Indonesia / Bali

Fieldwork in North Bali in 1999 on the gender wayang, the metallophone music of the shadow-puppet theatre.

Why gender plates sound so rich

The bronze plates of the Balinese gender are trapezoids, not rectangles. This shape adds vibration modes that a rectangular bar would not have, and laser interferometry shows that the plate needs a long time to settle into its final sound.

A Balinese gender wayang.
A Balinese gender wayang.
Simulated vibration patterns of a trapezoid gender plate, including its additional modes.
Simulated vibration patterns of a trapezoid gender plate, including its additional modes.
Gender wayang, slendro tuning.

Gamelan orchestras compared by machine learning

Recordings of gamelan orchestras in Java, Bali, Germany and New Zealand were mapped by their timbre and performance features. The map groups Indonesian and Western-based ensembles and shows where they differ.

A self-organising map of gamelan orchestras by timbre.
A self-organising map of gamelan orchestras by timbre.

Literature

Bader, R.: Long radiation initial transient time (RITT) laser interferometry measurements of a Balinese gender bronze plate. Proc. Mtgs. Acoust. 49, 035017, 2022.

Bader, R.: Additional modes in a Balinese gender plate due to its trapezoid shape. In: Concepts, Experiments, and Fieldwork, Peter Lang 2009, 95-112.

Wendt, G. & Bader, R.: Analysis and Perception of Javanese Gamelan Tunings. In: Computational Phonogram Archiving, Springer 2019, 129-144.

Linke, S., Wendt, G. & Bader, R.: Clustering of Indonesian and Western Gamelan Orchestras through Machine Learning of Performance Parameters. arXiv:2409.03713, 2024.