Original Music by yaboi hanoi Lamtharn Hantrakul - Bangkok, Thailand. Program, Music and Cultural notes for Nusasonic Common Tonalities Project
ชิงชัย - “Ching Chai” (Spirit of Combat)
yaboi hanoi
Lamtharn Hantrakul - Bangkok, Thailand
##Artistic and Cultural notes:
A re-imagination of music for “Pencak Silat” (ปันจักสีลัต), a martial art practiced across Southeast Asia including modern-day Southern Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei and Indonesia.
I was captivated by the rousing timbre, tuning and melodic phrases of the Pencak Silat reeded instrument “Phi Suna” (ปี่ซูนา). In fact, I knew nothing about Pencak Silat before the Common Tonalities program. My first contact with this tradition was music-only; through the electrifying combination of the Phi Suna, the pair of drums “Kuenae” (กือเเน) and the gong (ฆง) in a recording* shared during the workshop. I wanted to trans-create this feeling of intense alertness and anticipation by rooting my tuning, instrumentation and sound design in this ensemble. During my composition and research process, I learned how the recording was played by Muslim Thai’s in the southernmost tip of Thailand practicing the Yala province style of Pencak Silat. Connecting to a new facet of my community through this transcultural process of decoding and making music was inspiring. I used to train Muay Thai (มวยไทย) as a teenager and realized how in my home region: music is inseparable from martial arts.