American Gamelan Institute for both new and traditional gamelan music, scholarly writings on gamelan, as well as audio and video recordings. Its founder and director is the composer and gamelan musician Jody Diamond. The organization's scope includes gamelan music as practiced in Indonesia as well as around the world. The journal Balungan was started in 1984 to encourage a dialog between artists and scholars involved in gamelan. Current and back issues of "Balungan" are on line, and many libraries have subscriptions. The sixteenth issue was printed in December 2010. The Institute also has a podcast, called "Gongcast" and hosts directories of gamelan groups
Gamelan in Central Javanese villages. Gamelan is also related to the Filipino "kulintang" ensemble. The variety of gamelan can befound in over 25 countries outside Indonesia, presenting both traditional and experimental repertoire. In oral Javanese culture distinctions are made between complete or incomplete, archaic and modern, and large standard and small village gamelan. The various archaic ensembles are distinguished by their unique combinations of instruments and possession of obsolete instruments such as the bell-tree ("byong") in the 3-toned "gamelan kodhok ngorek". Regionally variable village gamelan are often distinguished from standard gamelan (which have the "rebab" as the main melodic instrument) by