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In Laos and. NortheastThailand, it is the most prominent musical instrument of Lao and Isan. The khaen is constructed of bamboo pipes, a wooden windchest, ...
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A thesis submitted to the College of the Arts of Kent State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts by Charles Occhipinti November 2020
Thesis written by Charles Occhipinti B.A., Appalachian State University, 201 6 M.A., Kent State University, 20 20 Approved by
Andrew Shahriari, Ph.D., Advisor
Kent McWilliams, D.M.A., Director, School of Music
John Crawford-Spinelli, Ed.D., Dean, College of the Arts
v
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First and foremost, I want to thank my thesis committee. They have guided me through the arduous toil that was my first large scale research paper. Throughout the entire project, they have helped me grow as a researcher, a musician and most importantly a person. Thank you for the memories, not only at Kent State University but also the memories we all shared in Thailand. From the bottom of my heart, ขอบคุณมากครับ Dr. Miller, Dr. Shahriari, and Ajaan Khio. I would also like to thank the rest of the wonderful faculty at Kent State University that have guided me over the years. Without all of them I could not have made it through this part of my academic journey. Thank you Dr. Tiffe, Dr. Johnstone, and Dr. wa Mukuna A big thank you to Ajaan Jarernchai, Dr. Adler, Dr. Garzoli, Mr. Olsen, and Mr. Walker, for taking part in my research. I have learned so much from you all and look forward to many years working you. To Jeng and Pandis, thank you for your support on the long days of writing. Thank you for giving me a sounding board when I needed one and most importantly thank you for your friendship. Last but not least, I would like to thank my family for their unconditional love and support as I achieve my academic goals. I love you all.
Introduction My interest in studying ethnomusicology and the khaen, a free-reed bamboo mouth organ from Laos and northeast Thailand, began as a member of the Thai ensemble here at Kent State University. I feel fortunate to be under the tutelage of one of the most highly regarded khaen musicians in the United States, Dr. Priwan Nanongkham (Ajaan Khio). Being at a university renowned for its scholarship in Thai music, I am motivated to continue this legacy by researching music and culture from Thailand. From December 17, 2018 - January 11, 2019, I traveled in Thailand with members of the KSU Department of Ethnomusicology and the KSU Thai Ensemble. During this trip, we were exposed to many different aspects of Thai culture; language, food, religion, history, nightlife, and most importantly, music. We traveled through three of the four regions in the country: North, Northeast (aka Isan), and Central. We were able to attend a mawlam glawn concert in Mahasarakham Province, which featured the khaen.^1 These concerts are attended by residents of the local community and can go late into the night.^2 Attending this concert was a life changing moment for me. We were able to hear two exceptionally talented young khaen musicians accompanying a male and female performing duo. These musicians exhibited an impressive and high level of musical aptitude in both technique and style, according to my professor, Ajaan Khio, who also attended the event. (^1) Mawlam is repartee singing between two singers, normally one male and one female, with khaen accompaniment. (^2) Terry E. Miller, Traditional Music of the Lao: Kaen Playing and Mawlam Singing in Northeast Thailand (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1985), 37.
3 long it took to get to this level of performance. Such interests fuel my current research into khaen pedagogy and oral transmission. This thesis will therefore examine khaen pedagogy from the perspective of an outsider, i.e., myself, in order to gain a more comprehensive understanding of how oral tradition in learning to play folk music instruments, such as the khaen, can be effectively embraced by non-native musicians. Survey of Literature Much of the research devoted to the khaen focuses on the mawlam tradition and the khaen’s role as an accompanying instrument. Terry Miller, Professor Emeritus at Kent State University, has done the most research in this area. Traditional Music of the Lao: Kaen Playing and Mawlam Singing in Northeast Thailand takes an in-depth look at mawlam singing and the khaen’s role within this folk tradition.^3 The last two chapters, “The Kaen, Description and History” and “Kaen Playing in Northeast Thailand,” cover the construction and craftsmanship involved in making the khaen, as well as specific characteristics and techniques used to play the instrument. Additionally, Miller offers transcriptions and descriptions of several widely known folk melodies and improvisations that are commonly known to khaen performers. The information in Miller’s book pertains to khaen performance by a group of men that have been playing the khaen for several decades. These musicians were of differing levels of musicianship. While khaen players were paid for their performances, according to Miller, it was only a very small portion of what the singers were paid and rarely exceeded one hundred baht a (^3) Miller, Traditional Music of the Lao , xix-xxi, 189-294. Unlike Chinese, which has a nationally recognized transcription system called pinyin, there is no widely accepted transcription system for the Thai music. There are, however, two basic guidelines to Romanizing the Thai language. The first is a traditional linguistic approach, which requires knowledge of the phonetic alphabet in order to correctly pronounce each syllable. The second is a layman’s approach that results in many different spellings. As a result of this layman’s approach is the existence of multiple spellings of words, such as khaen. In this paper, I use the most widely found spelling of k-h-a-e-n. Historical research includes spellings of k-a-e-n and k-e-n-e. These spellings are only used when directly referencing or quoting source material significant to this thesis.
