MUSIC II
First Grading : Lesson no 2 Music of Laos
Laos
is a landlocked country in Southeast Asia, bordered by Myanmar and People's Republic of China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the south and Thailand to the west. Its population was estimated to be 6.8 million in 200
The most distinctive Lao musical instrument is a bamboo mouth organ called akhene. The instrument was supposedly invented by a woman trying to imitate the calls of the garawek bird. The woman took the new instrument to her king, and he told her it was fair, but that he wanted more. She modified the instrument and he replied "Tia nee khaen dee" .
Lao folk music, known as Lam, is extemporaneous singing accompanied by the khene.
The Lao classical orchestra can be divided into two categories, Sep Nyai and Sep Noi (or MahoriThe Sep Nyai is ceremonial and formal music and includes:
Two sets of gongs (kong vong), a xylophone (lanat), an oboe (pei or salai), two large kettle drums and two sets of cymbals (xing).
Khene is what makes Lao people which the Lao people makes the khene. The national proverb is, "A person living under a stilted house, eat sticky rice, listen to any music related to Lam or Morlam, and play the Khene is likely to be Lao or associated with Lao people."
The Khene is made from a special kind of bamboo.
It looks slightly Andean in appearance with its sets of bamboo and reed pipes of various lengths, which are strapped together, and then blow into by the player. It can be played solo as in traditional Lao music or in combination with other musical instruments to accompany modern songs.
The khene comprises of a double row of hollow bamboo pipes (of different lengths) connected to a small, hollowed-out hardwood sound-box into which air is blown
Lao folk music, known as Lam, is extemporaneous singing accompanied by the khene. It is popular both in Laos and Thailand, where there is a large ethnic Lao population
The classical form is closely related to that of the Siamese. The Lao classical orchestra is divided into two categories, Sep Nyai and Sep Noi (or Mahori).
* The Sep Nyai is similar to Thai Piphat, and is ceremonial and formal music and includes: two sets of gongs (kong vong), a xylophone (ranat), an oboe (pei or salai), two large kettle drums and two sets of cymbals(xing, similar to Thai ching).
The Sep Noi, capable of playing popular tunes, includes two bowed string instruments,
the So U and the So I, also known to the Indians. These instruments are similar to the Thai Saw u and Saw duang, respectively. They have a long neck or fingerboard and a small sound box; this sound box is made of bamboo in the So U and from acoconut in the So I. Both instruments have two strings, and the bow is slid between these two strings, which are tuned at a fifth apart and always played together.
mahori or sep noi ensemble (the sep nyai is strictly percussion and oboe) may include several khene. In this respect, it differs markedly from the mahori orchestras of Cambodia and Siam.
Some ethnomusicologists believed that Laos is a country where the ancient art music of the Khmer people has been best preserved -- as well as diverse forms of folk music related to the oldest types of Indian music, music that has largely disappeared in India itself. They claim to find in Laos a scale which the ancient Hindus called the "celestial scale," the Gandhara grama, which is a tempered heptatonic scale, or a division of the octave into seven equal parts.
The Royal Lao Orchestra, consisting of musicians of the former court of the king of Laos, who fled Laos following the communist takeover in 1975, now reside in Knoxville and Nashville,Tennessee, United States.
Supplementary words
The Lao , are an ethnic subgroup of Tai/Dai in Southern China and Southeast Asia
The Hmong : Hmoob/Moob,), are an Asian ethnic group from the mountainous regions of China, Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand. Hmong are also one of the sub-groups of the Miao ethnicity in southern China. Hmong groups began a gradual southward migration in the 18th century due to political unrest and to find more arable land.
Mien may refer to: An ethnonym for the Yao people of China, or the Dao people of Vietnam.
A mouth organ is any of several types of musical instruments played by blowing air through a pipe or tube, generally consisting of multiple tubes connected together.
*The khene (also spelled "khaen", "kaen" and "khen"; ) is a mouth organ of Lao origin whose pipes, which are usually made of bamboo, are connected with a small, hollowed-out hardwood reservoir into which air is blown, creating a sound similar to that of the violin
The term fiddle may refer to any bowed string musical instrument, most often the violin.
Khaplam wai is a form of music originating in Laos, popular in the city of Luang Prabang. It has been described as slow, calm and serene.
*Ranat ) is the generic name for keyboard percussion instruments used in the music of Thailand. The bars of the various types of ranat may be made from hardwood or bamboo (ranat ek and ranat thum ), metal (ranat ek lek and ranat thum lek ), or, much more rarely, glass (ranat kaeo ).
The mahori ( also spelled mohori) is a form of Thai and Cambodian classical ensemble which was traditionally played by women in the courts of both Central Thailand and Cambodia. It combines the xylophones and gong circles (but not the pi, or oboe) of the piphat with the strings of the khruang sai ensemble
The ching (; sometimes romanized as chhing) are small bowl-shaped finger cymbals of thick and heavybronze, with a broad rim commonly used in Cambodia and Thailand. They are made of an alloy (mixture of iron, copper, and gold) mixed with bronze. Measure about 2 inches (5 cm) in diameter and are joined together with a cord, which passes through a small hole at the apex of each one of them. Each cymbal of the pair is held in one hand and the two are struck together. The ching are the timekeepers of the ensemble.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laos
