18) Hsaing Waing Ensemble
There are different traditional music ensemble forms in burmese music.
Burmese music.
1. Hsaing Waing music. Hsaing Waing is the name of the big ensemble, that consist of the Pad Waing (a tuned drum circle and the leader of the ensemble), a bass drum position, a cymbal, clapper and wood-block position, the gong circle (cromatic or diatonic) and of oboe and flute instruments. This music is open-air music and is played in festival contexts, like pagoda festivals, marriages and also at puppet plays.
A Hsaing Waing Ensemble consist of minimum 6 musicians, but it can also contain a lot more. This ensemble plays at all the social festivities. Pagoda festivities, marriages, novice consecration and "welcome to the new house parties".
"Hsaing" means hanging and "Waing" is the circle. The ensemble has the name from its main instrument, the drum circle.
"Pad Waing" is another name for Hsaing Waing. "Pad" means drum. An onomatopoeic expression. The drum circle consist of 21 tuned drums. They are tuned by adding a pastemixture of rice and ashes to their skin. Tuning always requires some time. Also during the pieces. Every piece has a mode and the drums can be tuned to that mode. The drum circle has a range of 3 and a half octaves. The lowest octave contains 5 tones, the middle octave 5 tones and the higher octave contains 7 tones. Then there are 4 more additional tones.
(I concentrate on a detailed explanation of the Hsaing Waing only, because this is the instrument of my duo partner.)
>Also see my post: "Pad Waing - 21 tones" for a bit more info.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRBHpbA7qoA
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hsaing_waing
Daphne Wolff also told me something very interesting about ceremonies and pagoda festivities. They often have a nearly nightlong duration. The music starts at sundown and stops when the sun rises again. So musicians play there for hours and hours. This is also about a good condition!
Burmese music.
Can be devided roughly in three different categories:
1. Hsaing Waing music. Hsaing Waing is the name of the big ensemble, that consist of the Pad Waing (a tuned drum circle and the leader of the ensemble), a bass drum position, a cymbal, clapper and wood-block position, the gong circle (cromatic or diatonic) and of oboe and flute instruments. This music is open-air music and is played in festival contexts, like pagoda festivals, marriages and also at puppet plays.
A Hsaing Waing Ensemble consist of minimum 6 musicians, but it can also contain a lot more. This ensemble plays at all the social festivities. Pagoda festivities, marriages, novice consecration and "welcome to the new house parties".
"Hsaing" means hanging and "Waing" is the circle. The ensemble has the name from its main instrument, the drum circle.
"Pad Waing" is another name for Hsaing Waing. "Pad" means drum. An onomatopoeic expression. The drum circle consist of 21 tuned drums. They are tuned by adding a pastemixture of rice and ashes to their skin. Tuning always requires some time. Also during the pieces. Every piece has a mode and the drums can be tuned to that mode. The drum circle has a range of 3 and a half octaves. The lowest octave contains 5 tones, the middle octave 5 tones and the higher octave contains 7 tones. Then there are 4 more additional tones.
(I concentrate on a detailed explanation of the Hsaing Waing only, because this is the instrument of my duo partner.)
>Also see my post: "Pad Waing - 21 tones" for a bit more info.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRBHpbA7qoA
2. Burmese Chamber Music played in more intimate contexts, at the former courts, nowadays also at restaurants and also at marriages. It is inside music, soft sounding, small context music. The instrumentations are for voice, harps and flutes mostly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KudQXuFZQuU&t=257s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KudQXuFZQuU&t=257s
3. „Nat Pwe“ Music. Music for the Nat ceremonies. A huge percentage of the Burmese believe in their native ghosts. There are powerful nats and they need to be worshiped. For these ceremonies mostly drums and singing are used to help the mediums get into their trance to become the Nats or become their brides.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCqBnKJJ3IY
Burmese music has an oral tradition. Young students who want to learn traditionally go and live with their master for several years. They share their master's life to learn everything about the musicianship.
