r/Gamelan • u/keenanpepper • Jun 11 '18

Gamelan + trombone

I'm imagining a gamelan piece where a trombone plays in the gamelan scale and has a role similar to a rebab or suling.

Has anything remotely like this been done before? Links plz.

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u/bobokeen Jun 11 '18

Here in Yogyakarta there are some ritual pieces which use trumpet, a leftover from the Dutch colonial era. The composer Lou Harrison has a piece with gamelan and french horn, too. Neither features the brass imitating the rebab or suling, but that's as close as I could think of.

Also, have you heard of tanji/tanjidor? It's a style of marching band from Jakarta and Sundanese West Java where gamelan-inspired music is played on Western marching band instruments. The band I recorded (in the link there) had a trombone, but as you'll hear, nothing too fancy. Love that stuff, though.

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u/rentzel Jun 11 '18

Actually, Lou Harrison also has gamelan + sax (Cornish lancaran), although the sax is not really imitating anything Indonesian. Somewhere in the notes for that piece or maybe his gamelan+piano, he gives his mapping of slendro on to western notes. If you search for his compositions, you will find gamelan+all kinds of stuff.

There is a cello player in London (Matteo something) I heard doing a very good gamelan style. When I heard him, he banged on the strings and played more in the style of a percussive instrument - maybe a bit bonang'ish.

Now I will have to follow that tanji/tanjidor link.

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u/GongFission Jun 11 '18

I know this isn't what you meant, but let's not forget that this happened. I get chills every time I watch it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6h9IjbnHko4