Sekar Suling (2009)
Sundanese gamelan degung (eight musicians); ca. 4 min.
I wrote this composition for Toronto's Evergreen Club Contemporary Gamelan. It's a showpiece for the suling (an Indonesian bamboo flute) with Sundanese gamelan. For this piece, I have added a sixth sorog note to the five-note pelog scale, and occasionally make brief use of a seventh note in the suling part only.
While there are some references to Sundanese musical style, in its formal structure this is a thoroughly Western composition. As well, the placement of the suling “front and centre” as a soloist is a divergence from the instrument’s ornamental role in traditional Sundanese music.
LISTEN ...
I wrote this composition for Toronto's Evergreen Club Contemporary Gamelan. It's a showpiece for the suling (an Indonesian bamboo flute) with Sundanese gamelan. For this piece, I have added a sixth sorog note to the five-note pelog scale, and occasionally make brief use of a seventh note in the suling part only.
While there are some references to Sundanese musical style, in its formal structure this is a thoroughly Western composition. As well, the placement of the suling “front and centre” as a soloist is a divergence from the instrument’s ornamental role in traditional Sundanese music.
LISTEN ...
