Gamelan gong kebyar Gamelan gong kebyar Gamelan gong kebyar is a style or genre of Balinese gamelan music. "Kebyar" means "the process of flowering", and refers to the explosive changes in tempo and dynamics characteristic of the style. It is the most popular form of gamelan in Bali, and its best known musical export. Gong kebyar music is based on a five-tone scale called "pelog selisir" (tones 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6 of the 7-tone pelog scale), and is characterized by brilliant sounds, syncopations, sudden and gradual changes in sound colour, dynamics, tempo and articulation, and complex, complementary interlocking melodic and rhythmic
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