtone around 1.48 f (a flat kempyung indicative of pelog), whereas the bonang has one around 1.52 f (a sharp kempyung indicative of slendro). So Sethares' hypothesis is that keyed instruments like gender led to pelog and kettle gongs led to slendro, which contradicts what we know about the historical development of the music: the gender was originally exclusive to slendro, and the bonang was originally exlusive to pelog. Nowadays, both types of instruments are used in both tuning systems, and there isn't any sense that a given instrument is "more consonant" in one system or the other.
Sethares hints at it, and other authors have looked deeper into it, but the discrepancy probably has to do with how the inharmonic timbres of the metal instruments interact with harmonic timbres, especially the voice (sung poetry is a major but frequently ignored component of Javanese/Balinese music). When you combine an inharmonic and harmonic timbre, it is perceived as a kind of third, composite timbre with new peaks of consonance.
There are lots of weird perceptual things in this music that don't make sense mathematically, like instruments that sound out-of-tune when played in isolation but in-tune when heard in an ensemble setting. Harmonic timbres (voice, flute, plucked zither, bowed spike fiddle) never exactly match the metal instruments' tuning, yet they somehow "work" when heard in context.
@@elbschwartz Thanks for this wonderfully detailed reply!
I've always found something entrancing about Indonesian music. It makes us aware music has many levels of harmony outside of the 12-tone temperament that has taken the world, it can achieve a different dimension of expression because it harmonises in a way western temperament does not.
In a way, as 12-tone became more dominant across the world, we are actually constricting our musical imagination if we do not preserve these unique harmonies of other cultures.
Aa! This is so cool, I played the Gamelan as the child ( Saron and Gong Agung player) and now i understand why foreigners find it so fascinating! You have made a wonderful video, thank you very much. Come to Indonesia when you can, and I hope you watch the live Gamelan shows in Jogja and Bali 🙏🇮🇩 thank you very much
Oh yes I would love to come. Ever since I first learned about it, it is something I absolutely have to do one day))
The explanation in this video is very useful. Actually I come from Indonesia, Central Java to be exact. when I was in elementary school I played gamelan with my friends taught by my teacher. but I never knew what the theory in gamelan was like because I only played it. now when i grow up and watch this i understand about what i used to play. but it's a shame nowadays gamelan music is fading and very few people still play it.
The tradition MUST be preserved. It is unique in the world!
Please continue playing it! I hear some of it in soundtrack to the anime Akira and the video game Secret of Mana. It sounds so lovely
Sama mas , saya juga hanya bisa memainkannya , itupun saat masih sekolah dasar di Batu - Jawa timur.
Kemudian saya ikut orang tua ke Sumatera sampai remaja.
How to save tradition in 2022: slap rapping on it and add EDM drums and bass and talk about money, women, drugs and power. That's the only way to preserve something in this day and age. Don't forget to add a music video shot at a rich guy's swimming pool with models in it.
@alejandro matas it is easier to find like-minded people in internet rather than in reality sometimes. Very few people play gamelan in indonesia and it isn't easy to find gamelan concert. Many people doesn't have interest about it anymore, just like most of the west people doesn't listen to classical music.
The very simple idea of basing your tuning on the metallophone instruments instead of a string blew my mind away. I am going to share this in a music producer group. It totally makes sense! Also it made me realize why I was struggling to fit in bell like sounds in music.
The insight about gamelan tunings relating to the spectra of metallophones is mind blowing. That makes so much sense. Makes me wonder if similar relations could be found in other music traditions that contain non-western intervals. I guess if those traditions have flutes or string based instruments at their core though it's unlikely, unless the construction of their particular instruments introduces inharmonicity. VERY INTERESTING AMAZING VIDEO.
I want to explore that as well! I expect it will be some sub set of Just Intonation, just like the Western tuning once was before we tempered it out to 12tet
Eivind Groven write about this in his essay Naturskalen where he traces back the odd quartertone scale of norwegian music back to overtone flutes and horns
Out of the tens of thousands youtube videos I’ve watched over 18 years this might be one of the most interesting. So well researched well presented, well edited, and well written. I will be sharing I hope your channel blows up man this is great
It’s like a giant, clangy middle finger to all those snooty music theory nerds that kept telling me “there’s no such thing as C-flat.”
Even in Western Classical music, there is, indeed, such a thing as C-flat. You were right even in your own context, but people like to talk without knowledge
Indonesian musician who can tune gamelan with keyboard/synthesizer is DWIKI DARMAWAN. He is one of the best jazz keyboardist/piano in Indonesia! 😊😊😊
This is the most informational crisp video I've seen recently. The visuals and editing are perfect for explanation. Your clarity of the scientific concepts helped me expand my understanding a lot more.
p.s I'm writing a research article on SE Asian Dance-Drama music and this video is a help for it.
