Technique
The agung is usually performed while standing beside the instrument, holding the upper edge of its flange between the thumb and other fingers with the left hand while striking the knob with the right hand. The mallets, called balu, are made from short sticks about half a foot in length and padded with soft but tough material such as rubber at one end. Using these balus, players handle the agung similar to the way a brass tom-tom is played.
A series of solid, fast decaying sounds are produced using dampening techniques. The desired effect is produced after striking the knob, by leaving one’s hand or knee or the mallets themselves on it. When one player is using two gongs, the assistant holding the lower-pitched gong positions it at an angle and dampens its surface using their hands.
Recently, new ways of handling the agung have emerged, including grasping a portion of the boss rather than the flange to dampen or using regular strokes upon the busel while striking the surrounding gong surface with the opposite, wooden end of the beater. The latter technique, called katinengka, is used by downriver musicians to produce metallic sounds during kulintang performances.
Different combinations of players, gongs and mallets can be used for playing the agung: two players with each assigned their own gong or just one. When playing alone, the agung player could either play both gongs with the player holding the higher-pitched gongs face-to-face, with the lower one held at an angle by an assistant for stability, or just one gong. The latter style, common among downriver Maguindanaos in Simuay, who consider this style an old one, uses only the higher-pitch gong for it, unlike the lower-pitched gong, is considered the lead gong, therefore having primary importance. An example of this is when single gong agungs are used during a tagunggo piece.
The number of mallets used by the player could also vary as well. For most occasions, only one mallet is used but for other techniques, the player could use two mallets, one in each hand. An even more interesting technique uses only one balu but requires the player to play the agung in reverse order of pitches. Called patuy, this technique and the one with two mallets are normally reserved only for competition and exhibition instances.
Read more about this topic: Agung
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