4 night, approximately $5USD at the time of his research. During this period, khaen players were not professionals and would only entertain an audience as a soloist in a private, not for profit setting. Miller also wrote, An Introduction to Playing the Kaen in which he utilizes his research to create a westernized method to learning the khaen.^4 As there are few resources that can be utilized for learning the khaen, this text is valuable in that it is the first in the English language. The text includes explanations and exercises that teach the novice student how to perform in each of the six modes. The six modes, or lai , are organized by two basic scales; thangsan and thangyao. The thangsan scale includes lai sootsanaen, lai bo-sai, and lai soi modes. The thangyao scale includes lai yai, lai noi, and lai sae. Lai sae, the “E” mode, is typically not acknowledged by Thai performers due to the technical difficulties in improvising.^5 A musician improvises within these six modes, though in common practice only five are used. Each improvisation is built on an existing lai which consists of five pitches, similar to a western pentatonic scale. Musical creativity and improvisation exist within this modal framework.^6 This resource is useful for the self-taught student, as it covers many of the building blocks of how improvisation is executed in this tradition. In addition to his books about Isan music, Miller has produced several journal articles. “From Country Hick to Rural Hip: A New Identity Through Music for Northeast Thailand,” (^4) Terry E. Miller, An Introduction to Playing the Kaen (Kent, OH: Self-published, 1980). (^5) The orientation of the pipes on the khaen are designed to avoid the use of three consecutive pitches in either hand. The “E” mode uses 5 consecutive pitches with the right hand and the consecutive pitches on the left hand. (^6) Miller, An Introduction to Playing the Kaen , 21-22.
6 clearly an instrument of virtuosic levels of performance, great cultural importance and not merely symbolic of Isan culture. Terry Miller and Jarernchai Chonpairot coauthored, “Musical Traditions of Northeast Thailand,” in which they explained the historical setting of mawlam singing.^10 There is little mention of the khaen, as the article focuses on the changing nature of oral tradition over generations. Based on this article and my experience learning the khaen, there is an inherent amount of melodic deviation, likely due to memory, that is accepted as stylistic differences from teacher to teacher. In contrast to the somewhat bleak outlook for the khaen in Miller’s “From Country Hick to Rural Hip,” Priwan Nanongkham’s thesis, The Ponglang Ensemble: New Developments in the Music of Northeast Thailand , presents a more promising outlook on the new direction of khaen performance in Isan.^11 The khaen is an integral part of many modern ensembles that have grown out of the musically rich northeast, being found in the ponglang ensemble, as well as the wong phin khaen , an ensemble comprised of phin , a plucked lute, khaen and a goblet drum, and luk thung ensembles.^12 Through globalization, the khaen has been taken out of its traditional setting in the villages of Isan and is now an established instrument in the arena of modern music. The khaen can now be heard in Thai reggae bands, sampled in Thai rap, and in hybrid bands such as Paradise Bangkok Molam International Band. Nanongkham delves into the mythology surrounding the development of the khaen. (^10) Terry E. Miller and Jarernchai Chonpairot, “The Musical Traditions of Northeast Thailand,” Journal of the Siam Society 67, no. 1 (January 1979): 1-16, http://www.siamese- heritage.org/jsspdf/1971/JSS_067_1b_MillerJarernchaiChonpairot_MusicalTraditionsOfNortheastThailand.pdf. (^11) Priwan Nanongkham, “Ponglang Ensemble: New Developments in the Music of Northeast Thailand,” (master’s thesis, Kent State University, 2001). (^12) Ponglang – Isan wood log xylophone; Luk Thung – Thai popular music using a Western rock band.
7 Much like Miller’s works, Nanongkham details the construction and performance technique of the khaen. In contrast to Miller’s research, Nanongkham provides the perspective of a culture bearer, as he is native-born Isan and an accomplished musician on the khaen , phin , khlui , and other instruments in the central Thai piphat ensemble.^13 His perspective as a culture bearer validates his research and that of Terry Miller. Nanongkham emphasizes the importance of the khaen in the ponglang ensemble, as recently as the 1990s and 2000s. Since this time, further research has been sparse in relation to the ponglang ensemble or the khaen. Gavin Douglas’ Music in Mainland Southeast Asia , gives a general background and introduction to music from the region, but contains only a short seven-page section on Isan music covering just basic information.^14 Douglas refers to Miller’s works throughout the section on Isan music and emphasizes the socio-political atmosphere relating to Isan music and Lao identity. Additionally, Douglas touches on the basic music theory of khaen performance, moving to a superficial description of technique and introduction to a couple of lai. This resource is best suited as an introduction to music in Southeast Asia. In addition to these main resources, there is research found in Thai, German, and French. These resources are primarily duplicating the research done by Terry E. Miller and Priwan Nanongkham. Other resources utilized in this research will focus more generally on oral traditions in Southeast Asia, bi-musicality, and music pedagogy. “The Oral Transmission of Music in Selected Asian Cultures,” by Patricia Shehan-Campbell details oral traditions in India, Japan, and Thailand, including the application of oral tradition in musical practice.^15 Across this (^13) Piphat – A classical ensemble from Central Thailand. (^14) Gavin Douglas, Music in Mainland Southeast Asia: Experiencing Music, Expressing Culture,” (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010). (^15) Patricia Shehan, “The Oral Transmission of Music in Selected Asian Cultures,” Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education , no. 92 (Summer, 1987): 1-14, https://www.jstor.org/stable/40318119.
