GSJ Ensembles
Gamelan Joged
The Balinese gamelans that use bamboo tubes or slats rather than bronze slabs for keys are the true folk music of Bali, in the sense that they were never courtly arts. This in no way implies, however, that the music made on them is in any way simpler or less rigorous in construction. It is only that the occasions on which they are played are more often impromptu and meant mostly to be for fun and diversion. Bamboo music is very much on an earthly plane, refreshingly free of any pretenses to sublimity.
Tingklik is the most common name for a bamboo instrument made of a series of tubes tuned to a scale and strung up in ascending order in a simple frame. Most any Balinese with a little acquired expertise could easily construct one by just using materials found growing in his or her backyard; doubtless the origin of the tingklik traces to some leisurely tinkerers and their serendipitous experimentations in at-home bamboo laboratories. Long before anyone had the idea of combining groups of such instruments into ensembles, people were improvising melodies on them in their spare time. From these modest beginnings, a world of music grew.
Most tingklik are tuned to a slendro scale and played with two spindly, rubber-tipped mallets. Bamboo has virtually no sustaining resonance on its own and emits a very dry sound when struck, so the tubes need not be damped between tones like bronze keys. This makes tingklik easier to play than gender, but coordination between left and right hands is still a problem. Pairs of tingkliks play melody and kotekan in a kind of gender wayang style when heard, as they often are, in hotels and restaurants. The sweet and unobtrusive charm of their music, often augmented with a melodious suling or two, has a great appeal for many visitors to Bali.
A group of four or more tingkliks with added flutes, drums and an ersatz gong made by hanging an enormous bamboo key (metal is sometimes used) over a resonator is called gamelan joged bumbung, or just gamelan joged for short. It is primarily used as an accompaniment for the joged dance, wherein a single girl dancer taunts male members of the audience into joining her in a flirtatious and often hilarious improvised duet. The men are not necessarily trained dancers, but they are expected to sink or swim. This creates a little embarrassment sometimes, but more often than not just gales and gales of good-natured laughter.
The origins of gamelan joged melodies are usually a mystery, even to the musicians who play them. Some come from popular songs; others have been composed by the players themselves. For tingklik duets and quartets some pieces have been appropriated directly from gamelan gender wayang. Most have anonymous origins, having emerged somewhere along the path of the music’s development.
Locating good joged ensembles is difficult, as they seem to form and disband as quickly as their instruments can be constructed or disassembled. There are famous ones near the city of Gianyar and in Sanur that are often in demand to provide an evening’s entertainment. Joged groups are frequently engaged by families undertaking a private ceremony that wish to repay the members of their village for the substantial amount of community labor that is always donated on such occasions.
In northern and western Bali, they take their gamelan joged very seriously. In fact western Bali is the only part of the island that perhaps cares a bit more for bamboo music than it does for bronze. Expanded ensembles made from larger and more richly sonorous bamboo play music for joged dancers, pieces transplanted from the kebyar repertoire, and indigenous instrumental works with phenomenal brilliance and clarity. This style of joged is best heard in Jembrana at Tegalcangkering, in Tabanan at Luwus, and in Buleleng at Sangsit.