Gamelan gong gede Gamelan gong gede Gamelan gong gede, meaning "gamelan with the large gongs", is a form of the ceremonial gamelan music of Bali, dating from the court society of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, associated historically with public ceremonies and special occasions such as temple festivals. Usually performed by a temple orchestra of over forty musicians, music written for the gong gede is sedate and graceful, following an andante tempo. It fluctuates in cycles, one fast, one slow, one loud, and one soft. The beat is provided by the largest gong. During their colonization of Bali in the late nineteenth century,
American gamelan East and West coasts. Following Murphy's model was Barbara Benary, who built the instruments still used today for Gamelan Son of Lion. On the West coast, the airline industry made aluminum affordable, and this became the material of choice for several gamelan builders. Daniel Schmidt, a composer-builder, built an ensemble called "The Berkeley Gamelan" (independent of the University of California, Berkeley) as well as the set of instruments that would develop into Gamelan Pacifica in Seattle. Paul Dresher also used aluminum. Harrison worked with John Cage in the 40s on percussion compositions with found metal objects, resulting in alternate scaled