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 are "Kyai Guntur Madu" and "Kyai Guntur Sari". According to Benjamin Brinner, the "gamelan sekaten", exists in halves: divided between the two rival courts in Surakarta and Yogyakorta, each court had a matching second half made. The pitches of the "Sekaten" ensemble is in "pelog", but lower than standard ensembles today. According to Benjamin Brinner it is the lowest pitched, largest, and loudest ensemble in Java. In recent times the gamelan at ISI Surakarta commissioned a special "Sekaten" set that would be compatible with their other gamelan, to be used in new experimental compositions. Historically, the "Sekaten" ensemble is notable