There are 3 varieties of Gilak musical forms in Gong Kebyar. The pattern below is for the first Gilak form; Ornstein refers to this as Tabuh Baris (p. 126) as used in traditional music.
(G)P P G
. . . . . . . .
The Gilak (8) Topeng Dance we performed in concert is an illustration:
(G)P P G
6 5 1 6 1 5 6 3
The term Tabuh Baris also includes Kebyar forms where the central (G) is replaced with a Kemong (M) and the Kempur (P) dropped; Ornstein terms this as Tabuh Baris with Kebyar (p. 127) or Tabuh Bapang Gede with traditional pieces (p. 124). If used for legong, this form is also called Tabuh Garuda (p. 142). This form is often used for women's dances (McPhee). When used for the jauk dance, this form is referred to as Tabuh Durga (Ornstein, p. 146).
Ornstein also introduces the term Tabuh Bapang Baris (p. 127) to cover traditional melodies related to Gilak (8) where both original Kempur (P) are omitted and the central (G) is replaced with a Kempur (P). If Kebyar, the GPMPG structure is also termed Tabuh Bapang Baris (p. 127).
The Gilak with 16 pulses has the following form:
G P P G
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
and is illustrated by this Topeng Dance:
G P P G
3 6 3 6 3 5 6 1 2 3 1 2 6 3 5 6
Ornstein describes the above form for legong, she referred to it as Tabuh Gilak Bapang barong (p. 157). A 16 beat Tabuh Condong which has pattern GMG and is used for legong pieces simplifies the above pattern (p. 128).
The form of the Gilak with 32 pulses is as follows:
G P P G G P P G
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Here is a Gilak (32) illustration:
G P P G G P P G
5 5 5 5 1 2 3 5 2 5 3 2 5 3 2 1 5 1 5 1 5.16535 5 6 1 2 5 3 2 1
The above forms related to the following prototypical form:
G P P G P P G
As noted above in shorter compositions, the first two kempur are omitted (McPhee, p. 88) as shown in our Gilak (8) used in Topeng and Baris dances.
There are 8 longer forms of slow classical music, lelambatan penagawak. These forms are distinguished by their length and colotomic structure. The simplest is tabuh pisan (pisan = one) which consists of 8 melodic phrases of 16 beats bisected and ended by a gong. Other forms exist which use the kempur and kempli. Tabuh kutus (kutus = eight) is the broadest; here the palette (the kempur and kempli alternate separated by 16 beats) repeats 8 times. When the gong finally arrives 256 beats have elapsed (Tenzer).
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Updated April 5, 1996.