In year 7 at my school, there takes place a gamelan workshop each year. Has anyone else ever participated in such music?

I take it no one has...

I haven't but I know they were doing workshops at St Lukes on Old St in London last year, and I was tempted.

You could Google them and see if they are still doing them?? Looks like fun.

Do you know anything about gamelan...it is very structured underneath!

I have no idea what gamelan is

Here's one...its a sort of "Gong band"



Usually Javenese or in that area

Gamelan
An Indonesian orchestra consisting of bowed stringed instruments, flutes, and a great variety of percussion instruments such as bamboo xylophones, wooden or metal chimes, and gongs.

Walking Dictionary

Hmmm... I understood gamelan to be all percussion. The gamelan may be part of larger emsemble though I guess.

Yes - one school I taught at had it as a major project, but it was using ordinary pitched percussion rather than gongs so probably not quite the same thing.


Liz

I had to play some gamelan as part of my music lesson when I was in year 7. Some of the music is quite exciting but it's very different to western music. I found it interesting but I wouldn't do it all over again.

I thought that too.

The topic was introduced as The Music of Java and Bali.

Yes, I've played a Gamelan. It's lots of fun, we hired one at our school. When I did GCSE music we used it, just for fun and to get away from coursework!

Debussy was very fascinated when he first heard the Gamelan at the Paris Exposition of 1889. It is lovely!

problem with gamalan is it doesn't use western tuning, and that can cause a headache or two plus we had a guy who was really protective of the instruments and he was alot of the time

I liked it, we did it at a workshop last year. I'd had a particularly stressful morning and I played with the Gamelan in the afternoon, a lady came in from the Halle, and it was quite relaxing. We performed it in the school concert that night and it was definitely worth it for the mixed respose!