Burmese music
Description: Burmese music
The sound of Burmese music, the instruments that villagers play, and what makes up a band or orchestra are among the facts that U Khin Zaw, music specialist and former director of the Burma Broadcasting Service, explains. Well known for original compositions as well as for popularizing folk music, U Khin Zaw's article "Burmese Music" appeared in full in Perspective of Burma, An Atlantic Monthly Supplement, 1958.
To ears accustomed only to Western music, Burmese music may at first be a little disconcerting. It may seem more like a medley of spontaneous, unrelated sounds than a careful composition. And its rhythmic patterns may be hard to follow at first hearing. But I think that if you will listen to some of it a few times-and the Burmese Folk and Traditional Music record in the Ethnic Folkways Library offers a good sampling-you will discover that ours is actually a fully developed musical art. Historically, the traditions" of Burmese music go back at least fifteen hundred years. For we know from a description in a Chinese chronicle of the year 802 A.D. that our musical instruments and compositions were already highly perfected at that time.
Since we do not have the chromatic scale, our music may sound a bit flat to Westerners. Another basic point of difference is its essentially two-dimensional nature. The development of harmony has given Western music enormous depth. Because our instruments were not suitable for harmony, our music has instead developed a complexity of pure melodic patterns. You derive your musical satisfaction from marching in depth with chords. We have to get ours by going in the single file of notes, twisting and turning in graceful patterns. Even our drums play tunes. Thus our putt waing (circle of tuned drums) is not merely for percussion, but plays a melody itself.
The Burmese orchestra is called a saing. Its ensemble includes the drum circle (putt waing), a circle of gongs (kyee waing), the big drum (putt ma), cymbals, clappers, and wind instruments such as the hne (like an oboe) and the palwe (a bamboo flnte). The saing accompanies our stage performances (zat pwes), our ritual dances (nat pwes), and others of the many festive occasions that enliven Burmese life.
Folk music is very much alive in our villages, where several interesting kinds of drums are especially popular. The big bongyi is lord of the paddy fields; its thundering rhythm eases the toil of those who are transplanting the rice. The byaw drum has its day in such home ceremonies as our alms-givings and shinpyu head-shavings.
Our classical music is far more elaborate than the instinctive rural drumming and singing. Classical compositions are usually songs, ranging in theme and tone from simple lyrics to courtly measures eulogizing the king or the royal city and solemn chants composed in adoration of Lord Buddha.
One of the most important events in the history of Burmese music-and all Burmese culture for that matter-was the second conquest of Siam by King Hsinbyushin in 1767. Craftsmen, entertainers, musicians, dancers numbering many hundreds were imported from Siam to Burma, and they brought about a vast augmentation of our culture. New life and new forms were infused into our theater, our classical dance style is far closer to that of Siam than, say, to that of India, and a principal type of our classical song, the yodaya, takes its name from Ayuthia, the old capital of Thailand.
In the years following this Thai "invasion," there lived a remarkable man named U Sa, a veritable Leonardo da Vinci, who was poet, musician, playwright, soldier, diplomat, and statesman all combined. In a long lifetime, he was constantly creating and adopting new literary, dramatic, and musical forms, and over two hundred of our finest songs are attributed to him. Even though Buddhist doctrine has sometimes frowned on music as appealing to the senses, we Burmese must be one of the most music-loving peoples in the world.
Book Title : WE THE BURMESE (Voices from Burma) Edited by Helen G.Trager