Off Key

[Gravelrash]

I think Thais look at singing in a very different light to westerners. It is something to be enjoyed as an activity. I believe we look at most endeavours in our usual competitive spirit, so the assumption would naturally be that if you can't sing then spare the rest of us the ear trauma and yourself the embarrassment.

Thais will applaud someone having a go and enjoying themselves, however they do know who is good and who is bad, but would only complement the gifted and be polite to those who are not.

I sing poorly, but after enough drinks and Thai encouragent I can enjoy having a go, and naturally all politely clap. No one would even consider embrassing me by being honest and saying how bad I am, as such it acts as a pseudo encouragement to mangle another tune. Perhaps some Thais really don't know how bad they are as no one would ever tell them that.

The obvious solution being to avoid such places, or failing that drink more.

[tutsiwarrior]

I like them karaoeke videos that give you a percentage of how accurate yer rendition was of the selected song...if yer hitting around 25% then better hang it up, mate...tutsi was at a party in Abu Dhabi and some idiot brought a karaoeke machine...I had a look on the menu and decided to do Otis Redding's I've Been Loving You Too Long...I hit 99%...just couldn't reach the higher register...another falang angrily confronted me to say 'we want to discourage this warbling, not encourage it!!!...'

well...he was fulla shit...thais got their own way of having a good time, and his wife as well as the wives of the other falangs in attendance all immediately were in total adoration...tutsi got back rubs upthe kazoo...sum woman attempted to stick her hand down my shorts; I advised her that that was not adviseable...

when in Rome...etc, etc...

[meadish_sweetball]

It's got to be because of the tones in the Thai language...

We would sing a simple melody using la up, la down, but Thai singers would have to get the tones in, so it would be la up, la rising, la down, la falling etc..

That's my laymans theory.

But to me, most of it does sound terrible.

The tones are certainly a significant part of the problem (but its our problem as listeners - not theirs in performing!), along with the fact that the scales used in Thai music are not the same as the diatonic scales used in western music. The music of many countries uses scales tuned differently, with more or less notes between the octave.

Because of our own experience, the scales we are familiar with sound "in tune", and the scales which are unfamiliar sound "out of tune".

The Thais I know who are experienced at singing western classical music can sing just as "in tune" as anyone else can.

G

(Another music graduate)

The tones are in fact never observed in popular music melodies. I can not speak for traditional music as I don't know much about it.

But just listen to any song off the radio and compare pitch curves from the melody and contrast it with a spoken track of the same words. I've done it. The tones aren't observed.

I think it would be a very daunting task to make complex enough melodies within the diatonic scale framework and still preserve all five tones perfectly.

I do accept that the will to produce a phonemically correct tone may interfere with the ability to sing in key in Western music though, although I haven't seen any research on this, and I guess it would be hard to measure objectively too.

[jellymeister]

Thai people are great at many things, including food, entertainment, muay thai. and daily approach to living. The fact of the matter is that generally they are not very musically inclined to a western ear, although...

Just wanted to point out that you, too, put in a caveat that basically alludes to alternate scales, etc as the 'explanation'. I'm not nit-picking at all, I just want to show that the argument makes so much sense that sometimes even people that are against it are FOR it by accident!

BFD!

Wow you would make a great politico-type with that grammatical gerrymandering.....

Acutally this was no caveat, but rather an intentional and advanced colloquial uasage of English. The "western ear" does not literally imply a different hearing receptor or a different scale as you intimate, but more broadly implies in subtle fashion a "westerner's opinion", including all standards, values, biases, perceptions, and tastes in music that that implies. A musical scale is a musical scale. It is in tune or it is not. You sound like someone who always counts their change at the checkout, including the half baht coins. If I ever need a haggler at the market, I'll be sure to invite you. In the meantime, happy nit-picking.....

[onethailand]

Interesting discussion, this - I quite agree about the difference in tones, I've gotten so used to various styles of Thai music that I can easily tell the difference between good and flat.

However, the program in question was Academy Fantasia 4 - and on last week's show, they were doing dance-type music, so they should've been pretty normal tones for anyone. And for the record, I watched - and while a couple of the contestants missed a note here or there, it was only two of the girls - who had been voted off the first two weeks of the show but got a recall just for the experience - that were a bit flat.

The five remaining contestants who can actually win the contest (which ends this week so finally we can get back to our EPL broadcasts) are very good, way above the standard of the past three contests - and this despite the fact that the two girls with the best voices were also voted out as there is a heavy bias towards female viewers, who are naturally voting for handsome males.

