The melody
may perhaps be compared to a pattern repeating itself indefinitely on
stuff or wall-paper. Upon this background the dance winds about, taking
its own course. When, as sometimes happens, dance and melody coincide
one becomes conscious of the undercurrent of melody with a shock of
delight.
The melody of the gender, which uninterruptedly keeps time, depends
on the prompting of the drum which stands in intimate and indispensable
relation to the dancer. The cymbals also are in constant attendance
on the dancer. The great difference between the classical music of Legong
and the newer music of Kebyar is that is that the melody in the latter
sometimes abandons its quadrangular cage and joins the drum in the restless
activity of its abounding accents. The familiar tjondong melody has
two parts, a sequence of two bars in andante tempo, the melody being
in crotchets, and two bars in andante, of which the melody is in quavers.
There can be as many series of these two bars as are necessary to the
dance.
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