The merong is a section of a composition for

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mo ...

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gamelan Gamelan () ( jv, ꦒꦩꦼꦭꦤ꧀, su, ᮌᮙᮨᮜᮔ᮪, ban, ᬕᬫᭂᬮᬦ᭄) is the traditional ensemble music of the Javanese, Sundanese, and Balinese peoples of Indonesia, made up predominantly of percussive instruments. ...

, a musical ensemble featuring metallophones,

xylophone The xylophone (; ) is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars struck by mallets. Like the glockenspiel (which uses metal bars), the xylophone essentially consists of a set of tuned wooden keys arranged in t ...

s, drums, and gongs. Specifically, the merong is the initial part of a

gendhing ''Colotomy'' is an Indonesian description of the rhythmic and metric patterns of gamelan music. It refers to the use of specific instruments to mark off nested time intervals, or the process of dividing rhythmic time into such nested cycles. I ...

. A merong cannot be played on its own, but must be followed by a minggah, which may also take the form of a ladrang or other

colotomic structure ''Colotomy'' is an Indonesian description of the rhythmic and metric patterns of gamelan music. It refers to the use of specific instruments to mark off nested time intervals, or the process of dividing rhythmic time into such nested cycles. In ...

. The merong is the longest of the sections used in gamelan composition. It consists of a single gongan lasting four nongan, but the nongan can be of different lengths. Merong are then classified according to the number of

kethuk The kempyang and ketuk are two instruments in the gamelan ensemble of Indonesia, generally played by the same player, and sometimes played by the same player as the kenong. They are important beat-keepers in the colotomic structure of the gam ...

strokes in a nongan in each section. The merong does not use the

kempyang The kempyang and ketuk are two instruments in the gamelan ensemble of Indonesia, generally played by the same player, and sometimes played by the same player as the kenong. They are important beat-keepers in the colotomic structure of the ga ...

kempul A kempul is a type of hanging gong used in Indonesian gamelan. The kempul is a set of pitched, hanging, knobbed gongs, often made of bronze, wood, and cords. Ranging from 19 cm to 25,4 cm (7 to 10 inches) in diameter, the kempul gong h ...

. There are two patterns for the kethuk in the merong, ''arang'' ("infrequent, sparse") and ''kerep'' ("frequent"). Both have the kethuk play only at the end of a

gatra The Greater Attleboro Taunton Regional Transit Authority (GATRA) oversees and coordinates public and medical transportation in the areas of Attleboro and Taunton, Massachusetts and 24 nearby areas. It operates daily (except on Sundays) fixed bus ...

, but in the kerep pattern, it is at the end of all odd-numbered gatras, whereas in the arang, it is at the end of the gatras of doubled odd numbers (that is, gatras 2, 6, 10, 14, etc.). For example, consider a "gendhing kethuk 2 kerep minggah kethuk 4." This means that in the merong, there will be two kethuk strokes that happen on odd-numbered gatra. The structure would then look like:

where "" indicates no interpunctuating instrument plays, p indicates the stroke of the

, T the

ketuk The kempyang and ketuk are two instruments in the gamelan ensemble of Indonesia, generally played by the same player, and sometimes played by the same player as the kenong. They are important beat-keepers in the colotomic structure of the ga ...

, N the

kenong The Kenong is a musical instrument of Indonesia used in the gamelan. It is a kind of gong and is placed on its side. It has the same length and width. Thus, it is similar to the bonang, kempyang, and ketuk, which are also cradled gongs. Kenon ...

, and G the simultaneous stroke of the

gong A gongFrom Indonesian and ms, gong; jv, ꦒꦺꦴꦁ ; zh, c=鑼, p=luó; ja, , dora; km, គង ; th, ฆ้อง ; vi, cồng chiêng; as, কাঁহ is a percussion instrument originating in East Asia and Southeast Asia. Gongs ...

and kenong. Thus, in each section, the gong plays once, the kenong divides that into four parts, and then that is divided into parts according to the given structure. Here, in each part, each nongan lasts 16 beats (''keteg''), and thus the gongan lasts 64. That was a fairly short example; a "kethuk 4 arang" merong, for example, would look like:

and thus a nongan would last 16 gatras (64 beats), and a gongan 64 gatras (256 beats). Obviously, in a long structure like that, especially at a slow tempo, a single gongan may last many minutes. The merong section may include a ngelik, which would also have the length of a single gongan.

References

* Neil Sorrell. ''A Guide to the Gamelan''. London: Faber and Faber, 1990. Page 71–73. Sections of gamelan compositions {{music-genre-stub