Kulintang is a modern term for an ancient instrumental from of music composed on a row of small, horizontally-laid gongs that function melodically, accompanied by larger, suspended gongs and drums. As part of the larger gong-chime culture of Southeast Asia, kulintang music essembles have been playing for many centuried in regions of the Eastern Malay Archipelago the southeren Philippines, Eastern Idnonesia, Eastern Malaysia, Brunei and Timor, although this article has focus on the Philippine Kulintang traditions of the Maranao and Maguindanao peoples in particular. By the twentieth century, the term kulintang had also come to denote an entire Maguindanao ensemble of five to six instruments. Traditionally the Maguindanao term for the entire ensemble is basalen or palabunibunyan, the latter term meaning “an ensemble of loud instruments” or “music-making” or in this case “music-making using a kulintang.