Kepatihan notation

Notation plays a relatively minor role in the oral traditions of Indonesian gamelan but, in Java and Bali, several systems of gamelan notation were devised beginning at the end of the 19th century, initially for archival purposes.

Kepatihan is a type of cipher musical notation that was devised for notation of the Indonesian gamelan.

The system was devised around 1900 at the Kepatihan (the Grand Vizier's compound) in Surakarta, and was based upon the Galin-Paris-Chevé system, imported in the nineteenth century by Christian missionaries to allow the notation of hymns. It superseded several other notation systems of Javanese origin devised around the same time.

To this day, the value of notation is disputed. As the kepatihan cipher system records primarily the skeletal melody line (or balungan), the wide range of improvisational techniques performed upon this line by the various instruments in gamelan are not represented. Whether they should be represented has been a matter of discussion in modern Indonesia.

The pitches of the seven-tone pélog tuning system are designated by the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7; while the five-tone slendro pitches are notated as 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6. The octaves are noted by dots above and below the numbers, as in Chinese jianpu, although of course the pitches do not correspond. A dot over a note indicates the octave above, and a dot below a note represents the octave below. Two dots over a note indicate a note two octaves higher than standard, and so on.

Depending on the tuning of the individual gamelan, it is often possible to hear the pitches 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6 of slendro as an anhemitonic pentatonic scale,do-re-mi-sol-la.

However, in the pélog system pitches are simply numbered from low to high 1–7 and there is no question of interpreting these sounds diatonically. As the pélog scale is essentially a five-note scale, the notes 4 and 7 can be considered as 'accidentals' in Western terms: a 4 functions as a 'sharp' 3 (common in patet lima or nem) or as a 'flat' 5 (usual in patet barang). Similarly 7 functions as a 'flat' 1 in patet lima or nem. The note 1 in patet barang may function as a 'sharp' 7, but is often to be interpreted as evidence of 'modulation' to another scale in Western terms. (It is, however, debatable whether Javanese musicians have a concept of modulation.)

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