KEMPYANG

The ketuk, a metal gong idiophone of the Sundanese people of Java, Indonesia, is the smallest horizontally-mounted gong in the Sundanese gamelan salendro. Sundanese gamelan instruments in general are remarkable products of highly skilled craftsmen. The transformation, with the aid of fire, of raw materials from the earth into physical objects of sound production is seen by many Sundanese to be fraught with supernatural dangers. In earlier times, gongsmiths were viewed as possessing priest-like powers and took on the names of mythological characters as forms of protection in their craft.

The bronze gong was forged by a team of hammer-wielding smiths who gradually transformed a disc of bronze by heating it numerous times until white-hot, then hammering. The finished product is an integral vessel with a turned-in flange and a raised central boss/knob. The contouring of the face of the gong is essential to achieving a definite pitch. The ketuk rests horizontally on ropes in a wooden rack. A thinly padded wooden stick beater is used to strike the boss of the gong.

A single player performs the instrument by striking its knob/boss with the beater; any competent gamelan musician can play it. It is a punctuating instrument that articulates the underlying cyclical formal structure of a piece by being sounded at the end of each repetition of that structure. A middle-register, thudding sound with a dull attack and short decay is produced. The sound has a definite pitch. It is played at a single dynamic level.

It is very likely that tuned gongs and the technology to produce them were developed first outside of Indonesia. When and by whom they were introduced to Java is not known. Historical information on the ketuk in Sundanese gamelans is scant, so it is difficult to place a date on the introduction of this instrument with confidence.