9 A potential issue with learning an oral tradition and achieving a high level of musicianship in that tradition is the lack of standard pedagogy which develops the basic musicianship needed to express one’s musical ideas. Oral traditions do not over emphasize the idea of notation dictating musicianship or the mechanics of instrumental performance. Musicianship and mechanics are developed through trial and error and imitation of other expert musicians. In Thailand, even though the government funded an attempt to notate nearly 500 court music compositions, most of the notated works only consist of the main melody leaving much of the music to be transmitted through oral tradition.^19 This is a break from the Western musical traditions in which we learn how to read music while learning how to make music. Teaching Brass: A Resource Manual is a widely used pedagogical resource for teaching brass instruments in the Western music idiom.^20 Perhaps we over complicate the practice of music in the West. Simply looking at the contents of this book makes that seem true. Acoustics of the Brass Instruments, Breath Control, The Embouchure, Articulation, Brass Instrument Equipment; these chapters are before the author even addresses instrument specific pedagogy. 21 These are the basic concepts that are covered when we begin band classes in the West. Young musicians are inundated with information and concepts and pedagogy almost before they even play a note. The specifics of how to play correctly, properly execute a note, holding the instrument, and good posture are enough to detract even the most excited kid. Where oral tradition seems to lack a pedagogical foundation for teaching an instrument, it is perhaps true (^19) Shehan, “The Oral Transmission of Music in Selected Asian Cultures,” 9. (^20) Wayne Bailey, Patrick Miles, Alan Siebert, William Stanley, and Thomas Stein, Teaching Brass: A Resource Manual , (New York: McGraw Hill, 2008). (^21) Bailey, Teaching Brass , iii.
10 that Western music places too high an emphasis on notation and pedagogy early on in the learning process. The purpose of this research is to better understand how an outsider to a music tradition can more efficiently become bi-musical through an investigation of differing pedagogical approaches. How do we reconcile our inability to be an insider to a tradition? How far can we close the gap between insiders’ and outsiders’ levels of performance? How does pedagogy address this issue, if it does at all? This thesis will address these questions with the end goal of achieving a better understanding of how I, as an outsider to the khaen tradition, can best learn to perform the music of another culture with the hope that my experience and insights can be a resource for others traveling similar musical journeys. Proposed Topic This study focused on khaen pedagogy. Within the subject of pedagogy, it centered around how an outsider develops their musicianship in khaen performance outside the cultural setting in which khaen performance takes place. In this study, the researcher provided a reflective analysis of his experiences learning the khaen. As a classically trained Western musician that specialized in low brass instruments, many of the insights put forth in this study were derived from the researcher’s musicianship developed on trombone through years of rote memorization, notation, purposeful listening, private lessons, and through working with colleagues in low brass performance. The researcher then analyzed how his concept of Thai musicianship, Isan khaen performance, and a genuine attempt at authenticity were developed through private lessons with Ajaan Khio, listening to recordings, watching videos available on the internet, and attending a live performance in Thailand.
12 and analyzed. This allowed the researcher to hear their musical development. The analysis of the researcher’s performance over the duration of this research marked the improvement made and served as a yardstick to measure the efficacy of existing pedagogy. In addition, multiple interviews were conducted with Thai music experts within the United States and Thailand. The intention of these interviews was to draw additional insights into how musicians think about and approach khaen performance and to understand recent pedagogical practices. Projected Results The projected result of this research was to offer a fresh perspective on the study of khaen by a non-native to the tradition with the goal of articulating specifics of performance technique not previously found in the literature. Some of these specifics were style, fingering technique, breathing technique, and performance traditions. This research also provided insight into pedagogical practices related to the khaen that can be adapted to other solo instrumental traditions. These included a combination of the strengths of both Western training and Thai oral tradition. The researcher intended to draw insights from his experiences that might be amalgamated into a comprehensive method of both teaching and learning how to play the khaen and similar solo traditions outside of Western Art Music.
13 CHAPTER II KHAEN CONSTRUCTION AND MAINTENANCE Figure 2.1. Two khaen baet with different fundamental tones. Introduction The khaen is a free-reed mouth organ primarily constructed of bamboo in raft pairs. It is held with both hands and played by exhaling and inhaling through the instrument while covering and uncovering finger holes on each bamboo tube to sound pitches. In Laos and NortheastThailand, it is the most prominent musical instrument of Lao and Isan. The khaen is constructed of bamboo pipes, a wooden windchest, metal reeds, a black wax, called khisut , and a grass cord that binds the instrument at the top and bottom. The materials used to make khaen are directly related to the climate of Isan and Laos. Isan and Laos are tropical regions that experience savannah-like weather in three seasons; winter,