[BFD]

But, but, but I said I wasn't 'nit-picking'!

Honestly, as I and another poster have pointed out, a musical scale is NOT simply a musical scale; there certainly is no objective definition of 'in tune' as it is based entirely on musical upbringing. You are actually agreeing with this statement when you say that it is Western standards, values, biases, perceptions, and tastes in music that colour our opinion of Thai music. Thais have had a different musical upbringing.

I'm actually not a politico-type, and I give my satang to soidogs, just like any other self-respecting farang...

Regardless, happy defensive posturing!

BFD!

[Eff1n2ret]

But, but, but I said I wasn't 'nit-picking'!

Honestly, as I and another poster have pointed out, a musical scale is NOT simply a musical scale; there certainly is no objective definition of 'in tune' as it is based entirely on musical upbringing. You are actually agreeing with this statement when you say that it is Western standards, values, biases, perceptions, and tastes in music that colour our opinion of Thai music. Thais have had a different musical upbringing.

BFD!

So, if someone records an entire CD of Thai songs which are "out of tune" according to our "Western standards", how many will they sell?

[BFD]

Uh... probably millions, if they're good... I'm afraid I don't understand the question. Is this a Thai person? In Thailand? I think we've established that their 'out-of-tune'-edness doesn't preclude their being popular here...

hel_l, Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, and Neil Young have sold more albums in the West than God has and none of them can carry a tune in the basket of their scooter.

Now, before someone says "How can you compare the songwriting skills of Bob Dylan to those of Porntip Supanawatra?!" please refrain. I'm comparing their singing; and I've heard a hel_l of a lot of Thais who would measure up quite favorably to Mr. Zimmerman (of whom, I might add, I am a huge fan).

BFD!

Edited September 5, 2007 by BFD

[JetsetBkk]

Honestly, as I and another poster have pointed out, a musical scale is NOT simply a musical scale; there certainly is no objective definition of 'in tune' as it is based entirely on musical upbringing.

You are actually agreeing with this statement when you say that it is Western standards, values, biases, perceptions, and tastes in music that colour our opinion of Thai music. Thais have had a different musical upbringing.

Unbelievable. A lot of Thais who go to karaoke bars sing off-key, out of tune, flat or sharp and you call it "a different musical upbringing"?

I've heard some singers who are very good - beautiful singers who hit the notes, aren't flat or sharp and get the tune right. They are in a very small minority. The majority are crap singers. Nothing to do with Western standards, upbringing or scales.

[meadish_sweetball]

Here's a thought exercise:

Let's pick somebody who you would classify as a technically good singer. Let's say Luciano Pavarotti. Even though you don't like his music you can hardly argue he cannot stay within key.

Now, present Pavarotti with a piece of Thai classical music and ask him to sing it. How well do you think he'd do?

I found an interesting quote:

The Thai scale system is...extraordinary. It is not now pentatonic, though supposed to be derived originally from the Javanese system. The scale consists of seven notes which should by right be exactly equidistant from one another; that is, each step is a little less than a semitone and three-quarters. So that they have neither a perfect fourth nor a true fifth in their system, and both their thirds and sixths are between major and minor; and not a single note between a starting note and its octave agrees with any of the notes of the European scale...Their sense of the right relations of the notes of the scale are so highly developed that their musicians can tell by ear directly a note which is not true to their singular theory. Moreover, with this scale, they have developed a kind of musical art in the highest degree complicated and extensive".

Do you reckon Luciano would be able to sing perfectly within that scale? Maybe with some practice, he is a singer by trade after all, and famous for good pitch control. But how many of us others?

The point I wanted to get at in the quote, is that the Thai scale system does not coincide with any single note in the diatonic scale system of European music. It is a unique, different scale.

You could not play melodies based on that scale on a regular piano or guitar with standard tuning.

You could perhaps compare the European and the Thai scales to a piece of measuring tape showing inches and centimeters next to each other.

If you had only been exposed only to music based on this scale since birth, the European system would seem out of key to you and would not be pleasant to listen to unless you gave it time to get used to. In fact, it might sound as dissonant as you now find the music played during Thai boxing matches...

Now I am not saying the people in the karaoke bars are like Thai Luciano Pavarottis. Many of them are probably just as bad singers as they appear to us, due to lack of training or talent.

But I bet you could see some influences from the traditional scale in the mistakes people make when they hit the wrong notes in the diatonic scale.

