[sdiy] Linear detuning and Gamelan

[dougall]

> Oh, and this is not to mention that every gamelan I've played in England,
> Java or Bali has been tuned to a different absolute scale and set of
> intervals/beat frequencies between the notes!  There is no standard in this
> area at all.

I was in Indonesia about a month ago and watched a local musician
tuning his Bonang Barung (bowl gongs).  The whole process looked very
random to the untrained eye.  He would play through the all the notes,
swap a couple of the bowls (Bonangs?) and then play through them all
again.  Every so often he would pick one out and bash it with a hammer
then place it back with the others and start playing and swapping
again.  Sometimes if the hammer was not enough he would bash the bowl
against the trunk of a palm tree.  He did this for about 20 mins
before he started playing.