The note of this little gong is probably a G, I have never seen how it was mounted, but I was told that it was suspended in a frame, I'm guessing that the complete instrument perhaps performed the function of the slenthem or saron, that is, it would have been used to play the basic melody.
The tonal quality is rather dull, it has no brilliance like that to be found in a good bronze gong. Perhaps this is a reason for permitting this pamor orchestra to fall into decay.
Yes, Gustav, its not a normal gamelan instrument, but this particular court had a number of orchestras that were made in non-traditional forms, for instance, they had one orchestra that was made in France from blue glass, some of the instruments in this orchestra were tuned by adding water to a blue glass container . The last time I saw this blue glass orchestra was about 30 years ago, it was thrown into the corner of a storage shed and covered in filth and dust, and the roof of the shed itself was collapsing with a big sagging hole. In 1974 it was still functional and I heard it played --- not in performance, but sufficiently to know that it had a clear, brilliant sparkling tone, in performance it would have been beautiful, well, at least to my ear it would have been. But it is lost now.
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