The music of Cambodia is derived from a mesh of cultural traditions dating back to the ancient Khmer Empire, India, China and the original indigenous tribes living in the area before the arrival of Indian and Chinese travelers. With the rapid Westernization of popular music, Cambodian music has incorporated elements from music around the world through globalization.
The music of Thailand reflects its geographic position at the intersection of China and India, and reflects trade routes that have historically included Africa, Greece and Rome. Traditional Thai musical instruments are varied and reflect ancient influence from far afield - including the klong thap and khim, the jakhe, the klong jin, and the klong kaek . Though Thailand was never colonized by colonial powers, pop music and other forms of modern Asian, European and American music have become extremely influential. The two most popular styles of traditional Thai music are luk thung and mor lam; the latter in particular has close affinities with the music of Laos.
The kong vong toch is a number of gongs that are attached to a circle-shaped rack, closely resembling its larger relative, the kong thom. Both instruments belong to the percussion family of traditional Khmer instruments, along with the roneat ek, roneat dek, and roneat thung. These instruments are all performed in the pinpeat and mahaori orchestras. The kong toch is made of three parts; the frame of the gong circle, the gongs themselves, and the gong mallets.
The Pinpeat is the largest Khmer traditional musical ensemble. It has performed the ceremonial music of the royal courts and temples of Cambodia since ancient times. The orchestra consists of approximately nine or ten instruments, mainly wind and percussion. It accompanies court dances, masked plays, shadow plays, and religious ceremonies. This ensemble is originated in Cambodia since before Angkorian era.
Huqin is a family of bowed string instruments, more specifically, a spike fiddle popularly used in Chinese music. The instruments consist of a round, hexagonal, or octagonal sound box at the bottom with a neck attached that protrudes upwards. They also usually have two strings, and their soundboxes are typically covered with either snakeskin or thin wood. Huqin instruments usually have two tuning pegs, one peg for each string. The pegs are attached horizontally through holes drilled in the instrument's neck. Most huqin have the bow hair pass in between the strings. Exceptions to having two strings and pegs include variations of huqin with three, four, and sometimes even more than five. These include the zhuihu, a three stringed huqin, the sihu, a huqin of Mongolian origin, and the sanhu, a lesser-known three-stringed variation.
A khloy is an ancient traditional bamboo flute from Cambodia and more specifically the Khmer people. The khloy and other similar bamboo flutes can be found throughout Asia, due to bamboo’s abundance in the region. The khloy is a duct flute and has two sizes: smaller, higher-pitched and larger, lower-pitched. It has six finger holes and a thumb hole, or seven finger holes and no thumb hole. A hole above the highest finger hole may be covered with a membrane made of rice paper or bamboo inner skin, similar to di mo.
The tro is Cambodia's traditional spike fiddles, bowed string instruments that are held and played vertically. Spike fiddles have a handle that passes through the resonator, often forming a spike, on the bottom side where it emerges. The family is similar or distantly related to the Chinese erhu or huqin. The instruments have a soundbox at the bottom of the stick, covered with leather or snake skin. Strings run from pegs at the top of the stick and secured at the bottom, running across the soundbox. The larger the soundbox, the lower the pitch range. Instruments in this family include the two-stringed tro ou, tro sau thom, tro sau toch and tro che, as well as the three-stringed tro Khmer spike fiddle. The two-stringed tros are tuned in a fifth, while the three-stringed tro Khmer is tuned in fourths. The tros, with the exception of the tro Khmer, are strung so that the bowstring is permanently placed between the two stings. When the musician plays, the placement of the bow causes the strings to be played at once, one from below and one from above. In contrast, western fiddles are played with the bow pushing on each string from the outside, as is also the case with the tro khmer.
Traditional Cambodian musical instruments are the musical instruments used in the traditional and classical music of Cambodia. They comprise a wide range of wind, string, and percussion instruments, used by both the Khmer majority as well as the nation's ethnic minorities.
The thon and rammana are hand drums played as a pair in Thai classical music. It consists of two drums: the thon (โทน), a goblet drum with a ceramic or wooden body and the rammana (รำมะนา), a small rebana-typed frame drum or tambourine. They are used usually in the khruang sai ensemble. The thon gives a low pitch and the rammana gives a high pitch. Earlier in the 20th century, the thon and rammana were sometimes played separately.
