Editing Slendro (section)

==Tuning==
From one region of Indonesia to another the ''slendro'' scale often varies widely.  The amount of variation also varies from region to region. For example, ''slendro'' in [[Central Java]] varies much less from gamelan to gamelan than it does in [[Bali]], where ensembles from the same village may be tuned very differently. The five pitches of the Javanese version are roughly equally spaced within the octave.

As in ''pelog'', although the intervals vary from one gamelan to the next, the intervals between notes in a scale are very close to identical for different instruments within the same ''gamelan''. It is common in Balinese gamelan that instruments are played in pairs which are tuned slightly apart so as to produce [[beat (acoustics)|interference beating]] which are ideally at a consistent speed for all pairs of notes in all registers. It is thought that this contributes to the very "busy" and "shimmering" sound of gamelan ensembles. In the religious ceremonies that contain ''gamelan'', these interference beats are meant to give the listener a feeling of a god's presence or a stepping stone to a meditative state.

For the instruments that do not need fixed pitches (such as [[suling]] and [[rebab]]) and the voice, other pitches are sometimes inserted into the scale. The Sundanese musicologist/teacher [[Raden Machjar Angga Koesoemadinata]] identified 17 vocal pitches used in ''slendro''.<ref>[[Raden Machjar Angga Koesoemadinata]]. ''Ringkěsan Pangawikan Riněnggaswara''. Jakarta: Noordhoff-Kollff, c. 1950, page 17. Cited in [[Mantle Hood|Hood, Mantle]] (1977). ''The Nuclear Theme as a Determinant of Pathet in Javanese Music'', {{page needed|date=May 2012}}. New York: Da Capo.</ref> These [[microtonal]] adjustments bear some similarity to Indian ''[[śruti (music)|śruti]]''.