Gong
 

Here is something that is so rare that it is probably the only one in existence.

It is part of a musical instrument from a minor court in Central Jawa. I will not name the court.

This particular court was prone to create gamelan gongs (orchestras) using various types of materials for the instruments. This was pre-WWII, in the colonial days.

After WWII the following generations failed very, very badly to maintain their heritage and most of the unusual musical instruments, as well as carriages and a whole heap of other things fell into disrepair and slowly rotted and rusted away.

This little banana shaped instrument was saved from turning into rust.

It would have been a note from a single instrument of the metallophone type, and played by striking with a mallet.

Never seen something similar, thank you for sharing! :)

I can see this as part of a gamelan. Probably has a great tone too since it is of watered steel.

What a shame that they forgot their heritage.

Thank you for this Alan.

An absolutely beautiful object, thank you Alan for posting this and the others! A real artwork for itself with a function of a musical instrument - incredible.

It isn't a traditional classical javanese gamelan instrument. The handle perhaps sugests a use while beeing on the move.

Fascinating instrument

Fantastic Alan. As you may know i am something of a percussionist and i find this particular object most interesting. I would love to hear its sound. Thanks so much for posting ths. :)

The note of this little gong is probably a G, I have never seen how it was mounted, but I was told that it was suspended in a frame, I'm guessing that the complete instrument perhaps performed the function of the slenthem or saron, that is, it would have been used to play the basic melody.

The tonal quality is rather dull, it has no brilliance like that to be found in a good bronze gong. Perhaps this is a reason for permitting this pamor orchestra to fall into decay.

Yes, Gustav, its not a normal gamelan instrument, but this particular court had a number of orchestras that were made in non-traditional forms, for instance, they had one orchestra that was made in France from blue glass, some of the instruments in this orchestra were tuned by adding water to a blue glass container . The last time I saw this blue glass orchestra was about 30 years ago, it was thrown into the corner of a storage shed and covered in filth and dust, and the roof of the shed itself was collapsing with a big sagging hole. In 1974 it was still functional and I heard it played --- not in performance, but sufficiently to know that it had a clear, brilliant sparkling tone, in performance it would have been beautiful, well, at least to my ear it would have been. But it is lost now.

Lovely piece Alan, thank you for posting this.

I have a great interest in non-weapon objects made of pattern-welded or even crucible steel.

Emanuel

Alan, that thing is wonderful. Is it possible to hear it, can this site host an mp3, or could you post one elsewhere? I am really interested in the anthropology and archaeology of instruments, like lurs of the bronze age or the massive wooden slit drums of the various ancient Mesoamericans.

I have no idea how I could make the sound available. Sorry.

I have described as near as I can what it sounds like in an earlier post. I can assure you it is not a beautiful sound.

I wonder if it is a case of eye (or ear) of the beholder? I happen to like gamelan, I saw a wonderful performance in San Francisco and it was really thrilling, but the girl I was with thought it was so grating she kept asking to leave.

No, I don't think that my less than thrilling assessment of the tone of that gong is a matter of perception.

I've played a number of musical instruments during my lifetime --- cornet, trumpet, flutes, harp --- still play harp, and I've heard one hell of a lot of gamelan, some I like, some I don't like, but overall I'd rather listen to Ry Cooder.

That little gong is a work of art, its rare, but musically it ain't going nowhere.

Gorgeous. Thanks, Alan. :)