Wow, cool! I'm really happy that the video helped, wish you best of luck with your research!
@@new_tonality Thanks a bunch
What an amazing, well-researched video. Thank you so much!
very cool. i came here after searching "gamelan music theory". i wanted to know why the music sounds so dissonant, and i think this answers my questions very well. it's interesting that the tuning of the instruments is so different to western tuning.
I had not even considered about different scales arising due to the different spectrum of the instruments. This video has given me many things to think about and I now realize how tied to the nature of strings our Western music is. It makes me wonder what would have happened if we didn't bother with Pythagoras and his strings and had focused on other instruments instead. Thank you!
Spectacular and wonderfully done video. 1,000 thanks from Niterói, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil!
I love your english speech. Your speech and intonation are clear 😊😊😊
A very complete explanation, there is a pelog scale in a wind instrument that you don't know about, namely a wooden tube flute with a harmony pelog scale 😊
This is so well made and well researched, it gives a whole new perspective of ethnic music from Asia (Indonesian music)
I think we should drop saying "ethnic" and "indigenous" music and start using "classical Indonesian/Jawanese" etc. to give it the same respect as European classical music.
@@drrodopszin yes, calling it "ethnic" music as if european musics are not also "ethnic"
by the way, there are three kind of gamelan. Javanese, Sundanese and Balinese. Sundanese also incorporate their own system. Both Javanese and Balinese gamelan only have two kind of tuning, slendro and pelog, while the Sundanese have three, slendro, pelog and degung.
Thank you I am a Javanese and have absolutely no ideas about this. I really enjoy your explanations.
All of your videos are extremely detailed and have a lot of work that have gone into them. congratulations on amazing work
This video is incredibly well made! You've broadened my understanding and opened the door to new topics for me to investigate. Thank you!
Its been my dream to see this music performed live. I thought it was just a rare and forgotten form of music but I went to Indonesia and I heard it in many places. At the airport, on the street and a few other places. And I was lucky enough to see it performed live several times. I heard it coming from a Hindu temple in Bali and they were nice enough to invite me in and watch them practice and record them. They even invited me to their next practice. So amazing. I loved Indonesia.
For someone who is not as deep in the topic it would have made sense to demonstrate with sound examples. I wanted to know more about the gamelan scales and your video is full of information but I could not understand half of it because I had no idea how it sounds, for example the differences between the two gamelan scales and how they are different from western scales.
Your video is very helpful nevertheless. Thank you very much!
This is an amazing video, it's so under viewed. Thank you for your effort, it's the most thorough explanation on UA-cam!
Excellent video thanks.
Yo awesome video! I'm trying to recreate some of the sounds of a gamelan with FM synthesis and this was super comprehensive with the tuning system. Thanks!!! :)
Hi! I watched your video, because I listened to the #IHarmU challenge and it sounded quite the same, after listening to it half an hour. Gamelan was a nice change to my ear.
I was lucky to live in Indonesia in the 80ies and have been listening to it live. Thanks for the superb job on explaining this Musik and the tuning behind it. I watched your other videos as well. So great explanations! Thanks a lot!
Wow, thanks for sharing such information, this makes a lot of sense! It leaves me wondering about the synth patches I make and how well the timbre of them could be suited to alternative tunings. This is pandoras box i fear,,, but I think this is possibly the future of music theory
Thanks for the video! That's exactly what I've been searching to begin to understand how this thing works!
Amazingly informative. Thank you so much!
This is such an incredible resource and yet it it is so under-viewed. Please keep going and find a way to sustainably post more material like this!
Thanks uploader , iam from west Java Indonesia.
Very interesting! Thank you for sharing!
This video was well made and well researched. Thank you for helping me learn!
Thankyou so much - this is brilliant
Great educational material, very interesting👌
Really appreciated the explanation, thanks a lot
i appreciate the very deep insight, thanks for the great video!
What a beautiful video; Thank you so much for making it. Subscribed :-)
Wow - what a well researched, thorough and well presented video. Thank you!
Amazing video! Thanks for covering this, so, so interesting!
this is such a great video, thank you
Thank you so much for your clear explanatiob！
Just want to say that your videos are very good and you should make more about the sethares theory of harmony because I had a hard time understanding it until I found your channel.
