Phin phia

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Two-string phin phia

Phin phia , also pin pia ( Thai พิณ เพี ยะ ), is a two- to five-string zither in northern Thailand , whose resonator consists of half a coconut . The shape and style of playing this plucked instrument and the single-stringed zither phin nam tao with a resonator made from half a calabash , which has practically disappeared today , probably go back to a forerunner belonging to the vinas in India , which together with other elements of Indian culture in the 1st millennium in Southeast Asia spread. The culture of the former Kingdom of Lanna belonging phin phia was until she had become rare in the second half of the 20th century, played only by men soloists and vocal accompaniment in private. Young men serenaded the bride's phin phia in the evenings. Since the turn of the millennium, the very quiet sounding phin phia has experienced a nostalgic revival in an ensemble with a playing style that has been modified by microphone amplification or electromagnetic pickups .

The word phin , derived from Indian languages, has been transferred to the more well-known long-necked lute phin , which is played in popular music in northeastern Thailand and Laos .

Origin and Distribution

The syllable phin goes back to Sanskrit and Pali bin and vina . In the Vedic texts of the 1st millennium BC BC vina generally stood for "stringed instrument", which in several descriptions in the Brahmanas bow meant harps . Mythological Gandharvas and other heavenly beings can be seen playing bow harps at the turn of the century on reliefs on Buddhist cult buildings in India. From the 2nd century BC Bow harps appearing on Indian reliefs have their origin in the ancient Egyptian bin and in Mesopotamia . Bin was retained in the name of the Cambodian bow harp pinn . These and all other harps have disappeared in Asia, apart from a few marginal occurrences and with the saung gauk in Myanmar as the most important exception.

From the 7th century AD, various rod zithers and lute instruments are depicted on temple reliefs, some of which are still played in Indian music today. Instead, the bow harps had largely disappeared from India by this time. Many of these types of instruments have spread eastward from India. Vina is the common name in South India for stick zithers and lute instruments, bin ( bina ) is common in North India. Bin-baja is the name of the last Indian bow harp that can still be found in a rural region today. The name kinnari vina , which appeared for the first time in the 12th century, refers to the relationship to the heavenly sphere: Kinnaras are lower deities in Indian mythology. The oldest known relief in India of a musician with a stick zither (rock relief "Descent of the Ganga" in Mamallapuram ) shows a kinnara holding his instrument in the same playing position as with the phin phia in front of the upper body. Ekatantri vina was named after a single-stringed zither (corresponding to ektara , a single-stringed lute). The Thai word phin is one of many pieces of evidence for the early spread of Indian music to Southeast Asia.

The phin nam tao and the phin phia do not derive from the form of the ekatantri vina that became visible between the 9th and 13th centuries and the current playing position of the Indian zithers, but from a playing position that was common before the 9th century and is rarely shown later. The rudra vina , which is played today in Northern India, is held diagonally in front of the upper body by the seated player, with the upper of two calabash resonators resting on the left shoulder. The playing position of the Thai stick zithers, on the other hand, corresponds to the older Indian illustrations of stick zithers, which are known from literary sources as alapini vina . Such an alapini vina and how it is played is described by Sarngadeva in his 13th century music theory Sangitaratnakara . Here, the musician shown holds his instrument in front of the upper body at an angle downwards and the resonator is in the upper left in front of the chest. Probably the only Indian string instrument that follows the tradition of the ancient Indian alapini vina is the tuila , which is only found in some rural regions of the state of Odisha . Only the early alapini vina made it to Southeast Asia, but not the later, much more refined rudra vina .

Reliefs on Borobudur (8th / 9th centuries) in Central Java give early references to stick zithers in Southeast Asia . In Cambodia, bow harps, stick zithers and lute instruments appear on some reliefs on the Bayon (early 13th century). The Cambodian bow harp has disappeared, its name pinn was retained as the name of the court orchestra pinpeat . The corresponding Thai ensemble is called pi phat . A Cambodian stick zither is also depicted on a bas-relief at Angkor Wat (mid-12th century) depicting a procession with musicians. The stab zither kse diev , which is still occasionally played today, is the oldest Cambodian string instrument. It is most closely related to the Thai phin nam tao and may have been its model. However, there is an even older reference to a Southeast Asian stick zither in Thailand. This is a terracotta relief on the Buddhist temple of the Dvaravati culture in Khu Bua from the 7th century, showing a group of women musicians.

Other stick zithers in Southeast Asia are the dunde, santung and falundo in Sulawesi , the jungga on the East Indonesian island of Sumba and the sulepe on the island of Halmahera . The stab zither came from Southeast Asia to Madagascar and the East African coast. The spread of the stick zither from India and within Southeast Asia via Vietnam to China followed the sea trade routes known since the beginning of the 1st millennium. In central Vietnam, stick zithers are depicted on Cham temples around the 11th century , but were later forgotten.

