Jähnichen, Gisa (2023). Stick Zithers and their Sound in the Regional Context of Mainland Southeast Asia. Musical Bows and Zithers Along the Great Silk Road. Edited by Xiao Mei and Gisa Jähnichen. Berlin: Logos, 105-116. (original) (raw)
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This paper analyses the use of the serunai in a small ensemble accompanying silat (martial arts) in Kampung Stong, a larger village in the mountainous area of Kelantan, Malaysia, which was founded following new settlement policies in the late 1960s. The serunai is the only wind instrument used in this village. It is also the only instrument carrying a melody over a time longer than a period of a few bars. However, the instrument is regularly replicated and also sold to neighbouring villages. Beginning with the story of the village and its instrument maker, player, and cultural activist Ramli bin Yusof, the musical analysis of a silat performance relates a specific rule system that guides the ensemble as well as the performing fighters. Technical characteristics and playing techniques are part of this analysis. Finally, aesthetics in performance and their relation to sound symbolism are discussed. The author has conducted extensive field work in this area and provides first-hand information.
The present study takes a closer look at the historical background of shawms 1 observed in the East African region. The shawm family comprises single and double reed instruments (clarinets and oboes), but the discussion will focus on double reed instruments. An attempt is made to find out whether double reed instruments used in this region have any historical link with the Great Silk Road. Of course, it is not easy to trace the exact origin and the worldwide diffusion of these musical instruments due to lack of written accounts and empirical data, as well as due to little current scholarly attention. Materials for the present inquiry derive from fieldwork conducted in 2005 on the Kenyan and Tanzanian coasts, including the islands of Pemba and Zanzibar. Supplementary data comprise written accounts, as well as commercial and non-commercial audiovisual recordings. Given the fact that shawms are of ancient derivation, the study attempts at providing an overview about possible cultural relations between the East African region and the outside world, in which principally the activities of trade and sea routes have played a vital role. Subsequently, possible exchanges of musical cultures and practices as well as possible migrations of double reed instruments to East Africa belong to the core points of my investigation.
Routledge eBooks, 2022
This article follows the itinerary of a ‘twin horn’ (horn faet) loudspeaker in Thailand. Dating from the 1960s, the model was initially used by the United States Army during the Vietnam War. Attached in rows to aeroplanes, they were powerful public address speakers, loud enough to amplify music, slogans, and information. The speakers were used in operations flying from US bases in the Thai Northeast to the Vietnam battleground. They were also used in the communist-sensitive areas of Thailand in counter-insurgency operations. Although mostly used from the air, Thai/US mobile teams also used the speakers to present movies on large screens, regional molam songs, and other propaganda to ‘remote villagers’. As the US retreated from Vietnam and Thailand in 1972–1973, the equipment was either given to government offices or exchanged on the black market. From this point, the horns passed from hand to hand. In 1990, Acan Naem decided to form a processional band in the Lom Sak district of Phetchabun province. This band adopted the twin horn and established a local genre, called phin prayuk, in which, five generations later, musicians continue to play. The horn loudspeaker is now appreciated for its sound and is a necessary component of any acknowledged phin prayuk band. Keeping track of the circulation of this model of loudspeaker and of the discourses it triggered, this chapter examines the malleability of sound technology. By looking at United States reports of the psychological battlefront in the Northeast, oral history of the coming of amplification and its adoption, and including a study on contemporary aesthetics, repertoire, and the ritual roles of a local music genre featuring the twin horn, I outline the role played by the horn in the Thai adoption of electrical sound amplification technology.
The Ranat and Bong-Lang : the question of origin of the Thai xylophones
1979
In the early 1970's a musical instrument known as the bong-lang from Galasin (Kalasin) province in the northeast region of Thailand was discovered by scholars in Bangkok. The bong-lang is a vertical xylophone, i.e., a succession of struck hardwood logs each with its own pitch. Some Thai scholars asserted that the bong-lang was the long-sought ancestor of the horizontal xylophone (ranat) found in central Thai classical ensembles. Because Galasin province was isolated due to poor roads until about 1970 and is a culturally conservative area, the theory seemed plausible. Although we were skeptical of a direct relationship between the bong-lang and ranat, in 1973 we began investigating the origin and lore of the bong-lang. Interviews were conducted in Ban Na-jan (Pai subdistrict, Miiang district) in Galasin province, the center of bong-lang activity, both with musicians and the eldest people who could be found. Additional information was gleaned from interviews elsewhere in the region. While not claiming to have found the indisputable truth regarding the relationship between the two xylophones, we feel the following suggests several conclusions, some of them more probable than others.