[baboon]

It's Saturday night and my missus is watching another one of these live Thai talent shows and it seems as though most of the contestants are singing as flat as a tack. This is the same for most of the Thai concert footage I have seen and heard.

Is this because the acoustics are terrible and they can't hear themselves sing or are most of the contestants/singers kids of rich Thais that want to see their kids on TV? Where are my earplugs?

My wife is watching the same terrible show right now.... (every week it seems to trump football).

They sound so ###### bad, it is on par with a drunken karaoke session. I'm pretty sure you could get a better sound kicking a cat. And the worst part is that they are not supposed to suck. It would be a different story if they all sucked and everyone knew it and just watched it for a laugh...but people seem to take it dead serious.

Oh well i think there are only like 2 weeks left and then football can dominate the TV on Saturdays again.

Thankyou. Sometimes a crap singer is just a crap singer.

[Maigo6]

Do you reckon Luciano would be able to sing perfectly within that scale?

Right Meadish, same as asking a Farang to sing traditional Chinese or Japanese music, .................it would be very difficult without training to create the required sound.

[paulsmithson]

I cannot get technical. I know nothing about these matters, However I do know that I love some thai music,

Back in the eighties I was building a recording studio for Simply Red (who I had never heard of)

I arrived at their studio one sumers day and had a thai cassette on in my car, The guys were outside taking some weak British sunshine and rushed over to the car to listen---they then borrowed the casstte to copy it.

Maybe some innovative thai musicians influenced their later releases,

[Maigo6]

I cannot get technical. I know nothing about these matters, However I do know that I love some thai music,

Back in the eighties I was building a recording studio for Simply Red (who I had never heard of)

I arrived at their studio one sumers day and had a thai cassette on in my car, The guys were outside taking some weak British sunshine and rushed over to the car to listen---they then borrowed the casstte to copy it.

Maybe some innovative thai musicians influenced their later releases,

P

Mick Hucknall certainly has a unique voice.

[stumonster]

Do you reckon Luciano would be able to sing perfectly within that scale?

Right Meadish, same as asking a Farang to sing traditional Chinese or Japanese music, .................it would be very difficult without training to create the required sound.

now I understand "sexy , naughty , bitchy " is a traditional thai song - but they still sound <deleted> when they wail it out.

[jayjayjayjay]

It's Saturday night and my missus is watching another one of these live Thai talent shows and it seems as though most of the contestants are singing as flat as a tack. This is the same for most of the Thai concert footage I have seen and heard.

Is this because the acoustics are terrible and they can't hear themselves sing or are most of the contestants/singers kids of rich Thais that want to see their kids on TV? Where are my earplugs?

Off topic on your discussions re technical issues of western/Thai music. This is memory that haunts me dearly, what I would do to hear one more time. Eight or nine years ago I had the pleasure of hearing a few songs sung by a 14 year old in a cafe' in Fang District, Chiangmai. Taken there by some Thai guys doing the contracting for the mulitnational I was representing. Simply most beautiful voices I have ever heard(subjective to all for sure, I have no question we all love music of a types different, but for me anything from Pararoti to Hot Chocolate can be appreciate if the music has heart). She had the power of Maria Carey/Whitney and the range of Roy Orboson, her voice was simply mezmorizing. Went back a year later and this little songstress was dead, apparently ya-ba overdose. Tears filled my eyes, lost to this world a beautiful gift. JR

Edited September 6, 2007 by jayjayjayjay

[BFD]

That's a very sad story, Jay. At such a young age, too.

I had a guitar student back in Canada, a 15-year-old whiz on the guitar. He'd eat up anything I threw at him, from Van Halen to Paganini to John Zorn. One summer, he got involved with crystal meth and started to make it in his parent's basement. When you're high, working with such explosive chemicals, mistakes tend to happen, and the world was deprived of the next guitar-god. Really a shame.

Sorry to be so off-topic; people can get back to yelling at me now.

BFD!

[technocracy]

First of the 'wailing like wounded animal' post is one of the funniest things I've read on here!

Secondly, what is it with people not understanding that some Thai(& Lao) singers are bloody awful and due to the complexity in the scales sound even more like a drowning cat that an off-key western performance.

