This essay was written as an introduction to a film program representing
the first time a comprehensive program of Morlam music from Thailand had
been introduced to Western audiences in the Western hemisphere. The
music is important and a significant contributor to the continuity of
Isaan culture in Thailand. These introductory notes provide a background
to the music, its relationship to Isaan culture, the
importance of documenting the music, and the challenges in
documentation, from a Western perspective. Please also visit a
biographical sketch of Jintara Poonlarb,
morlam's reigning star. When in Bangkok, visit Tawan Daeng to see a
morlam show for yourself.
On a number of levels, we think this is the
most important show we’ve done, in our six plus years of programming.
The music is important, although unknown for the most part outside of
Thailand and Lao. It’s visually exciting, and its hard-charging rhythms
and dynamic vocalizations are often spectacular. As archivists of film
16mm genres that are fast disappearing, we are committed to bringing
attention to other forms of visual media, such as these video compact
discs (VCDs) that we feel may be in future danger, as tastes change, and
as Western culture continues inexorably to proliferate globally.
Like all great folk musics, the listener
doesn’t have to understand the lyrics to recognize the beauty and power
of morlam music, but morlam isn't easy to find, in conventional record
stores. Even in Thailand, you’ll have to get pretty far off the main
tourist track to experience the music, whether in bars, record stores,
or concerts.
This program took an estimated 100 hours to
develop, and many more beyond that as we tracked down the music from
country markets to bars in the back alleys of Bangkok. It’s our great
pleasure to present the music to you.
The music
Morlam as spelled in Thai: หมอลำ
Morlam music is also referred to as "mor-lam",
"moh-lam", "moh-lum", and similar spellings, as the English
transliteration from Thai and Lao is inexact. Originating in the Isaan
(อีสาน) country of northeastern Thailand, its
primary instruments originally were the khaen, a multi-reed,
multi-pipe mouth organ, and the phin, a stringed instrument
similar to the western guitar. These were often accompanied by the
sor, a bowed string instrument, a hand drum, and a circular panpipe
called the wood. Today, these instruments are augmented and/or
replaced by electronic keyboards, electric bass, and a western-style
drum-set. The keyboard is set up to emulate the sound of the 1960’s
Farfisa combo organ. The name morlam derives from two words in the Isaan
dialect, "mor", meaning expert, and "lam" meaning song. The Isaan
dialect is not understood by most Thais speaking central Thai, the
primary dialect in Bangkok, the north, and south, even though the
written script is the same. The Isaan dialect spoken in northeastern
Thailand and Lao are essentially the same language, and in fact, "morlam"
exists in Laos as well, under the name "lamlao". Although much morlam is
sung in Thai, a significant amount is sung in Isaan (Lao).
Morlam music, at its best, is fast-paced, being
driven by a continual flurry of 16th notes from the khaen,
booming bass, surging organ swells, and drums relying heavily on
backbeat. Morlam singers are accompanied by dancers, who might either be
dressed in traditional Thai costume, mod disco garb, or a stylized
combination of both.
There are four main components to the Morlam
song vocal styles, : 1) "Talk", in which a singer recites
non-sung words, generally to slow musical accompaniment; 2) "Gern",
an introductory slow sung section that lasts approximately sixty
seconds, most often accompanied by khaen; "Lam", a rap-like
chorus, which differs from western rap in being melody-based, and
generally only one chorus long; "Pleng", which is the non-lam
part of the song, and also means "song" in Thai. Often, the words
"o-la-nor" ("o fate") occur as a beginning to the "gern" section. A
common and significant vocal inflection often ends a chorus, consisting
of several repeated, non-word vocal inflections, sounding like "o-ey, o-ey,
o-ey", which is transliterated under many different types of spelling
onscreen.
