Gamelan refers to the traditional Indonesian percussion orchestra and to the set of musical instruments used. Consisting primarily of ornate, percussive instruments made of hand-forged metal, the ensemble typically includes xylophones, gongs, gong-chimes, drums, cymbals, string instruments and bamboo flutes. The most popular and famous form of Indonesian music is probably gamelan, an ensemble of tuned percussion instruments that include metallophones, drums, gongs and spike fiddles along with bamboo flutes. Enter gamelan, the music of the Indonesian archipelago, the world's largest cluster of islands at 15,000, per World of Music, and home to a super-diverse 250 million people — Javanese, Sundanese, Indonesian, Madura, and more, as the Indonesian Embassy states. In fact, "gamelan" refers to the region's entire musical heritage, as well as the "Gamelan" is an umbrella name for many different kinds of melodically focused percussion ensembles from Indonesia. Gamelan music is old. No one knows exactly how old, but very old. It has developed and spread over thousands of islands in the archipelago of Nusantara (modern-day Indonesia), with many distinct ensembles, music theories, and Indonesian gamelan music is a percussion orchestra that has been an integral part of Indonesian culture for centuries. The word "gamelan" itself means "orchestra" in Javanese, and it is a term that is used to describe a wide range of musical ensembles that are found throughout Indonesia. Percussive instruments that make a gamelan ensemble include: xylophones and metallophones, gongs, and drums (membranophones). However, most instruments in Gamelan are struck idiophones, meaning that the sound is created from vibrating on its own. Gamelan can have up to 50 or 60 different types of instruments. O0oLU.