I listen to Lao & Thai music alot and know the good and the bad - my wife is a good Lao singer and previously before I met her she had offers to record a CD but didn't have the money to pay for the sessions. The scales and keys used in Thai/Lao music is different - mor lam is very different - my wife cannot sing mor lam however one of her uncles is a very very good mor lam singer. I was very surprised at how good actually when he got up sing and not karaoke either but with a keyboard player with a relatively shallow echo - no vocal effects!

Also having played the guitar for 16 odd years and done quite a bit of sound engineering work in the past gives me an additional reason to be able tell the good from the crap!

[mmushr00m]

Speaking of Pavarotti......he just died

[meadish_sweetball]

I just read that too. A great loss for opera fans.

Could it be that he read this Thaivisa thread and decided to try his hands on some Asian classical music?

[jellymeister]

The interesting thing about this discussion is that it gets to the very heart of what constitutes “music”, and what does not. What is mere noise? Is an off-tune singer making music or noise? Should we create a “new” modified scale to account for this as suggested by the bombastic BFD(one senses some sort of political correctness seeping into his thought process)? Are there then hundreds or thousands of types of musical scales which have to be evaluated according to these different standards.. Certainly BFD and his “logic” would support this. The danger with this is any bad or displeasing sound could then be justified as being on a different “scale”. The wounded cat is singing on a “different scale’, again there BFD would say that it must be good lest we be judgmental from a cultural or biological inter-species point of view. Note I prefer birds singing to cats! Where does such nonsensical reasoning stop. (next time you sing out of tune, tell your friends, you were singing on the “alley cat” scale and see the response)

I believe the original Asian “music” or “sound generation” may not have actually been music by any reasonable definition with a guiding scale, but more likely classifiable as noise. Maybe it was to scare off ghosts at funerals, who knows. Thus louder would be better. And we all know that ghosts can’t wear earplugs.

I believe Marco Polo described his first encounter with Chinese “music” as the loud banging and clattering of pots and pans. Seen a few Chinese Operas where this is the case. But then again is Marco Polo the ultimate arbiteur, or is BFD’s politically correct nit-picking approach the answer?

Western music likely evolved in line with the development of western religion, Islamic music in line with prayers. Such influences seem to be still present today. Is there a musical historian in the house who can explain all of this, or maybe a quick google will reveal the “facts”

Conclusion, maybe the Thais enjoy generating what some might classify as noise rather than music per se. If it is lound and people are happy, then it is good, no matter what it sounds like. A trip on the BTS certainly supports this, as does a visit to almost any social event…….somehow I think back to the scaring of ghosts.

PS may Pavarotti RIP…..he was a musical genius by any definition

[kmart]

I was just having lunch in the restaurant near my office today, and they normally play relatively soothing music as you munch through the menu...

Today it seems that that horrible discordant caterwauling "music" that normally accompanies Muay Thai boxing matches was on the stereo. Sounds like a horny octopus mistakenly trying to mate with a set of bagpipes... The woodwind and percussion sections also seem to have had an argument. It's ######ing awful.

[BFD]

[snipped some stuff]

Should we create a “new” modified scale to account for this as suggested by the bombastic BFD(one senses some sort of political correctness seeping into his thought process)?

Are there then hundreds or thousands of types of musical scales which have to be evaluated according to these different standards.. Certainly BFD and his “logic” would support this.

The danger with this is any bad or displeasing sound could then be justified as being on a different “scale”. The wounded cat is singing on a “different scale’, again there BFD would say that it must be good lest we be judgmental from a cultural or biological inter-species point of view.

[again, snipped somt stuff]

I suppose there could be a bit of political-correctness in my rhetoric (after all, I hail from that painfully unoffensive nation of Canada), but I do maintain that my "logic" is sound.

I don't recall suggesting that we create a new scale for every time someone yells from a swift boot to the nuts. What I am saying is that there is already a theoretical basis for what constitutes 'Thai' music. It's all well and good to say that you think Thai music sounds like crud, but all I was saying is that there are millions of Thais (and other nationalities) who feel differently. Expressing preference is one thing, but condemning an entire musical structure as 'out of tune' is pretty silly. After all, it's pretty safe to assume that Thai music is descended from Javanese and, in turn, Chinese music theory. While Marco Polo might have heard pots and pans banging, it's simply an historical accident that Pythagoras and his fellow loonies created a musical system that pervades the West to this day. It's a further accident that the West has been the most successful in disseminating culture and ideas (after all, we can't just say that it's better cuz they won).

