Phin
Phin ( Thai พิณ ) referred to in Lao and in the region Isan in the northeast Thailand a group of two to four-stringed, plucked Langhals of loud that are played in today's rural entertainment music. The phin accompanied with the mouth organ khaen the the mo lam belonging dance theater and vocal styles lam mu and lam Ploen .
Two very old plucked instruments , also called phin and only found in northern Thailand, have an Indian origin : the single-stringed rod zither with calabash resonator phin nam tao and the related two- to five-stringed rod zither phin phia .
Origin of name
The syllable phin comes from the Sanskrit bin and vina . In the 1st millennium BC BC vina generally stood for "string instrument". At first these were bow harps . From the middle of the 1st century AD, stick zithers and lute instruments occur that are still played in Indian music today. The Thai word phin is one of the many pieces of evidence for the spread of Indian music to Southeast Asia in the 1st millennium AD.
Phin originally referred to stick zithers imported from India in Thailand. The simplest stringed instrument is the single-stringed phin nam tao , the string of which runs over a thin wooden stick. The calabash attached to the rod and used as a resonator explains the name tao ("calabash").
The phin nam tao , which is only played by men for courtship and singing in northern Thailand, corresponds to the kse diev , the oldest Cambodian stringed instrument. Such a rod zither is depicted on a bas-relief at Angkor Wat (mid-12th century), which shows a procession with musicians. The shape and way of playing both stick zithers go back to an early form of the Indian vina , which has disappeared in India today and is only preserved in the very rare tuila in the Indian state of Odisha .
A variant of the phin nam tao , which has almost disappeared today, is the somewhat larger phin phia (also called pin pia ) with two to five strings. The purpose is the same. Both zithers produce a very soft sound. The phin phia is considered an instrument of the epic singers in the former kingdom of Lan Na .
Design and style of play
When and from where the lute instrument was introduced is unclear. It is probably of more recent origin and has developed rapidly from the northern Thai plucked lute . Furthermore, the phin is related to the larger four-string Thai long-necked lute krajappi , the name of which goes back to the Indian kacchapi vina , which was also named for the chapey dang veng in Cambodia, hasapi in Sumatra and the Javanese zither kacapi .
As with the guitar, the strings run over five to eight frets on the neck, which ends behind the pegbox in a decorative arc that curves upwards to the side. The shape of the wooden body is largely arbitrary, it can be round, oval, rectangular, box-shaped or, as an imitation of a guitar, waisted box-shaped. The external dimensions of the body are 20 to 30 centimeters, the total length of the instrument between 60 centimeters and one meter. The quality of the execution differs depending on whether the phin was simply manufactured by an amateur musician himself or made by an instrument maker. With elaborate instruments, the neck ends behind the pegbox in a richly carved curve that continues to the side. The body and neck can be assembled from several parts or sawn out of a single thick wooden board. In the latter case, the inside of the body is sawed out except for a thin, pear-shaped or drop-shaped edge. Then the frames are glued on both sides with a thin wooden board. The flat bridge lies loosely on the ceiling, which has a sound hole under the strings.
Most instruments have three metal strings that go to the pitches A – d – a ( lai yai ), A – d – a ( lai noi ), A – a – a ( hua tok mawn ) or A – a – e '( lam ploen samai boran ) are in tune . In the fourth tuning, the musician plays the melody in parallel fifths on the middle and upper side, while adding a drone tone with the lower string . Otherwise he plays the melody on one string and always the drone on the lower string. The strings are torn with a plectrum made of animal horn in the right hand. Many musicians have been using an electrical amplifier since the 1990s .
The phin is played either as the sole melody instrument or together with the khaen oral organ . Drums hit with the hands provide the rhythm. The melodies played belong to the traditional repertoire of the khaen , which some players add to their own compositions. Khaen and an electrically amplified phin accompany the singer in a genre of songs called lam ploen , which originated in some areas of northeast Thailand and Laos after 1950. In addition to hand drums, a western drum kit is also involved. Lam or mo lam is the generic term for various entertaining and ceremonial dance theater and singing styles in this region, some of which only emerged in the second half of the 20th century. Other musical instruments used in the village lam styles are the fiddle sor bip with a beaker as the body (a simpler relative of the central Thai string sor u ) and the pan flute wot ( wode ). Older than lam ploen is the folk theater lam mu , whose music ensemble always includes khaen and phin , and has been supplemented by Western musical instruments such as keyboards since the 1970s . Other instruments involved are the xylophone pong long and, since the 1980s, the phin hai , a set of three clay pots, each with a rubber band stretched over the openings, which makes a deep rhythmic sound when plucked.
The genre lam sing basically consists of a khaen , an electrically amplified phin and a drum set. The repertoire consists of traditional melodies and verses in a modern musical guise, supplemented by elements from the popular luk thung singing style . Lam sing is extremely popular at nighttime events in northeast Thailand. The lam phanya yoi genre from the area around the city of Mukdahan on the Mekong is less well known . It also contains elements of the luk thung and is particularly valued for the loud game of the electric phin .
The lam mu and lam ploen ensembles began to warm up the audience with luk thung songs at the opening of their dance and music performances in the 1970s . At that time an ensemble consisted of 15 to 20 members. A decade later, these ensembles had grown to 60 to 100 members. Since then, the new actors have formed their own troupe ( hang khruang ), made up of colorfully costumed dancers and other musicians with Western musical instruments. The khaen has degenerated in this large occupation to a folkloric symbol. Such formations are too expensive for generally accessible family and village celebrations, they require professional management and a cordoned-off performance area, for which admission tickets are sold. Luk thung songs are sung for the first three hours of such an event .
Apart from such major events, a traveling lam troupe consists of around 20 male and female dancers and musicians, and a small music ensemble of four to six members. According to a survey in 2006, a phin player earns as much as a dancer (500 baht , US $ 12.5), a khaen player double (1000 baht, US $ 25) and a bassist (with 700 Baht, US $ 17.5) per performance in the center. There is also a small surcharge for travel expenses.
literature
- Terry E. Miller: Thailand . In: Terry E. Miller, Sean Williams (Eds.): Garland Encyclopedia of World Music. Volume 4: Southeast Asia . Routledge, London 1998, pp. 218-334
Web links
- Thailand. Atlas of Plucked Instruments
- Thai Phin. Youtube video
- Sound sample Phin (MP3; 2.7 MB)
Individual evidence
- ^ David Morton: The Traditional Music of Thailand. University of California Press, Berkeley 1976, pp. 91f
- ↑ Gretel Schwörer-Kohl: Thailand, Laos, Cambodia. In: Ludwig Finscher (Hrsg.): The music in past and present . Sachteil 9, 1998, col. 502
- ^ David Morton: The Traditional Music of Thailand. University of California Press, Berkeley 1976, p. 5
- ↑ Terry E. Miller: Thailand . In: Garland Encyclopedia of World Music, p. 316
- ↑ Terry E. Miller: Thailand . In: Garland Encyclopedia of World Music, p. 327
- ↑ Terry E. Miller: From Country Hick to Rural Hip: A New Identity through Music for Northeast Thailand. In: Asian Music, Vol. 36, No. 2, summer – autumn 2005, pp. 96–106, here p. 102
- ↑ Pattana Kitiarsa: Modernity, Agency, and "Lam Sing": Interpreting 'Music Culture Contacts' in Northeastern Thailand. In: Crossroads: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Southeast Asian Studies , Vol. 17, No. 2, 2006, pp. 34–65, here p. 50