Kepatihan notation

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Kepatihan is a type of cipher musical notation that was devised for notation of the Indonesian gamelan.

The system was devised around 1900 at the Kepatihan in Surakarta, and is often said to be based upon the Galin-Paris-Cheve system of 1894, the pitches 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6 of slendro often falling near do-re-mi-sol-la. It is however possible that it originated instead in the pélog system whose pitches which are numbered 1-7, and where 4 and 7 are generally altered notes (a 4 can be used as a 'sharp' 3 (common in patet barang) or 'flat' 5 (usual in patet lima or nem), and 7 appears often as an upper neighbor tone in patet bem; a 'raised' 1 in patet barang can usually be interpreted as a modulation).

The pitches of the seven-tone pélog tuning system are designated by the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7; while the five-tone slendro pitches are notated as 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6. The octaves are noted by dots above and below the numbers, as in Chinese jianpu, although of course the pitches do not correspond. The rhythms are noted by beams or lines above notes indicating half the rhythmic value, and dots in where the notes go (pin) indicating either rests or extentions. Melismas and slured bowing are noted by lines underneath the numbers. Colotomic instruments are indicated by diacritical marks (a circle for gong ageng, parentheses for gong suwukan, ^ for kenong, ˇ for kempul, + for ketuk, and - for kempyang), or are omitted as they can be determined from the bentuk, or form.

Ordinarily the system only notates the balungan (the core melody as it is played by the sarons) and gerongan (choral parts). However, for pedagogical purposes, other patterns, such as the melodic formulas sekaran and cengkok used on the panerusan instruments may be notated.

Kepatihan is widely used in ethnomusicological studies of the gamelan, sometimes accompanied by transcriptions in to Western staff notation with approximated pitches.