I fell in the music theory hole. Started with getting recommended what pop songs are not in 4/4 time signature -> every time signature explained as Nintendo Music -> Forgotten Isle - Super Mario Odyssey -> this video.
Wow, tons of info packed into this video, well done!
This is sooo helpful thanks!
Fascinating. 🖖
Very well done. Great informative video.
Thank you so much!
thank you for this video!!!
Great explanation!
the information in this video is incredibly thorough, thank you so much for making this! i'm indonesian and i used to play gamelan when i was a kid, but i had no idea about the music theory behind it, so this is very helpful.
incredible video !!!
mind blown
This is very interesing
Grazie!!!!
would be interesting if there's further study about the different kind of frequency tuning that related with the different nature of biological ear frequency response between ethnically..
as scale is same in pentatonic but maybe on each note there's a slight different in frequency value maybe between Javanese and Sudanese or even among Asian that their traditional music use pentatonic scale..
Excellent science in the vibrations and harmonics, could be better on the the theory and what is gamelan section. Not a gamelan maestro, but I've played and taught it for 12, hit me up if you'd like to update your info!.
12:28
I am pretty sure minor seventh minima corresponds to 7:4, not to 9:5. You can even see how it appears at the moment when fourth harmonic of the higher sound touches the sevenths harmonic of the lower one. And the unmarked minimas are 7:5 (the tritone one) and 7:6 (subminor third).
you are right, by construction he can only produce dips at frequency ratios between the first seven harmonics and so cannot resolve a 9/5 dip, which would be at 1017 cents anyway instead of 968.
it makes me wonder if 7/4 is the more natural minor 7th rather than 9/5, I had assumed they were just two different choices you could make, but now I wonder if a preference of 9/5 is more an artifact from a bias towards 5-limit tunings and the fact that its closer to the 12tet tuning. if the 9/5 minor seventh really is important harmonically still, then it makes me question that higher harmonics are “not important” to this analysis, because you cannot resolve certain dips without them
Lots of interesting things here, but I'd suggest that for gamelan the tuning shapes the instruments far more than the instruments shape the tuning. As someone who has played lots of different Balinese gamelans, instruments tuned to slendro can be physically virtually identical to instruments tuned to pelog. I haven't done a harmonic analysis on the instruments as you have, but this suggests to me that the maker shapes the overtones to match the dissonance curves of the desired tuning rather than the dissonance curves shaping the tuning. It is interesting either way, but is a different causality.
Absolutely can be the case. Making an instrument is more an art rather than science.
A spectral synth engine like SUMU from Madrona labs might prove interesting to use with the concepts outlined, as you can import spectra into their additive synth directly
Thank for the tip!
@@new_tonality =)
my fretless bass is staring at me as i watch this
The possibility is unlimited
Great video explaining the gamalans
I really interested on such discuss but about Sundanese tuning too
Thanks for making this video, it's really clear and well researched! I was wondering if you could explain/link the method for deriving the graph at 12:20 from the simple dissonance curve at 11:50? I understand the general idea but I'd love to be able to construct it myself in Excel so I can apply it to other non-harmonic timbres as you've done for the Saron. Thanks!
You can use the program I made for that purpose. It can be dowloaded here github.com/SevaDer14/xen-explorer
It has readme with how to run it on windows. You can export graphs as txt file and import them to Excel.
However I am currently building web version of it so it is easier to use, it will be available in several weeks and I will post a video about it
"Balinese gamelan has specific tuning peculiarities."
Please, please, please, do a video on those peculiarities, or on Balinese gamelan in general.
Sip lek
Thank you, im indonesian...
I think you say somewhere that a gamelan can only play one mode. But on a modern Balinese semaradana gamelan, you can play 3 different modes - selisir, tembung and selendro.
Those tunings are so alien to the European tradition, but those examples sound pentatonic! Why?
heavy metals, literally 😉
purgatory type beat
Hello Seva!
I am glad to tell you that your video is a great help for me, as I am currently writing a paper about balinese gendèr wayang and the musical compopsition within. The graphs you have used showing the dissonance distribution are very interesting. I have two questions for you in hopes you can help me.
- at 14:21 you have shown the dissonance curves following the example of Plomb & Levelt, but adapted to different instruments in slendro. You have mentioned getting the data from casadamusica. However I would like to find the "median" tuning for gendèr barung and the gendèr panerus. Can you explain further how you created the dissonance spectra?
- I have seen that you have created your own xentonality app. (It is so well done, congrats!) The direction of my paper is a different one, since I want to condense the basic rules of gendèr wayang into a PureData patch witch a visual and interactive landscape for learning purposes. However I would like to refer to you and your great work. So:
is it okay for you if I put a ink to your xentonality app in my paper?