Elementary morlam bassline
Identifying morlam
One of the challenges I've encountered in the
research is finding anyone who can articulate, in musical terms, the
difference between morlam and
Lukthung
(ลูกทุ่ง),
another form of Thai popular music. After listening to hundreds of
songs, I've come up with the above scribble, which identifies the
fundamental morlam bassline, heard, with minor ornamental variations, in
virtually every morlam song. In fact, such basslines also occur in
Isaan country music. Country music begins with khaen, phin, and
sometimes wood and sor. Bands will tend to add electric bass, then
drums, and finally, replace khaen with synthesizer, and phin with
guitar. In viewing morlam VCDs, listen for the bassline, and look for
the presence of a khaen, which often is unheard in the recording, but
the presence of which adds a proper Isaan visual cue. In addition, the
presence of a "lam" or "gern" section is another key indicator of a
morlam song. Some musicians expand on morlam themes by adding hard rock
instrumentation, in another form of Thai popular music called morlam
sing (หมอลำซิ่ง).
Here are some general observations on the
morlam music and its audio and visual presentation:
- There is a difference between rural and
urban morlam. Urban morlam has higher production values, with
sophisticated edits and and juxtapositions of acted sequences and
studio shots with the musicians. The syntho-organ is the prime
instrument, as embodied in the music of Jintara. Rural morlam, as a
rule, has two cameras at the most, no actors, and is khaen-based, as
in the music of Tep Porn.
- Dancing is a critical element, with
choreographed hand and body movements in urban morlam, to a more
earthy and sexual flavor, in rural morlam. "Egg-shaped" rotating
hand movements are made by the lead female singer, often accompanied
by dancers emulating similar movements.
- Singers often appear in several different
changes of clothes, from traditional to modern, during a song.
Commonly, the featured singer will appear in modern clothing, while
her dancers are in traditional clothes. In many cases, however, the
dancers are scantily-clad, and appear incongruent to the music in
many western eyes. In fact, Southeast Asian dancers in dress
similar to those appearing in morlam VCDs can be seen in sculptures
and reliefs centuries old.
Angkor Wat, Cambodia, 12th c. ACE My Son,
Viet Nam, 11th c. ACE
- photo by Geoff Alexander -
photo by Geoff Alexander
- There is an emphasis on stories of life.
Common ones are sadness at leaving the village, the complications of
urban life, in contrast to village (and the sudden availability of
expensive goods, such as cars and new Kawasaki or Yamaha
motorbikes). Occasionally, singers will sing about their rise to
fame from the villages to the stage (e.g. those of Jintara &
Pornchitha). Some songs describe newsworthy international events,
(such as Jintara’s ‘Arlai World Trade’), and there are drinking
songs, as well.
- English transliterations of titles are
poor, e.g. substituting "gla-gla"(fearless) for "glua-glua" (afraid)
on one VCD of which we are aware. All English titles given on VCD
screens should be checked against a Thai dictionary (while the words
are generally Isaan, the titles are typically in Central Thai). Thai
and Isaan are tonal languages, and transliteration into English is
an inexact science.
- In songs with acted sequences, black and
white flashbacks are common elements, with the action shifting to
color to depict current happenings.
- VCDs do not appear to list the date in
which they were created, or initially distributed. It’s common for a
VCD to include songs that were made several years apart, so my guess
is dates are not included to extend the marketable life of any given
song.
The Isaan culture
As much as it is a music, morlam is also a
social force unifying the Isaan people of northeast Thailand, many of
whom find their way to Bangkok to find fortune, far from the villages,
many of which are wrought with poverty, hunger, and meager economic
opportunity. Isaan workers, most of whom have at best a sixth-grade
education, become Bangkok’s construction laborers, street vendors,
cleaners, and bar girls. They are ostracized from mainstream Bangkok
society by their education, language, and skin color, which is darker
than that of Sino-Thais. To a large extent, the lyrics of morlam songs
tell their own story, making references to village life, village people
they miss, lost loves, and exploitation by elements of city culture.
Morlam music can be found in numerous karaoke bars in Bangkok where, for
a few baht, Isaan people can play a video CD of a favorite morlam
performer. The video CD, based on the MPEG1 format, is the preferred
choice for hundreds of thousands of morlam fans, many of whom cannot
afford televisions, as it allows them to experience their favorite stars
on stage, in a venue close to work or home.
