Gamelan construction of musical instruments, as well as scheduling performances at the court. In the palaces of Java the oldest known ensembles, Gamelan "Munggang" and "Gamelan Kodok Ngorek", are apparently from the 12th century. These formed the basis of a "loud style" of music. In contrast, a "soft style" developed out of the "kemanak" tradition and is related to the traditions of singing Javanese poetry, in a manner often believed to be similar to the chorus that accompanies the modern "bedhaya" dance. In the 17th century, these loud and soft styles mixed, and to a large extent the variety of modern
Gamelan seven notes to the octave, with uneven intervals, usually played in five note subsets of the seven-tone collection. A full gamelan will include a set of instruments in each tuning, and classically only one tuning is used at a time. The precise tuning used differs from ensemble to ensemble, and gives each ensemble its own particular flavour. A set of gamelan instruments will be tuned to the same set of notes, but the tuning will vary from one gamelan to the next, including variations in the size of intervals. Colin McPhee , a Canadian composer who spent much time in