Slendro (called salendro by the Sundanese) is a pentatonic scale, one of the two most common scales (laras) used in Indonesian gamelan music, the other being pélog. Its five pitches are roughly equally spaced within the octave. Map showing West Java in Indonesia West Java (Jawa Barat) is a province of Indonesia, located on the island of Java. ... In music, a pentatonic scale is a scale with five notes per octave. ... In music, a scale is a set of musical notes that provides material for part or all of a musical work. ... Gamelan - Indonesian Embassy in Canberra A gamelan is a kind of musical ensemble of Indonesian origin typically featuring a variety of instruments such as metallophones, xylophones, drums, and gongs; bamboo flutes, bowed and plucked strings, and vocalists may also be included. ... Pelog is one of the two essential scales of Gamelan music native to Bali and Java, in Indonesia. ...

Tuning

From one region of Indonesia to another the slendro scale often varies widely. The amount of variation also varies from region to region. For example, Slendro in Central Java varies much less from gamelan to gamelan than it does in Bali, where ensembles from the same village may be tuned very differently. [[|right|frame|Map of Central Java province within Indonesia]] Central Java (Indonesian: Jawa Tengah) is a province of Indonesia. ... This is the current Indonesian Collaboration of the week. ...

As in pelog, although the intervals vary from one gamelan to the next, the intervals between notes in a scale are very close to identical for different instruments within the same gamelan. It is common in Balinese gamelan that instruments are played in pairs which are tuned slightly apart so as to produce interference beating which are ideally at a consistent speed for all pairs of notes in all registers. It is thought that this contributes to the very "busy" and "shimmering" sound of gamelan ensembles. In the religious ceremonies that contain Gamelan, these interference beats are meant to give the listener a feeling of a god's presence or a stepping stone to a meditative state. In acoustics, a beat is an interference between two sounds of slightly different frequencies, perceived as periodic variations in volume whose rate is the difference between the two frequencies. ...

For the instruments that do not need fixed pitches (such as suling and rebab) and the voice, other pitches are sometimes inserted into the scale. The Sundanese musicologist/teacher R. Machjar Angga Kusumadinata identified 17 vocal pitches used in slendro.^[1] These microtonal adjustments bear some similarity to Indian śruti. Suling Suling is an Indonesian flute made out of bamboo used in gamelan ensembles. ... The rebab (also rebap, rabab, rababah, al-rababa) is a bowed string instrument which originated in Afghanistan, no later than the 8th century, and was spread via Islamic trading routes over much of North Africa, the Middle East, parts of Europe, and the Far East. ... Microtonal music is music using microtones -- intervals of less than a semitone, or as Charles Ives put it, the notes between the cracks of the piano. ... The Å›ruti (Sanskrit thing heard, sound) is the smallest interval of the tuning system of Indian classical music. ...

Note names

The notes of the slendro scale can be designated in different ways; one common way is the use of numbers (often called by their names in Javanese, especially in a shortened form. An older set uses names derived from parts of the body. Notice that both systems have the same designations for 5 and 6. There is no 4; possibly this is because it appears as an unusual tone in pelog and is not used when modulating between the systems. The Javanese language is the spoken language of the people in the central and eastern part of the island of Java, in Indonesia. ...

The name barang is also sometimes used for 1 in slendro (it is the usual name for 7 in pelog); the octave is then designated as barang alit.

Connotations

For experienced participants in gamelan music, the pelog and slendro scales each have a particular feeling, related to the rituals and circumstances in which the scale is used. For example, in Bali, slendro is felt to have a sad sound because it is used as the tuning of gamelan angklung, the traditional ensemble for cremation ceremonies. This is the current Indonesian Collaboration of the week. ... Angklung is a style of gamelan found primarily in Bali, Indonesia. ... The crematorium at Haycombe Cemetery, Bath, England. ...

The connotation also depends on the pathet (roughly, the mode) used. There are three slendro pathet used in Javanese gamelan, nem, sanga, and manyura. That is the order in which they appear in a wayang performance, which historically used only slendro pathet. Consequently, they have the implications of where they appear in the evening. The pathet (Javanese spelling; also patet) is an organizing concept in gamelan music. ... Wayang is an Indonesian word for theater. ...

Origin

The origin of the slendro scale is unknown. It is similar to scales used in Indian and Chinese music as well as other areas of Asia and they all may have a common origin. This is very difficult if not impossible to determine.

Even within Indonesia it is difficult to determine the evolution of scales. For example, scales used in Banyuwangi, at the eastern tip of Java, are very similar to scales used in Jembrana, a short distance away on Bali. There is probably no way to document which region influenced the other, or if they both evolved together. The Regency of Banyuwangi is located at the easternmost end of the island of Java, and it is a very strategic area for one who wants to go to Bali. ... Jembrana is a regency (kabupaten) of Bali, Indonesia. ...

Reference

1. ^ R. Machjar Angga Kusumadinata. Ringkěsan Pangawikan Riněnggaswara. Jakarta: Noordhoff-Kollff, c. 1950, page 17. Cited in Mantle Hood. The Nuclear Theme as a Determinant of Pathet in Javanese Music. New York: Da Capo, 1977.