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on the topic of looping in asian musics... javanese gamelan music is fundamentally based on certain aspects of loopiness. however, the looping pattern can be up to 256 beats long as slow as 6 bpm, so until someone comes up with a digital looper with some SERIOUS ram.... but still, javanese music has some features which can be very inspirational for us loopfolk. the music is very beautiful and trancelike, the loop transforming itself gradually over time in speed and texture. quick background: a gamelan orchestra is comprised mainly of tuned brass idiophones (struck with hard and soft mallets) in varying sizes, from small xylophones to large hanging gongs. these instruments play the foundation or framework of the music. there will also usually be some combination of end-blown flute, spike fiddle, choir, and a special xylophone called "gender". these instruments play a freer melodic role. a drummer sets the tempo and directs changes in the music. the fundamental looping melody is called the "balungan" - it is usually fairly rhythmically regular (one melody note per quarter note) and is played with hard mallets on medium-sized xylophone-like instruments tuned to one of two pentatonic scales. the balungan is the melody upon which all other instruments base their parts, in what can be called "stratified polyphony". instruments higher in pitch will play in a rhythm that is a multiple of the balungan rhythm (twice as fast, etc), playing a melody weaving in and out of the notes of the balungan. instruments lower in pitch will play in a rhythm that is a division of the balungan (half as fast, etc), playing structurally important notes of the melody. the hanging gongs play a sort of bass line, and a huge gong plays only at the end of a melodic cycle. here's the really cool part. fundamental to javanese gamelan music is the concept of "irama", which describes a sort of gradual repeated doubling of the fundamental pulse, while the higher instruments adjust their parts to maintain a constant rhythmic density. after a few cycles of the balungan have been played, the drummer carefully slows the ensemble down, until it is playing at half of the previous tempo. the higher-pitched "elaborating" instruments will double their rhythmic density, playing four or eight notes per balungan note instead of two or four. these notes are formulaically tied to the balungan notes, and a sense of continuity is maintained. this process is repeated as many as four times, until a melody that lasted 15 seconds now lasts four minutes. at this irama level, the balungan is no longer recognizable as a melody, but serves more of a "punctuating" function, regularly defining important moments in the structure. the process is repeated in reverse to end the piece at the original irama level. this is all an oversimplification of a very deep, complex musical system, so i encourage people to look into it more yourselves. for anyone interested in checking gamelan music out, just a little warning: the instruments are not always tuned in a system that is compatible with the western chromatic system (in fact, each gamelan is tuned a little differently!) it may at first sound just a bit "off" to western ears, but you'll soon hear it for its beauty. a good introduction to javanese gamelan music is "gendhing bonang", an instrumental genre played by an all-brass gamelan orchestra that has a very smooth, ethereal sound. check out "music of mangkunegaran solo I", part of king records' "world music library" series. (king records, tokyo, KICC5184). james