American gamelan materials including aluminum, tin cans, car hubcaps, steel, antique milk-strainers, etc. "American gamelan" may also describe the original music of American ensembles working with traditional instruments. Dennis Murphy is often credited as being the first American to build instruments modeled on those of the Javanese gamelan, circa 1960. This work led to his doctoral thesis at Wesleyan University, entitled "The Autochthonous American Gamelan". Murphy started a gamelan group with his instruments at Goddard College in Vermont in 1967; that group later became the community-based Plainfield Village Gamelan. There have been other American builders of gamelan as well, on both the
Gamelan Sekaten in the development of the gamelan because it marked the change from the use of the "bonang" as the most important melody instrument, as it is in the earlier "Munggang" and "Kodokngorek" ensembles, to "leading" the ensemble by playing the pitches in anticipating patterns. In the ensemble, players sit on opposite sides of the "bonang", which may have led to the modern configuration of pots, which is aimed at making octaves comfortable. Gamelan Sekaten The Gamelan Sekaten (or Sekati) is a ceremonial gamelan (musical ensemble) from central Java, Indonesia, played during the annual "Sekaten" festival. The word ""sekaten"" itself is