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, as well as historical trade routes including with Africa, Greece and Rome.
The kong von thom or kong thom plays a melodic line in the Cambodian pinpeat ensemble almost identical to that of the roneat thung. The kong thom dwells more steadily on the pulse without pulling or delaying the beat (melody). The player uses soft mallets for indoor performance, hard ones for outdoors. The kong von thom is analogous to the khong wong yai used in Thailand.
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 samphor is a small, 2-headed barrel drum indigenous to Cambodia, approximately .35 meter wide by .5 meter long. It has two heads, with one drumhead being larger than the other and is played with both hands. Depending on the ability of the musician, the samphor can make as many as 8 different pitches. The player of the sampho leads the pinpeat, setting the tempo and beat. It is also played at freestyle boxing evens, accompanying the sralai. The samphor is analogous to the taphon used in Thailand.
The sralai is a Cambodian wind instrument that uses a quadruple reed to produce sound. The instrument is used in the pinpeat orchestra, where it is the only wind instrument. The set of quadruple reeds are made of palm leaf. The bore of the instrument is not evenly bored, but "slightly conical." Its cousin, the Western oboe, has a double reed and a conical bore. The pinpeat instruments tune to the sralai's pitch, and the player must learn circular breathing to play continuously without stopping for breath. The sralai is very similar in construction and playing technique to the Thai pi.
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.
The khloy is a traditional bamboo vertical duct 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 fiddle, a bowed string instrument that is 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 Korean musical instruments comprise a wide range of string, wind, and percussion instruments. Many traditional Korean musical instruments derive from Chinese musical instruments.
Traditional Vietnamese musical instruments are the musical instruments used in the traditional and classical musics of Vietnam. They comprise a wide range of string, wind, and percussion instruments, used by both the Viet majority as well as the nation's ethnic minorities.
Traditional Thai musical instruments are the musical instruments used in the traditional and classical music of Thailand. They comprise a wide range of wind, string, and percussion instruments played by both the Thai majority as well as the nation's ethnic minorities.
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".
Bamboo's natural hollow form makes it an obvious choice for many musical instruments. In South and South East Asia, traditional uses of bamboo the instrument include various types of woodwind instruments, such as flutes, and devices like xylophones and organs, which require resonating sections. In some traditional instruments bamboo is the primary material, while others combine bamboo with other materials such as wood and leather.
Roneat is the generic Khmer word for referring to several types of xylophones used in traditional Cambodian music; the pinpeat and mohaori.
The kong ring or gung treng is a Cambodian tube zither, in which a tube of bamboo is used as a resonator for stings that run along the outside of the tube, lengthwise. It has the same musical purpose as the "bossed gongs" and may substitute for them and accompany singing. Although it is a traditional instrument with a long history, it has been improved on in modern times. The kong ring is represented by similar instruments in other countries of South Asia and the Pacific.
The pin is a Cambodian arched harp, one of the most historically important instruments in Cambodian music. The instrument went extinct c. 16th century, 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 tube zither is a stringed musical instrument in which a tube functions both as an instrument's neck and its soundbox. As the neck, it holds strings taut and allows them to vibrate. As a soundbox, it modifies the sound and transfers it to the open air. The instruments are among the oldest of chordophones, being "a very early stage" in the development of chordophones, and predate some of the oldest chordophones, such as the Chinese Se, zithers built on a tube split in half. Most tube zithers are made of bamboo, played today in Madagascar, India, Southeast Asia and Taiwan. Tube zithers made from other materials have been found in Europe and the United States, made from materials such as cornstalks and cactus.
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.
Soldiers carry drums and a shoulder-mounted nipple gong in relief at Angkor Wat.
Kse diev at Angkor Wat, North Section, 16th Century.
Khmer gong chimes from Angkor Wat.