It is not known when the single-string phin nam tao arrived in the kingdom of Lanna, nor is it known when the multi-string phin phia developed from it . The first clear illustration of the multi-string instrument is a wall painting in the Vihara of Wat Lai Hing Luang in Lampang , which is dated around 1800. It shows an episode with Pancasikha, a Gandharva that only occurs in Buddhist mythology . According to the Jatakas, Pancasikha (in Thailand Panjasingkong) accompanies the Hindu god Indra on his visit to the Buddha . The harp that Pancasikha was supposed to play has been replaced by a four-string phin phia in the illustration . The motif could have been introduced via the Buddhist Dvaravati kingdom. This kingdom, founded by the Mon , existed from the 6th to the 13th centuries and was involved in maritime trade in Southeast Asia. In the 11th and 12th centuries, the cultural influence reached from Dvaravati to the Mon empire Haripunjaya , the forerunner of Lanna. Regardless of whether the phin phia is seen as an adoption of the widespread stick zither tradition or, according to some Thai authors, as an independent development due to the relatively low Hindu influence on Lanna, it represents the most mature form of this type of Asian stick zither.

Design

In the case of a bar zither (also known as a musical staff), a straight, rigid bar serves as a support for one or more strings attached between both ends. To amplify the sound of a rod zither, a resonance body is always required that is firmly in contact with the string carrier. The rod zither and the musical bow , in which the string is stretched over a flexible and curved string carrier, are the two structurally simplest and oldest types of stringed instruments.

In the single-string phin nam tao , the silk or brass string runs over a thin wooden stick that is bent up at one end. Near the opposite end, half a calabash is attached as a resonance body under the rod, which explains the name tao ("calabash"). At around 80 centimeters , the length of the rod is similar to that of the kse diev, the length of the vortex that is inserted through the rod from bottom to top at the end of the resonator is 25 centimeters. The string is pulled by a short cord ( rat awk , “to press the chest”) at the contact point of the calabash against the rod. The string corresponds to the tuning loop on a musical bow, it determines the effective length of the vibrating string and transmits the vibrations to the resonator. Today guitar strings are predominantly stretched, and the thicker brass strings of the Thai dulcimer khim are used for the lowest string ( pok ) . Since the 1980s, these strings have gradually replaced the previously common strings made of gut, vegetable fibers or silk. The string carrier has no fingerboard and no frets .

The further development of the single-string phin nam tao is the phin phia with two to five strings. The meaning of the word phia is not entirely clear. In the Lanna language, phia means “to show” (for example phia hai du , “to show someone something”) and in this case probably more precisely “to show something”, perhaps because the young men step in front of the girls showing their beautiful bare chests. The instrument name phin phia is mentioned by the poet Sri Prach, who lives at the court of King Narai (r. 1656–1688) in Ayutthaya, in verses that deal with evening serenades.

The phin phia is larger at just over a meter in length and has 18 centimeters long tuning pegs that protrude downwards near the resonator. The curved end ( hua phia, " phia head") of the string support often consists of a bronze cast in the shape of an abstract elephant head. Such an elaborately worked ending is usually missing in the phin nam tao . Another difference is the resonator. Instead of the large calabash half, which is directly connected to the string carrier, the phin phia has a smaller coconut half-shell, which is attached to the string carrier via a wooden dowel as an intermediate piece. Obviously, the goal of this change was to create an even quieter, more intimate sound. This could mean that the phin nam tao was originally used in court chamber music in front of an audience and that the quieter phin phia was intended exclusively for private use. Most song singers carefully crafted their instruments themselves and also carved the mold for the curved end ( hua phia ), which they then took to a blacksmith for casting.

Style of play

The musician holds the resonator with the opening close to his chest and can influence the sound, pitch and volume of the instrument by changing the distance to his bare upper body. A lingering wah-wah effect is characteristic. Such a sound modulation occurs, apart from with the Thai and Cambodian stick zithers and their Indian models, also with some African musical bows and lamellophones as well as the Cameroonian bridge zither mvet . The player plucks the string of the phin nam tao with one finger of the right hand at the curved end of the stick, while he shortens it with four fingertips of the left hand near the calabash. In phin phia , the player plucks the outer strings with the ring finger of the right hand, which are usually shortened to an octave above the root note using a loop of string. This playing technique is called jok . The ring finger and little finger of the left hand pluck the outer strings at the end of the resonator in the playing technique called kon sai .

The distribution region of the Thai stick zithers includes the former kingdom of Lanna with the capital Chiang Mai , which existed independently from the 13th century to the middle of the 17th century and was later under the rule of Burmese and Siamese dynasties. The phin phia belongs to the music of the Tai Yuan , the majority population in northern Thailand, and rather not to the local minority peoples, although some old bronze heads found in the border region with Myanmar indicate that it was also played there.

