Marvin Goldman purchased a gender barung (pelog) in 2001, a gender panerus in 2006 and two more gender panerus in 2012. One gender panerus slendro is now part of Gamelan Kusuma Laras in New York City; the other instruments are played and preserved in his personal collection.
Although the pelog scale consists of 7 pitches, the pelog gender uses only 5 pitches, either 1 – 2 – 3 – 5 – 6 in pelog bem or 7 – 2 – 3 – 5 – 6 in pelog barang. This allows the gender player to play the same patterns in pelog as in slendro (which has 5 pitches). Thus, a complete pelog gamelan must have 2 gender barung and 2 gender panerus, as it is inconvenient to replace the 1 and the 7 on the gender. Suhirdjan devised a pelog gender for which the pitches 1 and 7 were more easily exchanged without having to restring the entire row of keys. The replacement keys (either pitches 1 or 7) can be tied into place and either a weight to drop into the resonator or a partial cap for the resonator is used to tune the resonator to the appropriate pitch.