Gamelan is Javanese traditional musical instrument which is quite common for foreigners outside Indonesia. There are many foreign researchers who are interested in conducting research on Gamelan. Even though most Javanese people learn and play Gamelan a lot, but there are still certain groups of people that are unable to learn and play it due to their disabilities. Disabled people, especially blind people need massive effort to learn and play Gamelan despite the lack of assisting media to help them doing so.
UGM Students joining PKM-KC 2017 team include Fadil Fajeri (Electrical Engineering of Vocational College), Dinar Sakti Candra Ningrum (Eletronics and Instrumentation Engineering of Vocational College), Muhammad Ali Irham (Electronics and Instrumentation Engineering of Vocational College), Sapnah Rahmawati (Applied Economics of Vocational College), and Musfira Muslihat (Psychology) design and develop digital Gamelan instrument for blind people which is called E-gamatuna.
Those students consider that Gamelan does not only a set of musical instrument but Gamelan also contains ethics, aesthetics, and moral value. By learing how to play Gamelan through E-gamatuna, blind people could show their contribution in promoting and maintaining Indonesian culture.
Under the supervision of Maun Budiyanto, S.T., M.T., a lecturer at Electrical Engineering of Vocational College UGM, this team is being prepared to pass the screenings of PIMNAS 2017.
E-gamatuna is designed to represent Gamelan Balungan (main melody) consists of Demung, Saron, and Peking. Besides, E-gamatuna adopts specific learning method by following Notasi Kepatihan. Notasi Kepatihan is numerical notation in Javanese, which is ji, ro, lu, pat, mo, nem, pi. Due to their innovative invention, students joining E-gamatuna team got opportunity to attend the exhibition event of science and technology called “Expo Sains dan Teknologi” hosted by Universitas Mercu Buana Yogyakarta on Friday, 19 May 2017. (ty)