I had the chance to gather some information from Thaung Htike´s wife Daphne Wolff a music-ethnologist. She researched a lot about Burmese music and lives in Burma more or less since 2004.
She says in the burmese understanding a good musician is a musician who is able to always play different, who can handle the musical material creative and who has an own unmistakable style.
The old burmese music is based on a canon of pieces the "Mahagita" of which every song has a text. Even, if it is not sung. The musicians need to know those texts and consciously have to play around them, or with them in mind.
European instruments like the violin, the slide guitar, the piano and the banjo came to Myanmar during colonial times. And the Burmese adapted these instruments to their music. They developed an own technique and musical style on these instruments.
It is very impressive to listen to Burmese piano stiles for example.
As far as Thaung Htike and I can exchange thoughts in form of words Thaung Htike explained to me that the music students in Burma are learning the burmese music quite similar to how we learn jazz music for example.
There is a fixed repertoire of existing songs they learn, everybody knows the melodies and the rhythms and then there is a certain freedom of interpretations. Step by step they learn musical motives by ear. The master plays, or sings, the student repeats or answers with the correct phrase. Like in Jazzmusic you learn "licks" or phrases, that belong into a certain context.
Thaung Htike plays the Pad Waing, which is the main position and the bandleader in the Hsaing Waing ensemble. He is responsible for his musicians and he is the one organizing the concerts. The Pad Waing players often compose their own music.
Before you play the Pad Waing you start to learn on a xylophone and then you learn all the other drum and gong instruments in the ensemble. When you know how to play the songs on the simpler instruments then you start playing the Pad Waing. You know all the parts of all the players. It´s an amazing job.
Thaung Htike also learned to play the burmese piano quite well. Impressive.
I will post a video I taped in Stuttgart.
What wikipedia offers about the Hsaing Waing ensemble:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCqBnKJJ3IY
Burmese music has an oral tradition. Young students who want to learn traditionally go and live with their master for several years. They share their master's life to learn everything about the musicianship.
I had the chance to gather some information from Thaung Htike´s wife Daphne Wolff a music-ethnologist. She researched a lot about Burmese music and lives in Burma more or less since 2004.
She says in the burmese understanding a good musician is a musician who is able to always play different, who can handle the musical material creative and who has an own unmistakable style.
The old burmese music is based on a canon of pieces the "Mahagita" of which every song has a text. Even, if it is not sung. The musicians need to know those texts and consciously have to play around them, or with them in mind.
European instruments like the violin, the slide guitar, the piano and the banjo came to Myanmar during colonial times. And the Burmese adapted these instruments to their music. They developed an own technique and musical style on these instruments.
It is very impressive to listen to Burmese piano stiles for example.
As far as Thaung Htike and I can exchange thoughts in form of words Thaung Htike explained to me that the music students in Burma are learning the burmese music quite similar to how we learn jazz music for example.
There is a fixed repertoire of existing songs they learn, everybody knows the melodies and the rhythms and then there is a certain freedom of interpretations. Step by step they learn musical motives by ear. The master plays, or sings, the student repeats or answers with the correct phrase. Like in Jazzmusic you learn "licks" or phrases, that belong into a certain context.
Thaung Htike plays the Pad Waing, which is the main position and the bandleader in the Hsaing Waing ensemble. He is responsible for his musicians and he is the one organizing the concerts. The Pad Waing players often compose their own music.
Before you play the Pad Waing you start to learn on a xylophone and then you learn all the other drum and gong instruments in the ensemble. When you know how to play the songs on the simpler instruments then you start playing the Pad Waing. You know all the parts of all the players. It´s an amazing job.
Thaung Htike also learned to play the burmese piano quite well. Impressive.
I will post a video I taped in Stuttgart.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hsaing_waing
Daphne Wolff also told me something very interesting about ceremonies and pagoda festivities. They often have a nearly nightlong duration. The music starts at sundown and stops when the sun rises again. So musicians play there for hours and hours. This is also about a good condition!
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