Gamelan notation
Notation plays a relatively minor role in the oral traditions of Indonesian gamelan but, in Java and Bali, several systems of gamelan notation were devised beginning at the end of the 19th century, initially for archival purposes.
Kepatihan
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/08/Kepatihan_gamelan_notation_slendro.png/75px-Kepatihan_gamelan_notation_slendro.png)
Kepatihan is a type of cipher musical notation that was devised for the notation of the Indonesian gamelan.
History
The system was devised around 1900 at the Kepatihan (the Grand Vizier's compound) in Surakarta, and was based upon the Galin-Paris-Chevé system, imported in the nineteenth century by Christian missionaries to allow the notation of hymns.[2] It superseded several other notation systems of Javanese origin devised around the same time.
Notation
The pitches of the seven-tone
Depending on the tuning of the individual gamelan, it is often possible to hear the pitches 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6 of slendro as an anhemitonic pentatonic scale,[3] do-re-mi-sol-la. However, in the pélog system pitches are simply numbered from low to high 1–7 and there is no question of interpreting these sounds diatonically. As the pélog scale is essentially a five-note scale, the notes 4 and 7 function similarly to 'accidentals' in Western terms: a 4 may serve as a 'sharp' or raised 3 (common in patet lima or nem) or as a 'flat' or lowered 5 (usual in patet barang). Similarly 7 functions as a 'flat' 1 in patet lima or nem; 1 in patet barang may function as a 'sharp' 7, but is more often interpreted as a temporary change of pathet.
By default, kepatihan notes are assumed all to have the same
Performance practice
The kepatihan cipher system records the two fixed elements of Javanese gamelan music: the melodic framework (or balungan (literally, skeleton)) represented by numbers, and the set of punctuating gongs that define the form, represented by circles and other symbols. All of the other parts are not notated, but realized by the players at the time of performance, based on their knowledge of the instrument, their training, and the context of the performance (e.g. dance, wayang, concert, wedding, etc.), with the exception of vocal music, which may have lyrics or special melodies that are notated and provided to the singers. In some contemporary compositions, if the classical techniques are not used, more parts might be notated, or just learned by rote in rehearsals. When instruments from other traditions are combined with gamelan (e.g. violin, erhu, tap dancer, bagpipes), notation may be given to those players only if they are accustomed to it.[4]
Other systems
The description above applies to central Javanese music. In the Sundanese music of West Java, the system works in reverse, with 1 representing the highest note instead of the lowest; also a dot over a note indicates the octave below, and a dot below a note represents the octave above.
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fc/Surakarta_gamelan_notation_slendro.png/220px-Surakarta_gamelan_notation_slendro.png)
Surakarta
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7a/Western_gamelan_notation_slendro.png/220px-Western_gamelan_notation_slendro.png)
The
Yogyakarta
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8d/Yogyakarta_gamelan_notation_slendro.png/100px-Yogyakarta_gamelan_notation_slendro.png)
In Yogyakarta a ladder-like vertical staff allowed notation of the balungan by dots and also included important drum strokes.
Western
Kepatihan is widely used in
Computer fonts for Gamelan notation
Non-Unicode codepoints
The first font for the Gamelan notation was Kepatihan, a postscript font (usable on Macs) developed by American composer Carter Scholz in 1987. The font uses a non-Unicode notation that has become mainstream. It follows a "keyboard logic": the fonts should/can be used with a US-American keyboard-driver, and symbols are found at keys that make sense by the typical layout of keyboards. For example, the "lower-octave"-ciphers with "dot-below" can be accessed by the keys q-w-e-r-t-y-u because those are the keys one line "below" the number-keys.[5]
KepatihanPro is now[when?] the most widely used computer font for gamelan notation. It started life as a PostScript font "Kepatihan" developed by Matthew Arciniega in 1994; the font uses the same "keyboard logic" as Scholz's font, but has a greatly expanded character set allowing full notation of rebab, vocals, and kendhang. In 2000, Raymond Weisling converted the font to TrueType (which works on both Windows and Macs) and renamed it "KepatihanPro" (so that it can co-exist with Scholz's original font).[5] At the time Apple computers were rare in Indonesia, but the adoption of Windows-based computers for word-processing was spreading rapidly. Therefore, the availability of the font for Windows strongly boosted adoption.[6]
On 24 July 2020, the
During the early 2000s multiple simplified offsprings of the Kepatihan-font were widely used for cipher-notation of church hymns all over Indonesia, and reportedly even spread to China.
Unicode codepoints
In 2014,
See also
References
• Downloadable KepatihanPro font for Mac and IBM in the Library of the American Gamelan Institute Archived 2012-08-02 at archive.today
- ^ ISBN 0-19-588582-1.
- ISBN 0-226-78010-4(cloth) 0226780112 (paper)
- ^ Mantle Hood, The Evolution of the Javanese Gamelan, Book II
- ^ "Komposisi Baru": On Contemporary Composition in Indonesia
- ^ a b c Schwartz, Ethan. "Chains, Ladders, Ciphers, and Glyphs: The Development and Standardization of Central Javanese Gamelan Notation [MUSC 510]" (PDF).
- ^ "American Gamelan Institute Library". www.gamelan.org.
- ^ https://www.kratonjogja.id/peristiwa/110/keraton-yogyakarta-luncurkan-font-baru-untuk-notasi-gendhing-gamelan.
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(help) - ^ "Doulos SIL Cipher". SIL Language Technology. 23 April 2019.
Further reading
- Music in Central Java: Experiencing Music, Expressing Culture (2007) by Benjamin Brinner, Oxford University Press, New York, ISBN 0-19-514737-5(paper), on the functions and risks of kepatihan usage in Java.
- A Gamelan Manual: A Player's Guide to the Central Javanese Gamelan (2005) by Richard Pickvance, Jaman Mas Books, London, ISBN 0-9550295-0-3, for further details of how kepatihan is used in practice.