Wooden or bamboo Xylophone of Indonesia and Malaysia. In Central Java, it is about 120 cm long and consists of 17 to 23 wooden keys laid stepwise in pitch order on padded cloth over a wood trough and kept in place by metal pins (fig.1). The range of the instrument varies from two and a half to more than three octaves. It is played with both hands using two disc-shaped padded mallets. The playing style has a high density and elaborate melodic embellishments.
A complete Javanese gamelan (gamelan seprangkat) has three gambang, tuned to the anhemitonic pentatonic sléndro, the hemitonic pentatonic pélog bem scale (based on tones 1, 2, 3, 5 and 6) and the hemitonic pentatonic pélog barang scale (based on tones 2, 3, 5, 6 and 7); see Mode, §V, 4 (ii). Some gamelan have only one pélog gambang with ‘extra’ keys for substitution purposes. Each gambang ranges from pitch 6 of the second octave (62) to pitch 5 of the sixth octave of the gamelan (56).
An archaic multi-octave variety, the gambang gangsa, has bronze keys (gangsa: ‘bronze’). It is found in both Yogyakarta and Surakarta courts but is rarely played; it has been replaced in the gamelan by the single-octave saron. A rustic bamboo-key version is found in some areas; in West Java it consists of 20 keys and has a range of four octaves.
In Bali, four wooden 14-key gambang combine with a pir of seven-key metallophones in the gamelan gambang. Each gambang has a trough resonator and is played with two forked mallets, designed to strike pitches an octave apart. The keys are not placed in sequential order but are arranged to enable elaborate interlocking (kotekan) between the four players (fig.2). A five-key gambang is found in the east coast area of North Sumatra. It is played by two women, one being the leader (pamulu) and the other the follower (panirka), and was formerly used at weddings and by girls calling their fiancés. The gambang tali of West Malaysia is a wooden or bamboo xylophone, played with a wooden beater. In Sabah, the gambang is a small xylophone made of wood or bamboo.
J. Kunst: De toonkunst van Java (The Hague, 1934; Eng. trans., rev. 2/1949 as Music in Java, enlarged 3/1973 by E.L. Heins)
C. McPhee: Music in Bali (New Haven, CT, 1966/R)
M. Kartomi: The Angkola People of Sumatra, BM 30L 2568 (1983), disc notes
HARDJA SUSILO, ERNST HEINS, MARGARET J. KARTOMI/R