The Hills Come Alive With The Sound of Chiang Mai

Written by: Low Weiyan.

As soon as we pulled over at the Yourhouse hotel, we were surrounded by
the sounds of Chiang Mai; it slid in and out of our ears, tickled our curiosity, played with
our stereotypical perceptions of what we would eventually regard to as
the music of Thailand.

In the streets of Chiang Mai, walking through street markets and
bazaars, the sound of strings being plucked and goat-skin fabric
are heard from all around. Musicians, prepared with variants of
Thai traditional music, such as Wong Pi-Phat (flute band) and Wong
Mahori (a mix of string and Pi-phat instruments) take to the streets
everyday to perform as well as sell their recoded works on CD. Slow
beats of four, accompanied by bell chimes after every bar, complement the
driving harmony of the flute, whose sweet sound hung suspended in
the air, along with the twang of accompanying string instruments. Unlike the
night markets back home in Kuala Lumpur, where the streets fill with
the sound of unbearable and badly ripped techno music, the marketplaces in
Thailand warrant a more easygoing, tranquil journey for market-
Goers; the music simply speaks and takes center stage in many
instances, instead of remaining as background noise muffled by the cries and screams of heavy bargain hunters.

It isn’t surprising, however that of all the groups we heard, only a
couple consisted of some people of ages below thirty years. It seems that Thai
music is coming to the end of its cycle, considering that
the faces of percussion and flute players consist of smiling elderly ones. As people dropped
donations into their baskets, tradition seems to be
clearly in autumn. But where were the young ones? This demanded I take
my ears and research elsewhere.

Everynight, not too far from Ravjivithi Road live bands jamming to the
likes of Coldplay and Oasis can be heard, but this wasn't what I was
looking for.

A 100 Baht Tuk Tuk fee brought us to perhaps one of the most
interesting places to indulge in multiple music scenes in one place,
The Warm Up Bar. Here people walk around with either a glass or hand
in their grasp, the atmosphere gave the impression that we were
attending someone's backyard party, with a live band, swimming pool
and enough alcohol.... to fill that swimming pool. It was a delight to
listen to Thai pop rock performers, the lineup may have been a
standard four-piece, the riffs off a foreign pop record, but the
laguage changed everything. Like another layer of sound, or
instrument, the humour that the Thai language brought to our
perception of contemporary pop music a new understanding, one that
didn't require the bothersome transcription of song lyrics, but
following the accents and energy the band brought with them, sort of
like watching Cantonese comedies back home, we understood not that
language, but the stage antics.

Moving further in, passing a couple of glass doors, the sound changed,
what was initially the strumming of dueling guitars and head bobbing
replaced by hard hitting beats, synthesizers and music of a more
familiar language of, none other than, the clubbing scene!

Being a clubbing virgin, I wasn't sure what to expect. People danced, caught up in the ecstasy to the sub-standard sounds of a 15- year old boy 2 hairs short of puberty- not my cup of tea. But I came to my senses...only when the alcohol hit. It was a different world, to the extent whereby sound and
atmosphere appeared universal, rather than uniquely Thai, a place
where people simply went to party their socks off and downed a few
drinks. Few of us understood 3 words of Thai or more, but all of
us spoke drunk, some more proficient than others (Cyren). So this was where the
young people were at, some not surprisingly, coming from KL, where
traditional music is on the fritz.

As the sea of people bobbed their heads up and down like a massive
wine press, one’s eyes eventually were fixated at the stage at the end of the room: a
guitarist plugging in, a drummer tuning his hi-hat, a bassist testing
the volume and a leading man, prepared to bring the entire joint (and
its inhabitants) back to Thailand. One final bass note resonated from
the speakers and amps before, the clean cut, mundane sound of the club
transformed into a Thai rock performance. Cymbals went CRASH!
strings were at breaking point and the lead was off his rocker. Yet, we
understood, in the midst of beats and riffs, how every instrument was
in harmony with each other. To the “us”, the outsiders, we felt more invited and
welcome, rather than being excluded by the foreign language used in most conversations.
There were notable similarities and references to music from beyond the walls. Some examples were
The Killers, Japan, and Eve 6. The whole clubbing experience at Chiang Mai wasn't something I had expected: the fusion of live music and club jams.

Of course, the night yet had other sounds to arouse my curiosity. As
tuk tuks piled up outside clubs, gogo bars and other places synonymous
with Thailand's sex tourism scene, another sound was reemerging. To my
surprise, as the alcohol kicked in, the beats slowed and the
hi-hat and bass pattern seemed to open up a whole new world
of sound. The music drew me in. The beats used by traditional Thai bands uncannily reflected the
universality of music, even while being uniquely Thai.
Thai music, is not only about the stereotypical
bells and strings which made up traditional thai ensembles. By
simply being lost in translation, Thai music also becomes a familiar sound, a universal one, even while it is played within a specifically Thai context.

The music in Thailand, or Chiang Mai, has in no way been
completely displaced by a whitewash of Western scales and back beats.
Rather, it has integrated musical styles from the world over, leaving us with a craving for more, a demand to stretch the fabric that has already spanned the East and West.
Seemingly universal, but uniquely Thai. Yet we demand a sense of origin, something we claim as our own or identifying something as belonging to someone else. But we know, and it doesn't take much to see, that music is something we hit, blow, pluck and above all, feel. Nothing is ever merely sound.