Women Learning Thai… and some men too ;-)

Thai music goes from classical, to country, folk, popular, and more…

A while ago I was reading in one of those Thai expat blogs. You know, the ones that answers all your questions about visas and have all these complainers whining about Thailand, its people and culture. One person said that he thought Thai music was the worst in the world and he couldn’t stand it, especially the karaoke music that is so popular. I have a feeling that he most likely has heard Thai music only through the fog of many karaoke-bar beers.

Thai has lots more than just karaoke music. It has a plethora of musical styles, from the classical, to country, to folk, to popular, and more. Add to these the fact that each region of Thailand has its own influence on each of these styles, and of the dozens of kinds of Thai music this results in, I wonder which one our complainer was talking about.

But Thai music can sometimes be a little inaccessible. There are basically two roadblocks to foreigners learning to appreciate Thai music and because of this, it will take a bit of effort to learn to enjoy it. The first of these of course is the language. Thai songs are usually sung quite fast for our ears, making them very difficult to decipher. The tones get changed around too. Add to that the fact that they are full of slang, idioms, and word play, and sometimes sung in the local dialect, and this makes for difficult listening.

Ironically for our complaining friend, karaoke music, especially the videos that have both Thai and transcribed English subtitles, and which can be paused and repeated as often as need be, makes for great Thai language study material, especially for common, idiomatic speech. In fact, music can be such a great language teacher that Khun Benjawan Becker of Paiboon Publishing, whose materials are so very popular with students learning Thai, has recently come out with a book and CD/VCD called Thai Hit Songs Vol 1. In it she has lots of original songs and music that have been written especially with the Thai learner in mind. You can follow along with the songs in Thai or phonetics and English translations. If you want a preview, check out YouTube.com and search for “Paiboon Publishing” or “Thai Fever”.

The second roadblock to appreciating Thai songs and music is a little more subtle. It has a lot to do with Thai culture and how the Thais view rhyming schemes. Thai songs just don’t place the rhymes (Thai: สัมผัส săm-pàt) where we expect them to be. Most westerners expect the last word of one line to rhyme with the last word of another. Thais sometimes do this too, but it is a quite sophisticated language with lots of other rhyming patterns. The first time listener will hear a Thai song and think, “This is just a bunch of scrambled words. Nothing rhymes here.” But that couldn’t be further from the truth.

Knowing where the rhyme is supposed to be probably lies somewhere in the deep recesses of our brains, the place that linguist Noam Chomsky calls the “Deep Structure”. It is where we know what is a grammatically correct sentence without ever having studied grammar, where we know it is “one dog” and “two dogs” but “one fish” and “two fish”, and how we know that it is a “big red ball” instead of a “red big ball”. How do we know these things? We just do. But each language has its own Deep Structure and if we didn’t grow up immersed in that culture and language we will just have to learn it from scratch, including grammar, and plurals, and adjective order, and rhymes.

Although Thai has dozens of ways in which poems, limericks, proverbs, and songs can take on rhymes, we’ll take a look at just a few here. By the way, once you are aware of Thai rhyming schemes you’ll probably see rhymes everywhere: on signs, billboards, brochures.

The full Thai name of Bangkok, the longest place name in the world according to the Guinness Book of World Records, is a perfect example of Thai rhyming. Check out the full name of Bangkok put to music below. You’ll hear and see the rhymes right away. The best way to become familiar with Thai rhymes is to look at some real examples.

Thai Alphabet Rhyme…

This is a rhyme that all Thai children will learn in order to memorize the Thai alphabet (consonants only). Most first time listeners will not see any rhyming here at all. But Thai children will hear and love the rhymes just as English speaking children hear the rhyme in “Little Miss Muffet/Sat on a Tuffet”. Here are the first couple of letters.

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ก เอ๋ย ก ไก่

Gor er-ee gor gài.
K oh, K Chicken.

ข ไข่ ใน เล้า

Kor kài nai láo.
Kh egg, in the coop.

