List of gendhing structures

Gendhing structure refers to colotomic structure of gamelan compositions in general. Gendhing (also written, as in the old orthography, gending) can also be used to refer to a specific class of colotomic structures used in Javanese gamelan music.

At its simplest, colotomic may be taken to mean, "cyclicly punctuating". More clearly, "gongs of different sizes are used to mark off circular segments, or cycles, of musical time." Though a colotomic structure may be hundreds of units long and is generally explicitly stated, it is akin to hierarchical Western meter.

General

Colotomic structures from the general repertoire.

Gendhing

Gendhing is the longest and most complicated of the gendhing structures. It is typically played in a slow irama, although it may have faster sections. Gendhing are sometimes classified by which elaborating instrument is most prominent, called gendhing bonang or gendhing rebab. Gendhing never use the kempul or gong suwukan.

Gendhing have two parts, a merong and a minggah (or "inggah"). Both consist of a single gongan lasting four nongan, but the nongan can be of different lengths. Gendhing are then classified according to the number of kethuk strokes in a nongan in each section. The merong section does not use the kempyang, but the minggah section does. 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, 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.). In the minggah section, the kempyang and kethuk play in the same pattern as in the ketawang, but with no other interpunctuating instruments.