The very soft, fine tone of the phin phia is only suitable for solo presentations and for singing. It was used by men in northern Thailand mainly while standing or walking to accompany love songs. The quiet tone should ideally only reach one listener. This genre is called joi in northern Thailand . Up until the middle of the 20th century it was customary for the man to court his mistress to visit his lover in her house and to enter into a ritual poetic dialogue with her called aeo sao . The brief verses could be serious or slippery. In northern Thailand, several forms of exchanges between men and women are known as saw . Other names besides joi for this type of verse are saw siang yao (" saw with melisms ") and ram lam nam ("sing a story with dance"). The three usual melodies are more richly embellished than other forms of saw. Joi can be performed unaccompanied. Instead of the earlier accompaniment by a phin phia , the plucked long-necked lute süng or the spiked fiddle salaw (two to three-stringed variant of the sor u in northern Thailand) were later used .

One of the last known phin nam tao players, Kamol Katsiri, who died in 2000, was banned from performing in the 1960s for playing with his torso bare, which the government banned as offensive. In the middle of the 20th century, the phin phia was considered backward and primitive. In addition to the decline of the stick zithers, the traditional northern Thai musical styles were rarely heard from the 1980s onwards, because they were reputed to be just the thing of old and poor people. In addition, the custom of courtship was abandoned. On the other hand, styles influenced by Western pop music such as luk thung , which are summarized as phleng Thai sakon (for example “international Thai pop”), are considered modern . Along with this trend is the decline in the northern Thai language, Lanna . The verses that were passed down orally in the past are not recorded in the regional Lanna script , but in Thai .

From the turn of the millennium, an increasing appreciation can be seen again. The traditional instrument for the "music of the heart" has since been viewed in a nostalgic way as a typically male attribute and depicted accordingly on postcards. The repertoire for the phin phia is today taken over by the more well-known northern Thai ensembles with the lute instruments süng and salaw and the flute khlui . There are general education schools in northern Thailand teaching Lanna music including phin phia . From the beginning of the 1990s, ensembles were formed in which two phin phia played together with süng, salaw, khlui, gongs and drums. Some musicians play an experimentally developed phin phia with seven strings and use previously unusual playing techniques that originate from Western music making.

With the revival of the phin phia , the general nostalgic return to the traditional Lanna culture is connected, which is marketed accordingly for national and international tourism. Concerts with a repertoire of old local, central Thai, and newly composed melodies in connection with stage show elements can be criticized as an invented tradition of folklore, regardless of the very long actual history of the stick zithers.

literature

  • Andrew McGraw: The Pia's Subtle Sustain: Contemporary Ethnic Identity and the Revitalization of the Lanna "Heart Harp" . In: Asian Music , Volume 38, No. 2, Summer – Fall 2007, pp. 115–142
  • 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

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Monika Zin : The ancient Indian vīṇās. In: Ellen Hickmann, Ricardo Eichmann (Hrsg.): Studies on music archeology IV. Music archaeological source groups: soil documents, oral tradition, record. Lectures of the 3rd symposium of the International Study Group Music Archeology in the Michaelstein Monastery, 9. – 16. June 2002, pp. 321-362, here p. 333
  2. ↑ Walter Kaufmann : Old India. Music history in pictures. Volume 2. Ancient Music. Delivery 8. VEB Deutscher Verlag für Musik, Leipzig 1981, p. 180
  3. ^ David Morton: The Traditional Music of Thailand. University of California Press, Berkeley 1976, pp. 91f
  4. ↑ Gretel Schwörer-Kohl: Thailand, Laos, Cambodia. In: Ludwig Finscher (Hrsg.): The music in past and present . Sachteil 9, 1998, col. 502
  5. ^ Roger Blench: Musical instruments of South Asian origin depicted on the reliefs at Angkor, Cambodia. EURASEAA, Bougon, September 26, 2006, p. 5
  6. ^ David Morton: The Traditional Music of Thailand. University of California Press, Berkeley 1976, p. 5
  7. ↑ Gretel Schwörer-Kohl: Thailand, Laos, Cambodia. In: Ludwig Finscher (Hrsg.): The music in past and present . Sachteil 9, 1998, col. 502
  8. ^ Andrew McGraw: The Pia's Subtle Sustain, 2007, p. 118
  9. ↑ Ferdinand J. de Hen: A Case of Gesunkenes Kulturgut: The Toila . In: The Galpin Society Journal , Volume 29, May 1976, pp. 84-90, here p. 88
  10. ^ Roger Blench: Using diverse sources of evidence for reconstructing the prehistory of musical exchanges in the Indian Ocean and their broader significance for cultural prehistory. Draft, November 1, 2012, p. 6
  11. ^ Andrew McGraw: The Pia's Subtle Sustain, 2007, pp. 121f
  12. ^ Andrew McGraw: The Pia's Subtle Sustain, 2007, pp. 122f
  13. ↑ Terry E. Miller: Thailand . In: Garland Encyclopedia of World Music , 1998, p. 311
  14. ↑ Terry E. Miller: Thailand . In: Garland Encyclopedia of World Music , 1998, pp. 313, 315