Music From Thailand: Field Recordings By Deben Bhattacharya, 1973

As in most countries of Asia, the Thai music consists of two distinct features: the folk songs and dances which belong to the village traditions and the Piphat orchestra with its complex structure, no doubt developed and played for the elite, both in villages and towns. The village music in the main is melodic, with songs and dances accompanied by woodwind and stringed instruments as well as drums and metal percussion instruments for providing the rhythm. The Piphat band, on the other hand, employs a rich collection of percussion instruments Piphat orchestra belonging to the metallophone and the xylophone families and played with drums, gongs and cymbals. These are divided into two sections, one providing the melody and the other the rhythm. Sometimes the orchestra is led by a single wood-wind instrument called the Pi Nai which belongs to the oboe family of instruments. The music is played in a diatonic scale with seven equidistant notes but without any semitones between the steps of the octave. The record begins with the music of the Piphat orchestra played for Ramakien, the epic which has represented the political and the cultural history of Thailand since ancient times.