Gamelan notation ladder-like vertical staff allowed notation of the balungan by dots and also included important drum strokes. "Kepatihan" is widely used in ethnomusicological studies of the gamelan, sometimes accompanied by transcriptions into Western staff notation with approximate mapping of slendro and pelog tuning systems of gamelan onto the western staff, with and without various symbols for microtones. The relative merits of "kepatihan" and staff notation are sometimes debated, but staff notation is essentially incompatible with the 'end-weighted' nature of melodic structures in Indonesian music. In this respect, "kepatihan" is more suitable, although the usage of overscores (taken from the Galin-Paris-Chevé system)
Gamelan notation continues to cause practical difficulties. • Downloadable Kepatihan font for Mac and IBM Gamelan notation Notation plays a relatively minor role in the oral traditions of Indonesian gamelan but, in Java and Bali, several systems of gamelan notation were devised beginning at the end of the 19th century, initially for archival purposes. Kepatihan is a type of cipher musical notation that was devised for notation of the Indonesian gamelan. The system was devised around 1900 at the "Kepatihan" (the Grand Vizier's compound) in Surakarta, and was based upon the Galin-Paris-Chevé system, imported in the nineteenth century by Christian missionaries to