Guide to Sundanese Music - Free EBooks Library

4.1 DEGUNG KAWIH
Chapter 4
PLAYING GAMELAN DEGUNG
Degung kawih songs are accompanied by sekar alit. A good juru kawih (female
vocalist) knows dozens of melodies (or kawih) that will fit with a given
sekar alit. Broadly speaking, sekar alit work in much the same way on
gamelan degung as they do on gamelan salendro/pelog. However, because of the
smaller numbers, and the rather different nature of gamelan degung
instruments, there are certain differences.
4 • 1 ' 1 Bonang in degung kawih: kemprangan, cacagan. susulan, caruk
In gamelan degung, the lead instrument is generally the bonang, rather than
the saron. The pangkat (introductory phrase) is usually played by the bonang
in pieces of moderate pace (ie the majority in degung kawih). The pangkat is
played by the saron in faster pieces.
The basis of bonang playing in degung kawih is kemprangan (off-beat octaves).
Despite the different lay-out of the bonang degung (ie in a single row) this
works exactly as in gamelan salendro. This is often varied with added right
hand notes, in the style known as cacagan, in which the hands go right-bothright
(rest) right-both-right ...
Thus, for instance, the sekar alit Cirebonan, which has the patokan
(framework) 2 (3) 2 (5) with pancer 1, could be played thus:
Cirebonan 1 wilet
either kemprangan
P
bonang LH 5
RH 5
jengglong
//
3
3
pangkat bonang:
2
65
2 2 3 3 2 2 3
2 2 3 3 2 2 3
P
i
1
3
3
5
5