The sompoton is a whole dried calabash with eight bamboo pipes driven through it and every joint sealed in bees' wax. Each pipe has a name — lombohon, monongkol, suruk, baranat, randawi, tuntuduk, tinangga — and each is voiced by a reed the maker tunes by ear.

This system takes its palette straight off the instrument: seasoned gourd skin as the page, wet bamboo and padi green as the primary, ritual black and trim gold on top. Layout follows the pipe bundle — unequal verticals gathered into one rounded chamber, never a symmetrical fan.