Chiang Mai (Northern Thailand) Tourist Guide


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Just Look... Here!

Text: GM

“What instruments do you play?” If you’re asked in English, you’re likely to come up with the names of familiar Western musical instruments: violin, piano, harmonica, whatever. In Thai, however, and up here in the North, the picture that will come to mind will be of someone wearing traditional Northern clothes and playing…Er… Well, read on, and look at the pictures below.

1. Bamboo Drum or Klong mai phai
Some decades ago, when kids had to take their buffaloes out to graze, their parents would give them the instrument they’d devised to keep their children entertained. It is easy to make and play, and so good for beginners. Unfortunately this bamboo drum is going to become extinct since the only people left playing today are our grandpas and grandmas.

2. Salor
A local musical instrument used in many festivals. The voice box is often heart-shaped or has the figure of the Ramakien epic character, Hanuman, the monkey Son of the Wind. The sound is produced as for the violin, with a bow.

3. Sueng or four-stringed Lanna musical instrument
The four strings of this musical instrument are divided into two parts, with each pair of strings on a different part of the instrument. Locals usually play it in festivals in concert with another instrument called the salor.

4. Klui or flutes
There are two types of flutes in Lanna style separated by colours. One is made of rosewood and has a darker brown shade. The other is made of bamboo. However the sounds that come from the flutes are quite the same.

5. Three Jum Pi
These three Pi or flutes are made from the trunk of a single bamboo, and range in size from small to medium and large. All three tend to be played together when Lanna folk songs are being sung.

6. Phin Phia - a lute
The phin is a kind of lute. The phin phia is what local people say is ‘the instrument of the heart’, and is particularly difficult to play well. The voice box is made from a coconut shell. While playing the instrument, the musician has to press the voice box to his heart, so that the sound is influenced by the heartbeat. In the old days, young men, usually shirtless, would play the phin phia to court the girls they fancied.

Pictures and information courtesy of Kru Birth, Prasong Saengngam - one of the very first teachers and co-founders at Lanna Wisdoms School.