GAMELAN JAWA

(photo via Irene Felicia on facebook - 2010)

Gamelan Jawa? What is Gamelan Jawa? Before we move on further to my own story, it will be much better if you at least have an idea what Gamelan is. Here is the link to the description of Gamelan via wikipedia.

(photo via Irene Felicia on facebook - 2010)

When I was in Senior High School, there was an extracurricular called GAMATIDUS that stands for Gamelan of Bunda Hati Kudus. I first knew about this club during the orientation. There was club exhibitions and GAMATIDUS was part of it. I was really intrigued at that time and I know right away that I wanted to join this club, even though it is relatively a traditional music.

Fast forward weeks later, I was officially a senior high school student. It turned out that I was not the only one who's interested in Gamelan. When my friends and I first joined in, GAMATIDUS was going to perform in an event so the seniors played the instruments and the freshmen learned to sing the songs.

 

I was not really into the singing part, but I stayed though. Some of the freshmen left as the time goes by. Some of the committed ones stayed, and as the seniors got busier with final exams, the freshmen (including me) got the chance to learn and play the instrument. yay!

 

(photo via Luther Halim on facebook - 2010)

 

Learning new things is a fun thing for me. Same goes with Gamelan. There are lots of instruments in Gamelan, including bonang, kempul, gong, kenong, saron, demung, kendang, etc. When we learned at first, we took turns learning a different instrument each week until we are assigned to one instrument later.

Gamelan is similar to an orchestra in my opinion. While it does not have a conductor, the rhythm and tempo is controlled by an instrument called kendang. And guess who played that instrument on that time? 

(photo via Luther Halim on facebook - 2010)

ME!!!

Hahaha, yes that was me in the picture. ^^ Now that I think about it, another reason why I probably was attracted to Gamelan was because they did not sing the traditional songs during the club exhibition. My instructor is amazing. He is old and he may look traditional but his mind is really open. There was once GAMATIDUS got an honor to play in the church. You know, usually there is choir who sings the gospel and the choir is usually accompanied by organ or piano. But on a very special occasion, my friends and I got a chance to perform the gospels with GAMELAN!!! 

(photo via Irene Felicia on facebook - 2010)

Another thing that makes me even prouder is when we joined a National Karawitan Competition in Tarumanagara University. I still remember how I messed up a lot during my practice and was really frustrated. But in the end, we won the third place! Yay! The first and second place went to both schools from Java, so yeah. And hey, that's my instructor standing on the back in the middle.

Up till now, I still think that being a part of the GAMATIDUS is such an amazing experience. Not every school has a full set of Gamelan and not everyone has the will to play Gamelan which makes me feel kind of proud hehehe.

All the photos were taken in 2010, that was around my first and second year of senior high school. Now that I am in my second year of university, I still miss playing it. During these two years I have been visiting my school and GAMATIDUS' room specifically for around 3-4 times. I definitely miss going on practice every Saturday morning and secretly hope that my university will buy a set of Gamelan. I will be more than glad to join the club. ^^

 

hey that's me peeking from kendang in the middle ^^

 

If I got the chance to visit GAMATIDUS again in near future, I will be more than happy to share the story with you guys. Let's just pray for the best : )

Cheers,

filicia

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