My first indicator of the power of this music
to unite Isaan people came on an evening when a buddy and I, accompanied
by two Thai friends, stopped at a beer bar on Sukhumvit Soi 4 for a late
night drink. In a beer bar, the objective is for the female employees to
chat with foreign (farang) guys, have a drink or two, then accompany
them to a short-time hotel. In this particular bar, all the girls were
Isaan. We noticed that Rock Slaang’s "Motocy Hang", a favorite of ours
(and on our program tonight, incidentally), was an available tune on the
video karaoke machine. We inserted a few baht, chose some morlam
numbers, and all of a sudden, it was as though someone threw a switch,
as the girls began dancing at the bar, on the floor, and in the arms of
their farang customers. The place had gone wild. This wasn’t good enough
for one farang, who put some baht in the machine, and chose Elton John
and the Eagles. The club became a morgue. Except, of course, for the
farang who was bopping along with his tunes, oblivious to the obvious.
Our Isaan friends weren't going to let this go unchallenged. When the
insipid Western pop was finished, she noticed the faring making his way
to the karaoke machine again. Deftly, she cut him off, threw in a week’s
worth of baht, and bought an hour’s worth or morlam. The girls went back
to partying, life and light again returned to the land of smiles. But
not for long. When we returned the next week, there wasn’t a single
morlam tune left on the karaoke machine. The owner, obviously not Isaan,
had observed the girls having way too much fun, dancing when they should
have been grabbing customers' bar fines. He threw out their music, and
once again, Eastern culture had taken a back seat to the West.
If you tell your Thai friends about this show,
they’ll either be mortified (if they’re not Isaan), or overjoyed. Non-Isaan
people can be embarrassed that morlam is being promoted as
representative of Thai culture, in much the same way that lots of white
people in the U.S. would have felt about early 1900s New Orleans jazz,
which was heard primarily in bordellos. Lao people, on the other hand,
generally love the music, which they’ll often claim as their own, due to
the Lao language sung in the VCDs. There is some very good "lamlao" on
VCD as well, and we’ve included it in the program for contrast.
The Isaan culture has been discussed in
anthropological and social treatises, but perhaps a more accessible
introduction is through the writings of Isaan novelist Pira Sudham,
whose books ‘Monsoon County’, ‘People of Esarn’ (an alternate spelling
of "Isaan") and ‘The Force of Karma’ are written in the original English
http://www.pirasudham.com .
The importance of documenting the music
We are focusing on these morlam video CDs (VCDs)
as an example of a music that should be documented, archived, and saved.
In social context, these songs are similar to the "race-records" of
1920s-1940s African-Americans in the U.S., to whom music was as much a
unifying cultural and communication element, as it was an art form.
Already, we are noticing that many morlam VCDs are getting harder to
find. As the music evolves and changes, many of these pieces, which
document singers, songs, and stories, may soon be perceived as being
"old", with little future value commercially. If so, as digital storage
technologies change with the times, many of these pieces may become
lost. It is estimated by many experts that digital storage hardware has
a usable life of roughly eight years, at which time the data must be
transferred to the new format. Already, we have noticed color and
resolution degradation in early morlam videos, which were originally
made on VHS, then transferred to VCD. We have found many of these morlam
pieces to be exceptional in music and visual content. As they document
and serve an economic lower class, we are concerned that, as tastes
change, there will be little financial impetus for music companies now
making morlam VCDs, to ensure their survival.
The dearth of general information and
scholarship in English
Very little has been written in the West about
this music, and it’s nearly impossible to find documentation written in
English in Thailand as well. While occasionally big morlam stars like
Jintara will tour western countries, they appear in Thai-only venues,
and get little, if any, western press. Although this was the first
English essay on morlam to reach the internet (2001), more are sure to
come.
--- Geoff Alexander
