Thai Music

Throughout Thailand you'll find a wide variety of musical genres and styles, from the serene court music that accompanies classical dance-drama to the chest-thumping house music played at Bangkok's latest discos and dance venues. Even in the Buddhist monasteries throughout Thailand-where music is proscribed by the vinaya or monastic discipline-the chanting of the monks exhibits musical qualities.

Traditional Music

Classical Central Thai music is spicy, like Thai food, and features an incredible array of textures and subtleties, hair-raising tempos and pastoral melodies.

The classical orchestra is called the pii-phaat and can include as few as five players or more than 20. Among the more common instruments is the pii, a woodwind instrument which has a reed mouthpiece; it is heard prominently at Thai boxing matches. The pii is a relative of a similar Indian instrument, while the phin, a stringed instrument whose name comes from the Indian vina, is considered native to Thailand. A bowed instrument, similar to ones played in China and Japan, is aptly called the saw. The ranaat ek is a bamboo-keyed percussion instrument resembling the xylophone, while the khlui is a wooden flute.

One of the more amazing Thai instruments is the khawng wong yai; tuned gongs arranged in a semicircle. There are also several different kinds of drums, some played with the hands, some with sticks. The most important Thai percussion instrument is the ta-phon (or thon), a double-headed hand-drum that sets the tempo for the ensemble. Prior to a performance, the players make offerings of incense and flowers to the ta-phon, which is considered to be the 'conductor' of the music's spiritual content.

The pii-phaat ensemble was originally developed to accompany classical dance-drama and shadow theatre but can be heard in straightforward performance these days, in temple fairs as well as concerts. One reason classical Thai music may sound strange is that it does not use the tempered scale. The standard Thai scale does feature an eight-note octave but it is arranged in seven full-tone intervals, with no semi-tones. Thai scales were first transcribed by Thai-German composer Peter Feit (Phra Chen Duriyanga), who also composed Thailand's national anthem in 1932.

In the North and North-East there are several popular reed instruments with multiple bamboo pipes, which function basically like a mouth-organ. Chief among these is the khaen, which originated in Laos; when played by an adept musician it sounds like a rhythmic, churning steam organ. The funky luuk thung style, which originated in the North-East, has become a favourite throughout Thailand.

If you're interested in learning how to play traditional Thai instruments, contact the Bangkok YMCA (Tel. 6626743104)

Recommended books include The Traditional Music of Thailand by David Morton, and Thai Music by Phra Chen Duriyanga (Peter Feit).

Modern Music

Popular Thai music has borrowed much from western music, particularly its instruments, but still retains a distinct flavour of its own. Although Bangkok bar bands can play fair imitations of everything from Hank Williams to Madonna, thee is a growing preference among Thais for a blend of Thai and international styles.

The best example of this is Thailand's famous rock group Carabao. Recording and performing for nearly 25 year now, Carabao is by far the most popular musical group in Thailand and has even scored hits in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines with songs like 'Made in Thailand' (the chorus in English). This band and others have crafted an exciting fusion of Thai classical and luuk thung forms with heavy metal. These days almost every other Thai pop group sounds like a Carabao clone, and individual members of the original band are putting out their own albums using the now-classic Carabao sound.

Another  major influence on Thai pop was a 1970s group called Caravan, which created a modern Thai folk style known as phleng pheua chii-wit or 'songs for life'. Songs of this nature have political and environmental topics rather than the usual love themes; during the authoritarian dictatorships of the 1970s many of Caravan's songs were officially banned. Though this band dissolved in the early 1980s, they re-form for occasional live concert. The group's most gifted song-writer, Surachai, continues to record and release solo efforts.

Yet another inspiring movement in modern Thai music is the fusion of international jazz with Thai classical and folk motifs. The leading exponent of this newer genre is the composer and instrumentalist Tewan Sapsanyakorn (also known as Tong Tewan), whose performances mix western and Thai instruments. The melodies of his compositions are often Thai-based but the improvisations and rhythms are drawn from sources such as Sonny Rollins. Tewan himself plays soprano and alto sax, violin and khlui with equal virtuosity. When Tewan isn't touring internationally you may catch him and his extremely capable band Tewan Novel Jazz at various Bangkok clubs and occasionally elsewhere in Thailand.

Other groups fusing international jazz and indigenous Thai music include Kangsadarn and Boy Thai; the latter adds Brazilian samba to the mix. Thai instrumentation in world music settings are specialities of Todd Lavelle and Nupap Savantrachas, each of whom scored hits in Thailand during the late 1990s. Fong Nam, a Thai orchestra led by American composer Bruce Gaston, performs an inspiring blend of western and Thai classical motifs.

CD-roms of Thai music are readily available throughout the country from department stores, CD-rom shops and street vendors. The average price for a Thai music CD is 100B to 200B.