Thank you for all your time and effort!
Hi! So the way I did it for the video is I recorded several samples of individual notes of one instrument from casadamusica library and analysed their spectrums in audacity. It is prone to error as you pick and choose which partials you consider impacting tuning and which not. Many partials in spectrum are just a part of attack so they dissappear from sound very quickly but audacity will still show them in the spectrum. The way I would do it now is that I would have longer samples (around 10 seconds) and look at their spectrograms. This way you can see which partials stay in the sound for the longest time, such partials should be considered as playing role in the harmony. Then note down frequencies of such partials for each note and find their relationship to fundamental (frequency_of_partial / frequency_of_fundamental). You will have a collection of ratios for each note that should be similar so you can average between them. Sometimes some notes have a partial that is not present in other notes, I just removed them to make life easier. In the end of this process you get an "average" spectrum for some instrument in the ensemble. Then I would've put it into the old version of newtonality app (xen-jmju0jgyc-sevader14.vercel.app/lab) to get the dissonance curve. Hope that helps)))
Yes absolutely you can site my work, I am very happy that it is helpful! Send the link to the paper when you publish it, would be interesting to read)) You can also use the code of the newtonality app in any way you want, it is opensource on Github.
@@new_tonality Hello Seva
So my paper is done now and I would like to send it to you. Do you prefer an e-mail or how would you like to recieve it?
Awesome! You can send it to info@newtonality.net
The fascinating thing about these "foreign", sometimes "alien" sounding tunings, is that as much as their tunings sound to us, OUR western tunings sound alien to THEM!!!
I tell my students that music is just like language, what you don't understand will sound novel and out of this world, just like Chinese would sound to an American, even though both languages are made with the same structures of the mouth!!!
Micro tonality is so fascinating!!!!!
Hello! I really enjoyed the video. I just have a question. I wanted to recreate the "gamelan metallophone sound" through synthesis. I should use additive synthesis and create beatings between the frequencies in the spectrum right? I am using a slendro pathet to write the piece, but i ve got no clue on how to recreate that dissonance, or would it jus tbe easier with an lfo? idkk synthesis' not my strong suite n this is for my exam :) plz help
Hi! I guess it depends on how close you want to get to the real thing. To get right dissonances you need correct spectrum and matching scale, no need for lfo. However in Balinese Gamelan there is this special effect name of which escapes me right now but it sounds like constant tremolo effect. That can be emulated with lfo, however real orchestra achieves this with very specific tuning and spectrum, but that would be very tricky to synthesise.
So what I would've done is use a sample of the instrument you are interested in (from the library in description) and use it to emulate just an attack portion of a sound ( the hit of the hammer) so the envelope should be very short and it should not get transposed depending on what note you play. And for sustain you can use just a sine wave (low effort) or generate a sample using newtonality.net synth based on original sample spectrum. Hope that helps))
@@new_tonality thx man u re rlly kind :))
Traditional Javanese music group named themselves after the set of gamelan they're playing. So, instead of who's playing the group is more what's playing. Maybe because of how difficult it is to change the tuning of a set. That makes each set of gamelan is considered sacred. For example "Gamelan Kyai Kanjeng". Kyai kanjeng is the name of the gamelan set, not the people playing it. But this makes it expensive and difficult for a group to perform in far away places considering how heavy a set of gamelan is and like many other traditional things, it's not drawing that much money nowadays.
I may be dumb but I don't understand modes of vibration. In what sense does the guitar string vibrate at two frequencies at the same time? Must I imagine small waves on a big wave? Or do the different types of vibration succeed each other in time? What I want to avoid is a confusion between abstract mathematical decomposition of the Fourier series and an actual physical phenomenon.
It a very good question that I dont know how to explain well)) Different frequencies are present at the same time and are largely independent from one another. Small waves on a big wave is a good picture. You can also think of a loud speaker, it can produce almost any spectrum, certanly several notes at the same time and it is a single surface. Vibrations of that surface is a sum of all individual vibratios. If you havent watched my older video "Spectrum and hearing" you can give it a shot. There is an example how several sinewaves can result in a sqare wave and how it is decomposed back into a sinewaves inside our ear.
Which country is the speaker/presenter from?
Russian living in Sweden
À 12:30, Il y a une erreur d'interprétation dans le graphique Sensory Dissonance. Ce n'est pas minor 7th (9:5) mais (7:4). En cents, (7:4) c'est 969 et (9:5) c'est 1018. Par ailleurs les deux autres notes blues, (7:6) à 267 et (7:5) à 583, sont clairement distinguées.
