The name 'Forest Gamelan' is inspired by the Indonesian Gamelan, which is both a percussion orchestra and a style of music. Many players each sit at an instrument, combining simple timbres and rhythms to create complex pieces of music.

 

​The Forest Gamelan is devised and built by innovative music educator, Jonty Nowell. Jonty crafts instruments including aluminium bells, xylophone and bass xylophone bars, bass and treble tubulums, drums and auxiliary percussion, using hard-wearing materials that weather naturally into outdoor educational settings. This outdoor music classroom combines the well-documented benefits of both music and outdoor learning.

Each installation comes with a package of pupil workshops and teacher training to help schools to integrate the Forest Gamelan as widely as possible into the curriculum.​

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Music, group music, and outdoor learning have all be extensively shown to benefit children, and the applications for the Forest Gamelan go beyond music. Exploring the effects of pipe lengths on pitch links to science as well as music, and music and outdoor learning have well-researched benefits for SEN students, behaviour management, and inclusion.