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sundanese multi-laras tunings

🔗Daniel Wolf <DJWOLF_MATERIAL@xxxxxxxxxx.xxxx>

2/15/1999 1:14:50 PM

Andrew Weintraub's 1997 UCB dissertation includes some extended description
of 'multi-laras' gamelan phenomenon in Sunda. Weintraub invented the term
'multi-laras' (there is no local term in use) to describe the gamelan which
were designed and tuned to play in more than one tone system. The earlier
experiments of Kusumadinata along these lines (which received much
attention from Jaap Kunst, and Bernhard Suryabrata, who was an important
source for Rothenberg) remained essential academic, if prestigious
exercises, and need to be evaluated cautiously. However, in recent years,
multi-laras gamelan have been put to notable use, developed largely by the
dalang and gamelan tuner/craftsman Pa Sapa'at. The tunings used in these
ensembles are worth listening to, if only to demonstrate the extents and
limits of tone system identity in Sunda.

Weintraub describes the tuning of the saron from the multi-laras gamelan
'L.S. Galihpakuan' (later renamed 'Ki Barong'). The saron has a tuning with
10 pitches per octave, extended in range to include 3 octave duplications.
The octave is numbered below, following Sundanese convention, in descending
pitch:

key # salendro pitch # approximate Hz approximate cents
9 4 1139 1436
10 1096 1370
1 5 994 1200
2 939 1096
3 1 855 939
4 798 820
5 2 751 715
6 716 633
7 3 648 459
8 595 311
9 4 566 227
10 544 157
11 5 497 0

Seven five-tone _laras_ are used on these instruments, in addition to
occasional parallel use of more than one _laras_:

salendro: 11 - 9 - 7 - 5 - 3 - 1 - 9
sorog pelog degung: 10 - 9 - 6 - 4 - 3 - 10 - 9
pelog degung: 10 - 9 - 7 - 4 - 3 - 10 - 9
pelog jawar: 10 - 8 - 7 - 4 - 3 - 10
mataram: 10 - 9 - 6 - 5 - 3 - 10 - 9
liwung: 10 - 8 - 6 - 4 - 3 - 10
sorog pelog jawar: 8 - 7 - 4 - 3 - 2