Bamboo
grown in west Bali reaches monstrous
proportions the likes of which are not
known elsewhere on the island. This
quirk of nature has been exploited by
local musicians with the creation of
the gamelan jegog, so named for
the remarkable jegogan that is
the sonic core of the ensemble. Individual
tubes on these may stretch to an incredible
3 meters in length, with circumferences
of 60-65 centimeters.3 They are so unwieldy
that a pair of musicians must sit on
top of the frame of the instrument in
order to play it. It requires quite
a pounding with thick rubber beaters
to coax music out of them, but what
finally emerges is a sound so powerful
that it seems to enter the body through
the stomach rather than the ears.
Jegog
is tuned to an unusual and haunting
4-tone scale which, it is speculated,
was derived from tones 2, 3, 5, and
7 of the full 7-tone pelog (see Chapter
Three). All of the instruments have
8 tubes. On the jegogan and the two
calungs tuned an octave above them,
the 4 right-hand tubes duplicate the
tones of those on the left, enabling
the players to play rolling melodies
by alternating left and right hand strokes
between notes of the same pitch. The
upper register instruments play melodies
and kotekans, including a special style
of kotekan called slanketan,
in which individual players negotiate
both polos and sangsih at once. Melodic
and rhythmic cycles are arranged into
episodic compositions, the lengths of
which can be prolonged or foreshortened
simply by repeating any of the sections
more or fewer times.
Great
crowds gather when two, three or more
jegog groups assemble in an open
field of an evening to mabarung
play competition style. At first, the
idea is to scrutinize the quality of
the instruments' sound, the musical
content and the technical skill of the
players. The opening strains of each
gamelan's music are carefully examined
for these qualities. As the evening
progresses, the groups begin to play
simultaneously in a cacophony of short,
driving ostinato patterns. The focus
then shifts to determining who can play
louder, harder and for as long as possible
without stopping or losing their place
in the melody. Shirts soak through with
sweat and fingers get ravaged by blisters
as musicians push themselves to the
absolute limits of their physical abilities
in pursuit of such distinctions. Around
2 a.m., after a trial by a jury of peers,
the exhausted players finally disperse.
Jegog
is extremely popular in Jembrana and
getting more so all the time. Any single
village may have 5 or 6 active groups.
The villages of Tegalcangkering and
Sangkaragung are among the best known.
A walk down the main street of either
of these towns at night is bound to
lead to a lively rehearsal hall or two
that is filled with the colorfully painted
jegog instruments and a group of musicians
playing them with abandon. It is worth
a trip to this little-visited part of
Bali just to hear their ecstatic music.
