Indonesia

The music of Indonesia demonstrates its cultural diversity, nearly every one of the 17,508 islands having its own cultural and artistic history which includes music, this means there are hundreds upon hundreds of forms of music ranging from instrumental to theater. The most popular and famous form of Indonesian traditional music is gamelan, an ensemble of tuned percussion instruments that include metallophones, drums, gongs and spike fiddles along with bamboo flutes. Gamelan is rooted in Hinduism and Buddhism, though the island of Java is almost entirely Muslim today. Gamelan is intricate and takes time to lay out. The central melody is played on a metallophone in the center of the orchestra, while the front instruments concentrate on the melody, and, at the back, the gongs slowly give the beat to the music. It is an universal acknowledgment that gamelans players are highly honored citizens. Indonesian folk embrace rock, house, Indonesian hip hop and other genres, as well as unique Indonesian forms. The regional pop music mostly use local languages and a mix of western and regional insturments. Kroncong, a traditional ukulele-type instrument music ensemble that consists of two ukuleles, a flute, a violin, a melody guitar, a cello in pizzicato style, string bass also in pizzicato, and a female or male singer is an urban style of folklore music that is widespread in Indonesia. media type="file" key="Traditional Indonesian music.mp3" media type="file" key="Traditional Indonesian music-1.mp3" align="left"
 * Indonesia:[[image:http://www.olstars.com/images/flags/Big/id.gif width="326" height="217" align="right"]] **

- by Viet