Andrew Timar is an internationally recognised suling (Indonesian bamboo ring flute), gamelan musician and composer, he is also a concert organiser, teaches gamelan workshops and master classes, and a music journalist. One of the co-founders of the Evergreen Club Contemporary Gamelan, Canada’s first gamelan group (est. 1983) Andrew performs regularly with ECCG, as a soloist, with the Timar-Parsons Duo and other groups.
I am teaching woodworking to kids at a community recreation centre in Toronto and we are making tongue drums. I am hoping to be able to tune them to gamelan (or really any resonant modal tuning) I’ve done a bit of research regarding gamelan and understand there are no exact frequencies to go by, but are there a set of frequencies we can “go with?” These tongue drums have eight half cherry wood bars to tune; probably the pitches will be high since they will be about max six or seven inches long 3/8 by 1 1/4 inch cross section.
Ken
PS. I saw a gamelan concert at Winchester Theatre in late 80’s which made me think of Evergreen Club.
Thanks, Ken, I passed this on to Andrew Timar.
Thanks for your note Ken. Looking forward to your email.
Andrew