University Times

Vitale, left, and Kevin O’Brien, a graduate student in musicology, compare notes as Vitale tunes the saron.

The whir of power tools blended with the whirling sounds of Indonesian instruments in the music department last week as Wayne Vitale worked to optimize the sounds of Pitt’s two main gamelan sets.

Armed with a good ear — plus a power grinder, a heat gun and some wax — the San Francisco-based gamelan tuner, with the help of a trio of music department graduate students, methodically tapped, tested and listened intently until multiple gongs and metal-keyed instruments were in tune with their counterparts.

Gamelan tuning is done with a little grinding here and some filing or filling there until the sound is right. Learning comes by doing.

Unlike a piano, there’s no standard tuning: The gamelan needs to be in tune with itself, Vitale said. And there’s variation within the tunings based on local taste, the musical repertoire or even the preference of the gamelan owner.

Pitt’s gamelan sets are tuned to different five-tone microtonal scales, so they aren’t interchangeable, noted music department chair Andrew Weintraub, director of the Pitt gamelan ensemble.

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Sparks from a power grinder fly as Vitale shortens a key to raise its pitch. Earplugs muffle the noise from the power tool.

Shortening the keys of the xylophone-like instruments raises the pitch; grinding the center of the key lowers the note, Vitale explained. Similarly, filing the button-like top of the small tuned gongs, or bonang, raises the pitch; filling inside with a bit of wax does the opposite.

Vitale, who took up gamelan tuning on the encouragement of a friend in Germany, studied informally with gongsmiths in Bali. Between gamelan tuning gigs — he gets two or three a year in the United States and Europe — his “day job” is with the Community Music Center in San Francisco. In addition, he composes gamelan music and plays in gamelan ensembles.

During his visit to campus last week, Vitale tuned the University’s iron gamelan set for the first time since its arrival in 1995. “After metal is forged, it’s still changing internally for a long time,” said Vitale. The internal changes in the metal, as well as the effects of playing, cause gamelan sets to need tuning. How often depends on the age and the type of metal, with iron maintaining a tune longer than other metals, he said. Newer sets need more frequent tuning before settling into a sweet spot after which a tuning every decade or two is sufficient.

The University’s bronze gamelan arrived in 2005 and was tuned by its maker in 2009, said Weintraub. (To view the process, see www.ucis.pitt.edu/gamelan/content/galleries?q=node/117.)

Weintraub estimated that there are about 150-200 gamelan sets in the U.S., including about 50 in university programs. Pitt has three — an indication of the richness of the University’s program, he said.

The first public performance on the newly tuned gamelan is scheduled to be part of an Asian Studies Center conference in October, Weintraub said.

More information on the gamelan is at www.music.pitt.edu/gamelan.

Pitt music department chair and gamelan ensemble director Andrew Weintraub listens as gamelan tuner Wayne Vitale, standing, tests the sound of a set of tuned gongs, or bonang, in the ensemble’s Bellefield Hall practice room.

—Kimberly K. Barlow