Of the six players beating the suspended gongs, two are expert leaders - they establish interlocking patterns which are picked up by the players on either side of them, before departing on more freely improvised rhythmic excursions. The beginnings and endings of the music are signaled by cues from the drum while the bossed gongs keeps the steady pulse throughout. The gong ensembles of houses in this area consist of six small flat gongs (sometimes hanging, sometimes held), a large hand-held bossed gong played with a cloth-covered beater, a large hanging bossed gong (with a raised bump in the middle), a large hanging flat gong, and one large bass drum covered with water buffalo hide. Most wealthier families have a set of gongs their degree of wealth is proportional to the length of the bench and number of gongs. As the music rings, the head woman of the house downs a cup of rice wine then offers it to visitors, always beginning with the women.
Visitors are welcomed to the household by an assembly of male gong players gathered on the long wooden bench that runs down the inside wall of each house, playing a kaleidoscope of shifting rhythmic patterns. For the Ê Ðê people, a matriarchal culture, this includes digging up their sets of tuned bronze gongs, buried and hidden before the war, and hanging them in their wooden long-houses where they can be played for ceremonies. Although village life was effectively decimated in the Central Highlands, thousands of dislocated inhabitants are now trying to re-establish their former communities.
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