Pelog is one of the two essential
scales of
gamelan music native to
Bali and
Java, in
Indonesia. In Javanese the term is said to be a variant of the word
pelag meaning "fine" or "beautiful". The other, older, scale commonly used is called
slendro.
Pelog has seven notes, but many gamelan ensembles only have keys for five of the pitches. Even in ensembles that have all seven notes, many pieces only use a subset of five notes.