Thai Classical Singing: Its History, Musical Characteristics and Transmission

by Swangviboonpong,Dusadee

• ISBN13: 9780754607908
• ISBN10: 0754607909
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-06-28
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Thai classical singing is a genre that blossomed during the golden age of music in the royal court at Bangkok during the nineteenth century. It took a variety of forms including unaccompanied songs used for narration in plays, instrumental music that was used to accompany mimed actions, and songs of entertainment accompanied by an instrumental ensemble. Today, Thai classical singing is found widely outside the court, and its influence is evident in many traditional songs.This book is the first in English to provide a detailed study of Thai classical singing. Dusadee Swangviboonpong discusses the historical background to this long-established genre, the vocal techniques that it employs, the contexts in which it is performed, the degree of improvisation that performers use, the setting of texts and the methods used to teach the songs. Teaching methods still tend to focus on oral transmission, although there have been recent attempts by the Thai authorities to standardize the way singing is taught and practised. These controls are, argues the author, a threat to the the variety in style and approach that has characterised this music and kept it alive.The book features transcriptions of Thai classical songs and a glossary of Thai terms, so making it a useful introduction to the genre.

Author Biography

Dusadee Swangviboonpong is Leverhulme Research Fellow at the Department of Music, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, UK.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	vii
Editorial Note	viii
Table of Royal Reigns and Periods	xiii
Acknowledgements	xv
Preface	xvi
The Historical Dimension	1	(18)
Singing during the Pre-Sukhothai, Sukhothai and Ayutthaya periods (up to 1767)	1	(3)
The early Rattanakosin period (1782--1851)	4	(3)
The mid-Rattanakosin period (from 1851--1932)	7	(1)
Court singers	8	(2)
Court composers	10	(4)
The status of Thai music since 1932	14	(5)
The Basics of Thai Vocal Music	19	(26)
Voice production	19	(4)
Pitches and intervals	23	(9)
Yyan (wordless vocalisation)	32	(3)
Speech-tones and yyan	35	(1)
A grammar of yyan sounds and their common usages	36	(9)
Lyrics and Speech-tones	45	(31)
Sources for lyrics	45	(3)
Classification of lyrics	48	(8)
Speech-tones and their melodic formulae in songs	56	(7)
An application of Tanese's formulae: a case study of metabole in Thai singing	63	(13)
Poetic Form and Word Positioning	76	(28)
Klccn	76	(4)
Word positioning of lyrics in the klccn form for phleen naathab probkaj	80	(13)
Application of word positioning of lyrics in the klccn form to the other poetic forms	93	(3)
Word replacement (with special reference to kaan len sagkrawaa)	96	(8)
Some Significant Features of Thai Vocal Melody	104	(35)
The vocal melody and the khccn melody	104	(1)
The non-improvisational character of vocal melody	105	(1)
A general perspective on vocal melody	106	(5)
Luug tog	111	(5)
Thaw melody	116	(2)
Lob siian	118	(1)
Thaan	119	(9)
Melodic flexibility and manipulation in phleen thajccj	128	(11)
The Teaching of Thai Singing	139	(75)
The relationship between student and teacher	139	(4)
Traditional teaching methods	143	(2)
The concepts of huuan wichaa and khruuphag lag cam	145	(3)
Songs for beginners	148	(11)
Modern teaching	159	(4)
Music competitions	163	(1)
Recent movements in teaching theory	164	(3)
Appendices
Appendix I: The abstract of Bunchuuaj Soowad's research paper: `The Sound Frequency of the Notes used in the Thai Musical Scale'	167	(1)
Appendix II: Pitch ranges of some instruments and of the singing voice	168	(2)
Appendix III: An example of raw data from an analysis of intervals	170	(3)
Appendix IV: Categorisation of song texts	173	(10)
Appendix V: Translation of `The Phrajaa Sancdurijaan singing method and its theory' by Careencaj Suntharawaathin	183	(7)
Appendix VI: Transcriptions of Thai classical songs	190	(13)
Appendix VII: Khccn melodies of the songs `Ton Phleen Chin' and `Thajεε'	203	(4)
Appendix VIII: Translation of the standard levels used in Thai singing exams	207	(7)
Glossary of Thai Terms	214	(3)
Bibliography	217	(7)
Audiography	224	(2)
Index	226