Angklung
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Angklung is a musical instrument made out of two bamboo tubes attached to a bamboo frame. The tubes are carved so that they have a resonant pitch when struck. The two tubes are tuned to octaves. The base of the frame is held with one hand while the other hand shakes the instrument rapidly from side to side. This causes a rapidly repeating note to sound. Thus each of three or more angklung performers in an ensemble will play just one note and together complete melodies are produced. Angklung is popular throughout Southeast Asia, but originated from Indonesia.
Angklung got more international attention when in 1938 Daeng Soetigna, from Bandung - West Java, expanded the angklung notations not only to play traditional pélog or sléndro scales, but also diatonic scale. Since then, angklung is often played together with other western music instruments in an orchestra. One of the first well-known performances of angklung in an orchestra was during the Bandung Conference in 1955. A few years later, Udjo Ngalagena, a student of Daeng Soetigna, opened his "Saung Angklung" (Angklung's House) in 1966 as centre of its development.
In Bali, Indonesia, an ensemble of angklung is called gamelan angklung (anklung). The instruments are tuned to a 5-tone slendro scale, though actually most ensembles use a four-tone mode of the five-tone scale (an exception would be five-tone angklung from the north of Bali, as researched by Ruby Ornstein in the 1960s.) While the ensemble gets its name from the bamboo shakers, these days most compositions for Gamelan Angklung do not use them. An ensemble of mostly bronze metallophones is used instead.
Further reading
- Balinese Music (1991) by Michael Tenzer Periplus/University of Washington Press .
- [Can You Shake It? The Angklung of Southeast Asia] by Prof. Kuo-Huang Han, School of Music, Northern Illinois University
External links
- [Gamelan Sekar Jaya (excerpt about angklung] from Michael Tenzer's book Balinese Music)
- [Musical sample] composed by I Nyoman Windha
- [Saung Angklung Udjo]
- [Angklung Group in Bandung, Indonesia]
- [Angklung Group in Hamburg, Germany]
- [Kolintang (Indonesian commercial site selling Sundanese agklung)]
- [Jingle Bells on Angklung played by 5 children on their Graduation Day from Kindergarten]
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