12:31 What's the unmarked interval just below 600 cents?
Its a 7:5 tritone, part of 7-limit Just Intonation en.xen.wiki/w/7/5
@@new_tonality Thanks!
Can I please have a link or URL for the Gamelan Bali site (7:30). Thanks.
In the description))
What do you use to analyse and draw charts?
thank you from a Javanese.
From a physics standpoint it's not technically correct to say that non-modal frequencies get attenuated out. They are not produced in the first place. When you pluck the string, the shape left by the plucking motion travels away from the point of contact as two copies traveling in opposite directions. These traveling waves then get reflected by the bridge and the nut resulting in a periodic waveform. Periodic waveforms consist of harmonics which are discrete and separated in frequency. The reason you see all frequencies in a spectrogram is because of the initial discontinuity of sound and a tradeoff between time and frequency resolution of Fourier transforms.
You are definately correct in ideal case, but I am not sure it perfectly applies to real case where stiffness of the bridge is finite and strings are not ideal. But generally speaking yes, you cannot exite non-modal frequencies on string instruments.
@@new_tonalityNot perfectly, but the stiff bridge attenuates non-modes very very quickly. I think a vibration has to go up and down at least once to count as a frequency. The rest I would classify as transients that are not well represented by Fourier or related transforms. Anyway... The video was excellent and I'm just nitpicking for fun here.
Does someone knows a text about what he is explaining but in spanish? I can understand some of the information but i guess because the name of the terms are different in spanish I miss a lot of info and it gets harder to follow 😢
In the cultural background which gamelan was invented - the Javanese people believe in harmonic composition of multiverse within layers, all of them are represented in gamelan ( "Gamel" means mastery (Based on Sanskrit language), and "Gamelan" might be intepreted as sets of disciplinaries to mastery life, performed as an ensamble).Some of composition are performed in particular time of special events & places as contemplative ceremony. Perhaps,...there's something related with "Binaural frequencies".
Sorry, but the term gamelan is most likely derived from "gambel," meaning hammer or mallet. Today, the verb "nuthuk" (to hit) is still used in reference to playing gamelan, as well as "nggamel" (ng + gamel / an). In fact, the literary term for the ensemble is not gamelan but rather "gangsa," referring to bronze.
Just discovered this style of music. Very interesting. Do you know other music genres seen as microtonal from a western perspective?
Indian, Turkish also Ancient Greek modes were not what we call greek modes now, they were seriously “out of tune” by todays standards.
@@new_tonality I have learned that the 19edo scale has worse fifths than our standard 12edo, but therefore better thirds.
An interesting solution for this would be a system of two 19edo keyboards, which are tuned a perfect fifth away from each other. This would be a very logical 38 tonestep system with and alternately longer and shorter interval, and from each tone you would be able to build a fifth and a third.
Yeah that will work. I think way back in a day before 12edo they were building pianos with split sharps to get rid of wolfs fifth. Similar thing of having 2 flavours of the same note
Back in the early days of computers I experimented with generating many alternative scales based on both arithmetic and geometric progressions. The strange thing was that after listening to the scales being repeated in a loop for a minute or so, they stopped sounding so 'dissonant'. My brain started to adapt to hearing them as normal. (maybe that's just me though, I've always enjoyed dissonance)
@@johnwellbelove148 interesting!
Do they also make these instruments tuned to chromatic (or pentatonic etc) scales?
Nothing against the traditional tuning. I just advocate for compatibility.
I think people from all over the world should be able to play in tune with each other.
I dont think so. I dont think people that are building those instruments are in full control of the tuning. The first metal plate you make is influensing the rest of tuning decisions. In that sence different orchestras are not compatible with each other, not saying other cultures)) So the entire approach is very different from Western. It is art and craftmanship from the start, much less concearn about unification.
What I saw is that there are attempts to integrate Gamelan by borrowing musical form and compositional techniques. You can find Gamelan inspired electronic music and piano performances. But that is not the same thing at all I think.
There are three gamelan! You forgot Sundanese!! And degung tuning--a special type of pelog tuning.
yes, we also have Madenda, unique from Sundanese
Are you Portuguese?
I like all the people who will watch this video
Ada indonesia coy
Please dont forget Sundanese Gamelan.
i like pelog than slendro
Lot of work went into it, but you as a video maker need to kind of demonstrate what you are talking about and make it a bit more exciting than just showing graphs and talking in a monotoneous voice.