MUG 306

INTRODUCTION
TO
ETHNOMUSICOLOGY

THAILAND : MOR LAM

Zul Fadzham Bin Mohd Nor
2012103183
MU1105A

THAILAND
Thailand, which is also known as Siam, is a country at the centre of the Indochinese
peninsula in Mainland Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Myanmar and
Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and
Malaysia, and to the west by the Andaman Sea and the southern extremity of
Myanmar.

BACKGROUND AND HISTORY OF MOR LAM

Mor lam is one of the traditional Lao form of song in Laos and Isan. The meaning of
Mor lam is an expert song, or expert singer, which is referring to the music or artist
respectively. There are some other romanisations that are also used include mor
lum, maw lam, maw lum, moh lam and mhor lum. The word lam is known as
a music in Laos, and mor lam refers to the singer.
The characteristic feature of lam singing is the use of a flexible melody which is
tailored to the tones of the words in the text. Traditionally, the tune was developed
by the singer as an interpretation of glawn poems and accompanied primarily by
the Khene, which is a mouth organ of Lao origin whose pipes, that are usually
made of bamboo, are connected with a small, hollowed-out hardwood reservoir into
which air is blown, creating a sound similar to the violin.
Mor lam had its roots in the heartlands of Laos and Northeast Thailand known as
Isan. The song originated in the musical traditions of Tai tribes that migrated from
southern part of China and northern Vietnam. Chinese, Mon-Khmer, Indian and

Malay influences also have noticeable effects on the dances, instrumentation and
melodies of mor lam.
The history of mor lam began after Siam extended its influence over Laos in the
18th and 19th centuries, the music of Laos began to spread into the Thai
heartlands. Forced population transfers from Laos into the newly acquired region of
Isan and what is now Central Thailand accelerated the rapid adoption of mor lam.
Even King Mongkut's vice-king Pinklao becoming enamoured of it. But in 1865,
following the vice-king's death, Mongkut banned public performances, citing the
threat it posed to Thai culture and its alleged role in causing a drought. Performance
of mor lam thereafter was a largely local affair, confined to events such as festivals
in Isan and Laos. However, as Isan people began to migrate throughout the rest of
the country, the music came with them. The first major mor lam performance of the
20th century in Bangkok took place at the Rajdamnoen Boxing Stadium in 1946.
There were attempts in both Thailand and Laos to put the educational aspect of lam
to political use in the year of 1950 and 1960. The USIS in Thailand and both sides in
the Laotian Civil War recruited mor lam singers to include propaganda in their
performances, in hopes persuading the rural population to support their cause. But
the Thai attempt was unsuccessful, taking insufficient account of performers'
practices and the audiences' demands, but it was more successful in Laos.
In the late of late 1970 and early 1980, Mor lam started to spread in Thailand. Mor
lam performers began to appear on television, led by Banyen Rakgaen, and the
music soon gained a national profile. It remains an important link to home for Isan
migrants in the capital city, where mor lam clubs and karaoke bars act as meeting
places for newcomers.

INSTRUMENTATION
Mor lam is usually accompanied only by Khene, but there are also some
instruments that are used in mor lam ensembles such as Pi, Vot, Khuy, Heun,
Chakhe, Saw u, Khim, Phin, Hai song, Kachappi, Ranat, Sing, Sap, Kap,
Kong and Khong. Pi which is a bamboo with different kinds and sizes, a Vot
which is a circular panpipe and a Khuy, which is a different type of double-reed and
single-reed bamboo flutes. The other traditional instruments used includes a Heun
which is something like a jaw harp while Chakhe resembles that of a zither, Saw u
which is a kind of bowed fiddle-like instrument and Khim which is a hammered
dulcimer. There are also instruments named as Phin which a three-stringed lute, a
Hai song which looks like a taught string over an earthernware jar, an ancient lute
with two strings and four course known as Kachappi. A pong lang which is a type of
Ranat, thais version of xylophone. The following percussion instruments are also
used to create a funky feeling is Sing, which resembles a cymbal mainly used to
maintain tempo, a Sap which is another cymbal-looking instrument attached with
chords, a wooden clapper known as Kap, various types of hand drums called Kong
and different kinds of gongs also known as Khong.

Khim
Saw u

Chakhe
Ching
MUSICAL TEXTURE AND FORM
The vocal line of the words used in lam singing features staccato articulation and
rapid shifting between the limited number of notes in the scale being used,
commonly delivering around four syllables per second. There are two pentatonic
scales, each of which roughly corresponds to intervals of a western diatonic major
scale as follows :

The Khene itself is played in one of six modes based on the scale being used and
the actual pitches used vary according to the particular Khene.
For the rhythm used in their poetry, its demarcative, which is based on the number
of syllables rather than on the number of stresses. There are seven basic syllables
in each line, divided into three and four syllable hemistiches in gon verse, which is
the most common form of traditional lam text. When the musical beat combined
with it, this produces a natural rhythm of four on-beat syllables, three off-beat
syllables, and a final one beat rest:

This pattern is complicated by the subdivision of beats into even or dotted twosyllable pairs and the addition of prefix syllables which occupy the rest at the end of
the previous line, each line may therefore include eleven or twelve actual syllables.
Sometimes, there are sudden tempo changes from the slow introduction to the
faster main section of the song in the modern form. The bassline rhythm, which is

often ornamented melodically or rhythmically, such as by dividing the crotchets into

quavers features in almost every contemporary mor lam song.

For the musical form of mor lam, there are quite many of them and also there are
terms used in mor lam performances such as lam phi fa, mor lam kon, lam
chotkae, mor lam mu, mor lam phoen and lam phuen. Lam phi fa is a ritual to
propitiate spirits in cases of possession. Mor lam kon is a vocal "battle" between
the sexes. Performances traditionally lasted all night, and consisted of first two,
then three parts which is lam tang san, that took up the bulk of the time, with the
singers delivering gon poems a few minutes in length, performing alternately for
about half an hour each from evening until about an hour before dawn, lam tang
nyao that represent the lovers' parting performed slowly and in a speech rhythm
for about a quarter of an hour, and lam toei, which was introduced in the mid-20th
century that similar in length to the lam tang nyao. It is fast and light-hearted.
The third terms used in mor lam performances is lam chotkae, which also known
as lam chot, is a variant of lam kon formerly popular in the Khon Kaen area, in
which the singers (often both male) asked one another questions on general
knowledge topics such as religion, geography, history and so on just trying to catch
out their opponent. Mor lam mu is a folk opera, developed in the mid-20th century.
Mor lam phoen is a celebratory narrative, performed by a group. It originated
around the same time as lam mu, but used a more populist blend of song and

dance. The material consisted of metrical verses sung in the yao scale, often with a
speech-rhythm introduction. And lastly is lam phuen, which is a recital of local
legends or Jataka stories, usually by a male singer, with khene accompaniment.

PERFORMANCE PRACTICE AND FUNCTION

Lam may be performed standing or sitting. Northern lam is typically lam yuen and
southern lam is typically lam nang. In Isan lam was traditionally performed seated,
with a small audience surrounding the singer, but over the latter half of the 20th
century the introduction of stages and amplification allowed a shift to standing
performances in front of a larger audience.
Live performances are now often large-scale events, involving several singers, a
dance troupe and comedians. The dancers, which is also known as hang khreuang
in particular often wear spectacular costumes, while the singers may go through
several costume changes in the course of a performance. Additionally, smallerscale, informal performances are common at festivals, temple fairs and ceremonies
such as funerals and weddings. These performances often include improvised
material between songs and passages of teasing dialogue between the singer and
members of the audience.