ฃ ขวด ของ เรา

Kor kuat kŏng rao.
Kh, bottle, it’s ours.

ค ควาย เข้า นา

Kor kwaai kâo naa.
Kh, buffalo, goes to the field.

Rhyming pattern:

Last syllable of the 1st line rhymes with the 3rd syllable of the 2nd line
Last syllable of the 2nd line rhymes with the last syllable of the 3rd line.
Last syllable of the 3rd line rhymes with the 3rd syllable of the 4th line.

See a complete discussion of the Alphabet rhyme here.

The Loy Krathong song…

ลอย ลอย กระทง

loi loi grà-tong

In November of each year (really the first full moon day of the 12th lunar month) the Thais celebrate Loy Krathong, the lantern festival where they float lanterns down the rivers, and glowing hot air balloons in the skies. They also sing this song over and over again.

วันเพ็ญเดือนสิบสอง

wan pen deuan sìp sŏng
The full moon day of the 12th month,

น้ำก็นองเต็มตลิ่ง

náam gôr nong dtem dtà-lìng
The water at flood level, up to the top of the banks.

เราทั้งหลายชายหญิง

rao táng lăai chaai yĭng
All of us girls and boys,

สนุกกันจริง วันลอยกระทง

sà-nùk gan jing wan-loi-grà-tong
Are having great fun on Loy Krathong Day.

Rhyming pattern:

Last syllable of 1st line rhymes with the 3rd syllable of the 2nd line
Last syllable of the 2nd line rhymes with the last syllable of the 3rd line
Last syllable of the 3rd line rhymes with the 4th syllable of the 4th line.

A lôok tûng song from Issan…

หนุ่มตำลาว สาวตำไทย
nùm dtam laao, săao dtam tai
The Boy makes Lao Style Somtum, the girl makes it Thai Style

A song from the โจนัส/คริสตี (Jonas and Kristy) VCD, is a Jonas and Kristy duet about two competing market vendors who make ส้มตำ sôm dtam (Thai raw papaya salad). Jonas and Kristy are two westerners who have made it big singing ลูกทุ่ง lôok tûng style songs from the อีสาน ee-săan (Issan) region of Thailand. This music is very reminiscent of American country music with lots of sexual tension (like this song), love, adultery, drinking; all the good stuff. The word ลูกทุ่ง lôok tûng means “children of the fields”.

In this song, sung in the call and response form, one market vendor makes Lao style ส้มตำ sôm dtam and the other makes it Thai style, competing and at the same time being very seductive with each other.

นี่พ่อตำลาว

nêe pôr dtam laao
Pop makes Lao Somtum.

จ๊ะแม่น้องสาวตำไทย

já mâe nóng săao dtam tai
And Little-Sister-Mom makes it Thai style.

มีอะไรเอาวามาวามา

mee à-rai ao waa maa waa maa
What do you have to say.

ไปตำทีอืน

bpai dtam tee eun
Go make it somewhere else.

ตำทีอืนได้ไหมคะ

dtam tee eun dâi măi ká
Can’t you make it somewhere else?

Rhyming pattern:

The song title
Last syllable in 1st line rhymes with the 1st syllable in the 2nd line.

The song
Last syllable in 1st line rhymes with the 4th syllable in the 2nd line.
Last syllable in the 2nd line rhymes with the 3rd syllable in the 2nd line.
Last syllable in the 4th line rhymes with the 3rd syllable in the 5th line.

So, you can see that there are lots of rhymes where maybe at first you didn’t hear any at all. As if Thai culture wasn’t hard enough to navigate through. Next time you hear that karaoke blasting, or practice reading by trying to decipher a billboard or a bumper sticker, look for the rhyme. When you can see and hear them, lots of other things about Thailand and its culture will fall into place.

To hear short clips of 4 types of Thai music, and to read a discussion of the different kinds of Thai music, click here. I’ll bet you’ll jump up and dance to the Luktung music and maybe start doing aerobics to the Bong Lang.

Hugh Leong
Retire 2 Thailand
Retire 2 Thailand: Blog