Believe me, I get very annoyed at those folks who believe that, just because something is Thai, it is the best thing ever invented. There is a lot about Thailand that I think could do with a good headshake, but I don't think music is one of those things. I find great aesthetic pleasure in what many Western ears will call dissonance and 'god-awful noise'. That's the nature of subjective opinion. However, what is not subjective is that this musical framework has existed for centuries and will continue to exist for centuries more. I look at Thai music from a purely mathematical standpoint, and as good old Edna St. Vincent Millay said 'Euclid alone has looked on beauty bare'.

In short, Jelly, I suggested no such thing. The western conception of 'in tune' is exactly that: a western conception.

BFD!

[jellymeister]

After all, it's pretty safe to assume that Thai music is descended from Javanese

Say what?

To paraphrase Ronald Reagan(don’t ask me why?)….”there ya go again” BFD, twisting, pontificating and pushing an agenda with your PC pretzel logic and blatant misinterpretations, unless of course you are purposely taking the piss….

I always found Thai culture and thinking as more visceral and artistic than rigidly scientific and mathematical, making it extremely difficult to analyze from a mathematical point of view, unless you mean chaos theory.

It stands to reason that your own logic makes sense to you, but isn’t that the same as everyone’s. Where it doesn’t wash is in deeper independent and objective analysis, where it quickly evaporates, like a snowflake on the butt of a buffalo grazing on a Manitoban plain……Also, that whole cut me slack I am Canadian routine quickly grows old and adds no validity to what you say. I guess it might make you a minor authority on certain topics like ganja hydroponics and ice hockey though

Anyway, what is interesting is that you claim that Thai music(and culture?) emanates in part from the Javanese? That’s news to me. I thought the Javanese were an inward-looking island culture and did not widely export their values as far north as Thailand…I know Thai is an amalgam of remnants of Chinese, Malay, and even Indian cultures within its traditions, but where does Javanese culture fit into this, unless you are intimating that Javanese = Malay, even there I fail to see much influence in music, maybe a bit in dance……

[BFD]

Okay, take out the Javanese part, if that suits you. My point is that it originates somewhere other than the karaoke bars in Hua Hin. You mentioned China, Malaysia, and India, each of which has a rich and varied (and valid) cultural history. Again, I simply reiterate that there are musical systems that differ from the western one. Your asserting that 'a scale is a scale' is akin to saying that the Imperial system of measurement is wrong, simply because you're used to the Metric one.

I think that 'deeper independent and objective analysis' is exactly where what I'm saying holds weight; it's when people say "Come on, can't you just admit that they suck?" that arguments spiral into the solipsist realm of 'a scale is a scale'. A scale is not a scale. If that were true, there wouldn't be as many musicologists, would there?

I do agree with you on two points, however. Firstly, I think the correct attitude to take is where you simply smile and nod and have a great time, whether you're enjoying the musical side of things or not.

Also, about the apologetic Canadian thing: I'm actually appalled that I wrote those words, as it's a total cop out. I do tend to think of things in a politically correct light, but that's my own fault, not that of my home country. You had me pegged there. I can also rattle off meaningless Wayne Gretzky stats.

Again, to summarize: you can take out Javanese if you like. hel_l, you can take out Chinese, Malasian, and Indian if it suits you. The fact of the matter is that there exists a Thai system of music that is different from European-related systems. This system is mathematically pleasant, logical, and beautiful. To me, that means it's music.

BFD!

Just as an aside (and by no means a definitive source), here's a website that I found with the words 'origins of thai music':

http://www.paradisemoon.com/thai_main/Huah...ments_intro.htm

Quick quote in case the URL doesn't show up: "The Thai tuning system is originally derived from the Javanese which in turn was derived from Chinese music theory. " Again, I'm not proposing that this is the end-all, be-all of sources, but it just shows you that some people out there have read the same books that I have.

[meadish_sweetball]

The Khmer empire had intense relations with Java. Jayavarman II, the founder of the Khmer empire lived a long period in Java before he came back to Cambodia, appointed himself dewaraja and claimed independence from Java.

Then in turn, the Khmer empire had a massive influence on Thailand. Most of what is Thailand today was part of the greater Khmer empire, before it became Thailand. If you look at Cambodian musical instruments, they are mostly similar to the Thai ones.

[tutsiwarrior]

Speaking of Pavarotti......he just died

shit... ...his recordings of 'una furtiva lagrima' and, of course 'nessun dorma' will go with me to the grave...

[BFD]

I KNEW I wasn't just pulling that out of my butt.

Thanks for the info, folks.

BFD!