Teruna Jaya (gamelan animated graphical score)

May 17, 2024 4:21 PM

Stephen Malinowski is a YouTuber who makes animated scores, usually of Bach's music, but today I discovered something completely different: his spectacular score for Teruna Jaya, a classic of Balinese gamelan music (12 min.).

He collaborated with Augustine Esterhammer-Fic, who published his own video, the story of this multi-year dream project (17 min.). It includes a backgrounder on gamelan music, an analysis of Teruna Jaya, and a description of his process of transcribing the piece to MIDI, from which Malinowski created the animation.

posted by mpark (10 comments total)

I hope people enjoy the music, visuals, and story, but if gamelan music isn't your thing, please feel free to move on without comment.
posted by mpark at 4:22 PM on May 17 [3 favorites]

Thank you! 12 minutes of both visual and auditory bliss.
posted by njohnson23 at 5:28 PM on May 17 [1 favorite]

What a fascinating way to present music! I know nothing about these instruments or this musical form, but this visual presentation really helped me understand it better than just listening to it would have been. Thanks for posting!
posted by hippybear at 6:45 PM on May 17 [3 favorites]

I love the small amount of Gamelan I have heard. One I can remember was known as "the Monkey Song" or "Ketjak" (I believe... this is a fuzzy memory). It included vocal parts. I don't know much about it, but my brother had a CD of Gamelan decades ago. So cool to see it visualized like this. I always found it necessary to really pay attention to the sounds, but when you really listen, it's absolutely brilliant music!
posted by SoberHighland at 6:54 AM on May 18 [1 favorite]

(Kecak)

I’ve watched a lot of Gamelan, mostly with the accompanying dancers. Classic Javanese gamelan is much slower paced and they consider the Balinese tempo raucous and uncouth but it’s so much more fun to watch. However my absolute favorite is Jegog from western Bali, the bamboo gamelan—no brass—made up of different sizes of bamboo lashed together like a xylophone from, say 2” in diameter to massive elephant bamboo pieces so big that the players sit on top of them to play. The result is a deep undertone hum that you can feel vibrating in your body. By the end, they are literally whaling away hitting that the whole instrument sways.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 7:44 AM on May 18 [2 favorites]

I took Kekak, suling and Balinese music history at CalArts and participated in the Monkey Chant performance at graduation in 1995. It was so fun. I'm so glad it counted for choir credit that semester. This takes me back.
posted by cherryflute at 7:44 AM on May 18 [2 favorites]

this is amazing and captures so well sheer awe gamelan inspires. I also recalled this (now quite retro looking) visualisation of gamelan I came across years ago, glad to see it's still online.
posted by malilan at 9:57 AM on May 18 [4 favorites]

@malilan Thanks for that link!
posted by mpark at 10:04 AM on May 18

This is great, both the music and the visuals. I'm used to the slower javanese gamelan, so this feels very rambunctious and bull-in-the-china-shop in a fun way.
posted by umbú at 10:31 AM on May 18 [1 favorite]

Thank you! I've heard/watched Balinese gamelan and really appreciated the second link's explanations and descriptions of what was going on.
posted by quiet wanderer at 8:08 PM on May 19 [1 favorite]