Gangsa

The same word is used to identify an ensemble of shallow hand-held gongs (one per musician) and to refer to the individual gongs as well in the traditional music of the Cordilleran Igorot peoples of Northern Luzon. Most performances are used to accompany dance. There is no standard tuning, and there are several methods of holding and addressing these gongs.

Contextual Associations

The gangsa is a metallophone idiophone of the Balinese people of Bali, Indonesia. It is a melodic instrument that is part of a Balinese gamelan gong kebyar. Traditionally, a single gamelan craftsman's workshop would construct, upon commission, a unified and uniquely tuned set of bronze instruments, numbering twenty or more, the sum total of which would constitute a gamelan gong kebyar. Sometime in the latter half of the 20th century, Balinese gamelan craftsmen realized there was a market, consisting mostly of foreign gamelan enthusiasts, interested in procuring single instruments. The gangsa pictured here is a product of this market niche. In a complete Balinese gamelan gong kebyar there would be, typically, nine gangsa of three different sizes and pitch registers called, from the largest and lowest-pitched to the smallest and highest-pitched: ugal, pemade, and kantilan. Each of these varieties of gangsa has ten keys suspended over tuned-bamboo resonators and are tuned to a pentatonic scale over the range of two octaves. The gangsa pictured here would, in the context of a full gamelan gong kebyar, be called a pemade. The wood casings of all gamelan gong kebyar instruments are typically ornately carved and often painted in vibrant shades of red and gold. Although not painted, the gangsa pictured here displays robust and deep carving on its surfaces consisting of stylized vegetation motifs (see detail #1) also found throughout the island of Bali on Hindu temples and other traditional architecture. Dating back to only the 1910s, the gamelan gong kebyar tradition has become the most iconic of Bali's many types of sacred and secular gamelan traditions. Sets are found in many villages and neighborhoods of towns and cities, manned by musicians from all walks of life. They are performed for religious celebrations, at arts schools and conservatories, for competitions, and at tourist venues, playing both instrumental compositions and for the accompaniment of dances.