The concept of the pathet and avoided tones in jawatimuran karawitan

Abstract

This study aims at demonstrating the pathet in the Jawatimuran karawitan. The pathet is a musical gesture which frames the motivic direction of a melody or song. Therefore its position is quite essential in the Javanese karawitan. However, research of the pathet has only been centered in the musical areas of Surakarta and Yogyakarta. In fact, outside the two musical cultures, there also exists the concept and discourse about the pathet, which is genuine or unique, as in the Jawatimuran karawitan. This study applies the participant-and-observer method, which positions the researcher to be actively involved in the musical community he is studying. This is an effort to bring up a scholarly discourse from the insider's position. The analysis was carried out by sorting and performing musical classifications based on the melodic direction motion of several types of Javanese karawitan pathets (sepuluh, wolu, sanga, and serang). As a result, this research reveals new facts, namely, that in the concept of pathet, the Jawatimuran karawitan possesses a specific scholarly, conceptual, and discoursive aspect, especially with the emergence of certain avoided tones (nada sirikan). This is different from the pathet concept in two other musical cultures (namely, Surakarta and Yogyakarta).