Abstract
The gamelan “orchestras” of Central Java in Indonesia are one of the great musical traditions. The gamelan consists of a large family of nonharmonic metallophones that are tuned to either the five note slendro or the seven tone pelog scales. Neither scale lies close to the familiar 12-tet. The nonharmonic spectra of certain instruments of the gamelan are related to the unusual intervals of the pelog and slendro scales in much the same way that the harmonic spectra of instruments in the Western tradition is related to the Western diatonic scale.
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© 1998 Springer-Verlag London
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Sethares, W.A. (1998). The Gamelan. In: Tuning, Timbre, Spectrum, Scale. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-4177-8_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-4177-8_8
Publisher Name: Springer, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-4471-4176-1
Online ISBN: 978-1-4471-4177-8
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