The Roneat Ek or Roneat Aek is a xylophone used in the Khmer classical music of Cambodia. It is built in the shape of a curved, rectangular shaped boat. It has twenty-one thick bamboo or hard wood bars that are suspended from strings attached to the two walls. They are cut into pieces of the same width, but of different lengths and thickness. Originally these instruments were highly decorated with inlay and carvings on the sides of the sound box. Now they are simpler. The Roneat is played in the Pinpeat ensemble. In that ensemble, sits on the right of the Roneat Thung, a lower-pitched xylophone. The roneat ek is the analogous equivalent to the Thai xylophone called ranat ek, and the Burmese bamboo xylophone called "pattala".
The Roneat Dek is a Cambodian metallophone, comparable to the Roneat ek. It is an ancient instrument made of 21 blackened-iron bars. It may be used in the Pinpeat ensemble and Mahaori orchestra. It is believed to have originated from the Royal Courts before the Angkor period. This instrument is rarely covered with ornamentation on either the bars or the sound box. The roneat dek is analogous to the ranat ek lek of Thailand.
The roneat thung or roneat thum is a low-pitched xylophone used in the Khmer classical music of Cambodia. It is built in the shape of a curved, rectangular shaped boat. This instrument plays an important part in the Pinpeat ensemble. The roneat Thung is placed on the left of the roneat ek, a higher-pitched xylophone. The Roneat Thung is analogous to the ranat thum of Thai.
Roneat is the generic Khmer word for referring to several types of xylophones used in traditional Cambodian music; the pinpeat and mohaori.
The skor daey is a short goblet drum from Cambodia, approximately 40 centimeters tall and 15 centimeters wide at the top. There are two common goblet drums there, the skor chhaiyam, a very long goblet drum, resembling some from Burma, and the skor daey.
The kong chmol is a Cambodian flat-faced gong, with different sizes and pitches, played in an ensemble, with players each playing one gong and responsible for one pitch, memorizing the music to play their pitch at appropriate times. Compared to the "feminine gong", kong nyee, the kong chmol is plain, lacking that gong's rounded center, called a "breast."
The pei pok is a Cambodian musical instrument, similar to a flute and made of bamboo. While similar to a flute, it uses a single reed to create sound.
The pin is a Cambodian harp, one of the most historically important instruments in Cambodian music. The instrument went extinct c. 1500s, and is now being restored in modern times. Its historical importance is emphasized by the very name for Cambodian classical music, pinpeat. After the pin was no longer being used, Cambodians continued to use the instrument's name for classical music into the present era. When the pin was no longer being used, the tonal range of other instruments was expanded, possibly to compensate. Burmese saung gauk and roneats had more keys for the chromatic scale and the number of gongs in the kong von thom and kong toch "more than doubled in number since the musician depicted on the Angkorian carvings."
The musical leaf is one of any leaves which is used to play music on. It goes by many names, including leaflute, leaf flute, leaf whistle, gum leaf, and leafophone. In Cambodia it is called a slek and is played by country people in Cambodia, made from the leaves of broad-leaf trees, including the sakrom and khnoung trees. It is also known as phlom slek, 'blow leaf.' To play a leaf, the musician curls the edge of a leaf into a semi-circle and "places the arch between the lips", making sure that the leaf is touching both upper and lower lips. The leaf vibrates in contact with them as the player blows air across it. The player can control the pitch of the noise with their upper lip.
The kse diev or khse mhoy is a Cambodian musical bow with a single copper or brass string and a gourd resonator. The resonator is held to the bow with a nylon cord and is open at the other end. The nylon cord holds on the resonator and acts as a loop around the copper string, bringing it to the stick. The nylon loop acts as the nut on a guitar, the place below which the string vibrates and sound begins.
Mohaori is one of the traditional musical ensembles of Cambodia. This traditional ensemble is known in full name as Vung Phleng Mohaori (វង់ភ្លេងមហោរី), literally means Mohaori Musical Ensemble. It composed of many kinds of musical instruments, but today it is more specifically applied to a small ensemble of wind, stringed, and percussion musical instruments.
