An Overview of Traditional Thai Instruments

To have any conversation about music, I think you must begin with what is making the music as it is often the instruments and how they are used that will give a genre its unique sound.

Thai instruments fall into three main categories: string, percussion and wind instruments. Alternatively, instruments are divided into four categories based on how they are played: plucking, bowing, striking or blowing. Furthermore, many instruments are specific to certain regions of Thailand and are found predominantly in certain genres of music, but now I’m getting ahead of myself. Back to instruments.

String

String instruments in Thailand fall into three different categories, depending on how they are played: plucked, bowed or struck.

Plucked

The plucked instruments are a mix of lute-like instruments and zither-like instruments. A grajabpi (กระจับปี่) is one of the earliest Thai instruments and is a four-stringed, fretted, lute-like instrument traditionally made from jackfruit or teak wood and isn’t very common.

One Isaan instrument that I have seen several times is the phin (พิณ). A phin is a three-stringed, fretted, lute-like instrument and has origins in Laos and ethnic Laos in Thailand.

Typical to the northern region of Thailand is the sueng (ซึง), again a fretted, lute-like instrument with either four or six steel strings.

The zither-like instruments are the jakhe (จะเข้) and the phin pia (พิณเพียะ). The jakhe is shaped like a crocodile, is about 20 cm high and 140 cm long and has three strings, the higher two being made of silk or nylon and the lowest being made of brass. There are raised frets and it’s played using a plectrum on the right hand. The phin pia is made of a coconut or gourd which is placed over the heart, with a wooden arm extending down from the gourd stretching a string. This instrument comes from the Lanna tradition and historically was used by men to court women.

Bowed

The bowed instruments all look extremely similar in both size and shape and seem to be copied from the Chinese huqin, only differing in the materials used to make the body of the instrument, which changes the tones.

There’s the saw duang (ซอด้วง), the saw sam sai (ซอสามสาย), the saw u (ซออู้), the saw pip (ซอปีบ) and the saw bang (ซอบั้ง). All of these instruments have two strings, except for the saw sam sai which has three, which are made of silk.

The saw duang is typically made of a hard wood and has snake skin stretched over one end of the small, hollow cylinder that makes the body. The saw sam sai is generally made of coconut, and in addition to differing in the number of strings, it also differs in that the bow is not attached to he instrument, while the horse hair on the others’ bows is placed between the two strings. The sam u’s body is made from half a coconut and has cow skin stretched over it, producing a lower sound. The saw pip is a homemade version of this kind of instrument, with the body made from a metal can.

Struck

The one string instrument that is struck is called a khim (ขิม) and is basically a hammered dulcimer. It has 14 groups of three brass strings that are laid out over a trapezoidal body, typically with two bridges.

Percussion

There are many different kinds of percussion instruments in Thailand: drums, gongs, gong chimes, keyboards, clappers and cymbals.

Drums

Most Thai drums are played by hand, but a couple are played with sticks.

The taphon (ตะโพน), a sacred instrument, taphon mon (ตะโพนมอญ), rammana (รำมะนา), thon (โทน), glong thap (กลองทับ), glong khaek (กลองแขก), glong songna (กลองสองหน้า) and glong yao (กลองยาว) are all played by hand.

The glong thad (กลองทัด), glong chatri (กลองชาตรี), glong seng (กลองเส็ง)/glong ching (กลองจิ่ง)/glong tae (กลองแตะ) are all played with sticks.

All of these drums vary in shapes and sizes and some are particular to a specific region of Thailand.

Gongs

When it comes to gongs, there are three different sizes used for different things: khong chai (ฆ้องชัย) is large and used to signal time, khong mong (ฆ้องโหม่ง) is medium sized and is used in ensembles and khong meng (ฆ้องเหม่ง) is a small gong often used in parades.

There are also three other types of gongs that are sets: khong rao (ฆ้องราว) is a set of a small, medium and large gong suspended vertically; a khong khu (ฆ้องคู่) is a pair of small gongs hung horizontally and often used in theatre or the south; and a wong khong chai (วงฆ้องชัย) is a set of seven large gongs suspended vertically in a circle.

Gong Chimes

Gong chimes are a series of small gongs, about the size of saucers, arranged and tuned together in a progression.

The khong wong lek (ฆ้องวงเล็ก) has 18 gongs in a higher pitch range than the khong wong yai (ฆ้องวงใหญ่) which has 16 gongs; these two are played together. There is along the khong mon (ฆ้องมอญ) which rises vertically in a curved frame and sounds similar the the horizontal gong chimes and is typically used at funerals.

Keyboards

There are two main types of keyboards, both are similar to xylophones: the ranat (ระนาด) and the pong lang (โปงลาง).

The ranat is more classical Thai and has several different iterations, made out of different materials and tuned to different ranges. The ranat ek (ระนาดเอก) and the ranat thum (ระนาดทุ้ม) are both xylophones with bars made from bamboo or hardwood and are higher and lower ranged, respectively. The ranat ek lek (ระนาดเอกเหล็ก) and the ranat thum lek (ระนาดทุ้มเหล็ก) are both metallophones and again are higher and lower respectively. The ranat kaeo (ระนาดแก้ว) is a crytallophone.

The pong lang is a pentatonic xylophone and is a traditional Isaan instrument.

Clappers and Cymbals

Clappers, grap (กรับ), come in two different varieties: grap phuang (กรับพวง) is a bundle of wood and brass tied together at one end and grap sepha (กรับเสภา) is a pair of sticks made from bamboo or hardwood.

There are two main kind of cymbals: the ching (ฉิ่ง) and the chap (ฉาบ). Both are joined by cords. The ching is thicker and used for indicating time while the smaller chap lek (ฉาบเล็ก) and the larger chap yai (ฉาบใหญ่) are used to make music.

Wind

There are four different kinds of Thai wind instruments: flutes, free-reed, oboes and horns.

Flutes

The two kinds of flutes are the khlui (ขลุ่ย) and the wot (โหวด). There are three different kinds of khlui, which is a vertical flute traditionally made from bamboo or hardwood, a khlui lib (ขลุ่ยหลิบ) has a treble range, a khlui u (ขลุ่ยอู้) has a bass range and the most common is the medium khlui piang aw (ขลุ่ยเพียงออ). The wot is an instrument from Isaan and is circular panpipe, played by blowing down the pipes and rotating in the hands.

Free-Reed

The different kinds of free-reed instruments are the khaen (แคน), a mouth organ of long vertical pieces of bamboo from Isaan; the pi chum (ปี่จุม), a free-reed pipe from the North; and the chongnong (จ้องหน่อง), a jaw harp typically played by ethnic minorities and Isaan people.

Oboes

The pi (ปี่) is a quadruple- or double-reed oboe, with several different versions that have different ranges and are used in different settings. There’s the pi chanai (ปี่ไฉน), the pi chawa (ปี่ชวา) which is used at muay thai fights, the pi klang (ปี่กลาง), the pi mon (ปี่มอญ) a large, double-reed oboe, sometimes with a bell and is used for funeral music, the pi nai (ปี่ใน) is used in a piphat ensemble and the pi nok (ปี่นอก).

Horns

The trae (แตร) and sang (สังข์) are the two kinds of horns used in traditional Thai music. The trae is a metal horn while the sang is a conch shell horn.

(If you didn’t already, try clicking on the names of some of the instruments for a link to an .mp3 of that instrument playing.)