Gamelan Son of Lion Gamelan Son of Lion Gamelan Son of Lion (GSOL) is a new-music American gamelan ensemble based in New York City. The group was founded in 1976 by Barbara Benary (who constructed most of the instruments), Philip Corner, and Daniel Goode. It is a composers' collective as well as repertory ensemble. Current composers in the group in addition to the co-founders are: David Demnitz, Laura Liben, Jody Kruskal, Lisa Karrer, Marnen Laibow-Koser, Jody Diamond, and David Simons. Gamelan Son of Lion's keyed instruments have bars constructed of iron, in the Javanese style. The group uses both the "pelog" and "slendro" tuning
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