Folk Routes
In Search of String Band Music in Southeast Asia (Part II: Thailand)
By Peter Anick
(reprinted from Fiddler Magazine)
In this installment of Folk Routes, our hunt for string band music in Southeast Asia takes us to Thailand, a country with a long and rich musical heritage. String music has been traced back to the royal courts of the Sukkothai period (early 14th century), and today its practitioners include Thailand’s Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn.
We’ll begin our musical trek in Bangkok, a modern city with all the modern amenities – including traffic jams, thick smog, and the constant din of construction. There on business, my first encounter with traditional Thai music was an accidental one, just a block from my downtown hotel. Right alongside a busy street corner, a steady stream of worshippers carried offerings of food and flowers into a festive open-air shrine. I learned later that this shrine, dedicated to Brahma and his elephant Erawan, had been built to counteract the bad spirits believed to be responsible for problems during the construction of the adjacent Erawan Hotel. People in need of good luck regularly come to the shrine, and those whose prayers are answered return to pay a fee for dancers to perform while they kneel in thanks. The accompanying dance music is played on wooden xylophones and drums, and makes use of a scale totally unlike any European scale. Made up of seven equally spaced notes, no note other than the tonic has a counterpart in the Western scale system.
Perhaps because it does not easily translate into Western musical notation, Thai “classical” music, used since ancient times as accompaniment for theater and dance in the royal courts, has never been written down. It has been passed reverently from teacher to student through imitation. Improvisation is also part of the tradition, but there are a number of aesthetic principles that constrain what is stylistically appropriate, making it difficult to master. In northern Thailand, Thai music and dance are often associated with “khantoke”, a tradition of entertaining guests that includes a communal multi-course dinner served in large circular trays to guests seated on the floor. The Mahori orchestras that play for these gatherings typically include not only xylophone and percussion, but also a string section made up of plucked and bowed instruments unique to Thailand.
Mahori ensemble at the Old Chiangmai Cultural Center.
Though originally reserved for weddings, house warmings and other celebrations, khantoke dinners are now a tourist attraction offered by many restaurants in Chiang Mai, a beautiful ancient city some 400 miles to the north of Bangkok. I attended the nightly khantoke show at the Old Chiangmai Cultural Center. Seated close to the orchestra, who play sitting cross-legged on the floor, I split my attention between the food, dancers and musicians (not necessarily in that order). The Thai fiddle, known as a “saw” or “so-u”, is designed for playing in a seated position. The round neck projects through a skin-covered coconut sound box to end in a long spiked foot. This foot rests on the floor as in a cello. When the player wishes to change strings, rather than change the angle of the bow, the left hand simply rotates the instrument in the appropriate direction! Similar to the Chinese erhu, there is no fingerboard; a noose is used to tighten the two or three strings down against the round neck.
The string section at the Cultural Center also contained a plucked, mandolin-like instrument known as a “serng”. A xylophone, drum, tiny cymbals, and female vocalist filled out the rest of the orchestra. The soft blend of fiddles and voice along with the gentle percussion of the xylophone and serng created an ethereal backdrop to the colorful dances.
Following the dinner, a demonstration of hill-tribe dances in a nearby building provided an introduction to the many other cultures that have more recently taken up residence in the hills of northern Thailand. Coming from Tibet, China, Burma, and Laos, these migratory groups have preserved much of their traditional way of life, including their languages, religious beliefs, clothing, and festivals.
I had heard that a Lisu village near the Burmese border was in the midst of a 5-day New Year’s celebration, so the next day I headed out on the morning bus for Thaton. Several uncertain connections later, including a songthaeuw ride in which I clumsily tried to brave the language barrier with a group of Akha women and a motorcycle ride up the steep hill on which the Lisu village of Louta is perched, I arrived at my destination - Asa’s Guest Home. Asa, a son of the spirit headman, was preoccupied with the various village events, but he took a few moment off to welcome his new arrivals and invite us to observe the celebration. In a large courtyard, a ring of colorfully garbed young men and women were dancing in a wide circle around a slender tree that had been planted in the center. A smaller group including musicians and headmen formed an inner circle, parading around the tree with exaggerated dance steps, while a line of young children formed a partial ring in between the two circles.
Each dance went on for ten or twenty minutes before the musicians paused to begin a new tune. They alternated between two kinds of instruments, a gourd flute with a sound resembling a harmonica, and a three-stringed fretless banjo with a small snakeskin head, plucked with the tip of a water buffalo’s horn. I was delighted to find such banjos played in the remote hills of Thailand, but was really shocked when one of the dance tunes had an A part practically identical to the American folk tune “Cripple Creek.” Cripple Creek, of course, is a simple melody, but it made me wonder about a possible relationship between Asian and American folk music. After all, many Chinese worked on the American railroads and in gold-mining towns in the mid 19th century. It seems likely that some music would have been exchanged. Perhaps Cripple Creek was originally a Lisu dance tune! I mulled this over until a string of firecracker blasts restored me to my senses.
The Lisu New Year’s celebrations provide an opportunity for the young men and women of distant villages to get to know each other and perhaps even become engaged. The music and dancing, I was told, continued around the clock for five days. I verified this myself when I woke up around 4 o’clock one morning and wandered to the dance site to find a small group of musicians and dancers pressing on while others chatted and snacked in the courtyard.
Asa’s father, the spirit headman of the village, played three different types of gourd flute as well as the banjo, or “sibuh.” One evening, he offered the guests staying at the guest house a private concert. As he played, he walked in a small circle, making the dance steps, just as if he were circling the holy tree. We learned that the banjo tunes were of two kinds, referred to as Chinese and Lisu. The Chinese tunes were more melodic, closely matching the dance steps. When there was a hesitation in the dance, the melody hesitated as well. The Lisu tunes, which required a different tuning, were more percussive, often plucking a string while the left-hand was sliding between notes. Hammer-ons and pull-offs were used as ornaments and drone strings were sounded to accent certain beats.
On the morning after the celebration ended, many families could be seen carrying their trees off into the woods, ending the old year with a final burst of ceremony and firecrackers. As I left the village, I passed a crowd that had set up a small tree and were playing music for a village teacher they wished to thank. Apparently, five non-stop days of music and dancing had not tired these folks out a bit.
If you go…Reservations for Asa’s Guest Home can be made by contacting the Marlboro Guest House, 138 Sithiwongse Road, Chiangmoi, Umper Muang, Chiangmai (email: mgh@infothai.com, tel: 66-53-232598, ext. 0). The Old Chiangmai Cultural Center is located at 185/3 Wualai Rd., A. Muang, Chiang Mai (tel: 053-202993-5, fax: 053-274094). The Erawan Shrine can be found next to the Grand Hyatt Erawan Hotel on Ratchadamri Road, Bangkok.