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Music of Thailand

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.

Traditional Thai musical instruments are varied and reflect ancient influence from far afield – including the klong thap and khim (Persian origin), the jakhe (Indian origin), the klong jin (Chinese origin), and the klong kaek (Indonesian origin).


The two most popular styles of traditional Thai music are luk thung (Thai: ลูกทุ่ง or เพลงลูกทุ่ง) and mor lam (Lao: ໝໍລຳ; Isan: หมอลำ; Thai: หมอลำ). The latter in particular has close affinities with the music of Laos.


Aside from the Thai, ethnic minorities such as the Lao, Lawa, Hmong, Akha, Khmer, Lisu, Karen and Lahu peoples have retained traditional musical forms.


Though Thailand was never colonized by colonial powers, pop music and other forms of modern Asian, European and American music have become extremely influential.

Indie[edit]

A group of independent artists and records which produces music for non-commercial purpose also found in Thailand: Bakery Music (now under Sony Music) [1]; Smallroom [2]; FAT radio [3]; City-Blue [4]; Coolvoice [5]; Dudesweet [6]; Idea-radio [7] Panda Records [8]; and SO::ON Dry Flower [9].

Korphai ensemble

Traditional Thai musical instruments

BEC-TERO

GMM Grammy

RS Music

Thai Elephant Orchestra

Clewley, John. "Songs for Living". 2000. In Broughton, Simon and Ellingham, Mark with McConnachie, James and Duane, Orla (Ed.), World Music, Vol. 2: Latin & North America, Caribbean, India, Asia and Pacific, pp 241–253. Rough Guides Ltd, Penguin Books.  1-85828-636-0

ISBN

Morton, David (1976). The Traditional Music of Thailand. University of California Press.  0-520-01876-1.

ISBN

The traditional music of Thailand