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NEW:NEW:NEW:
>Art & Culture
of Japan

>Mangas

MUSIC DURING THE PERFORMANCE

The traditional gamelan orchestra accompanies the dalang, who manipulates the puppets  from behind on the same side of the screen, providing a nearly continuous music appropriate to each scene.

Though the dalang never looks back at them, and nearly never says a world to the players, each of them seems to know precisely what to do.

At the begining of the show, the rabab, on instruction of the dalang open the play, which gives the signal to the attendance to stop chatting and start listening.

The gamelan orchestra consists of a large array of bronze and percussion instruments which are of two different tunings, quite different in character, named slendro and pelog.

There are two musicians in the group who have important functions in the unspoken communication between the dalang and the musicians, the drummer and the gender player.

The ways in which the dalang communicates his intentions to the gamelan players is a whole study in itself in the area of the non-verbal communication.

the gamelan orchestra