sounds of Thailand Lisu music

Lisu
New Year dance music	raucous jollity punctuated by loud firecrackers accompany the dancing which is led by reed pipes and lute	2.6MB
free reed pipes	the three sizes (pali fulu, fulu lae lae and fulu na o) are all heard here	2.5MB
healing ceremony	male and female lead singers; the chorus joins in and asks the spirits to heal an old lady in the village	2.4MB
harmonic flute	this is a side-blown overtone flute, the blowing hole being in the middle of the tube	743KB
song with lute accompaniment	the male singer is accompanied by a tseubeu player	1MB
duet	female and male singers alternate in this courting song	1MB
flute solo	this duct flute has a membrane like the Chinese dizi	787KB
ceremonies in honour of the spirits	extracts from real ceremonies with shamans and chorus of villagers	3.3MB
lullaby	an old lady sings her 2 year old grandson to sleep	452KB
duet	fulu lae lae and tseubeu join in a dance tune recorded at the New Year festival	927KB

Black Lisu
spirit calling ceremony	male and female lead singer alternate followed by a chorus	1.3MB
dance music played on the harmonica	this woman had recently arrived from Burma and had never seen a real Westerner- but does the music remind you of a bourrée d'Auvergne? As women are not supposed to play the red pipes she took up the harmonica instead.	416KB
New Year ceremony	male lead singer followed by a chorus of women- the singing starts at dusk and goes on until dawn for fourteen nights	1.5MB
song (male singer)	'I'm all on my own and miss my family'	1.7MB


Lisu Laekeesa
song	female and male singers alternate in this love song	2.2MB
flute solo	a courting song charged with feeling (and recorded next to a Formula one racing track)	827KB
dance music	played on the lute (tseubeu)	1MB

The main Lisu group (flowery) only occasionally use Instruments and songs in combination- I have recorded a few examples and was told it is up to the musicians whether to sing and play together. I have never heard a singer accompanying himself. Instrumental music is mainly used for dancing, which is not the case for the dominating song styles. In addition, instrumental and vocal Lisu music are extremely different in style. The flowery Lisu normally play instruments solo though on occasions two reed organ players or an organ and banjo player may play together when accompanying dancing. Instrumental music has a strict metre; sung music is freely metred. The two repertoires do not mix though sometimes a musician will play independently while singing is taking place. There is no tradition of music for percussion.

Different song formulas are used, one preferably by the young unmarried people, two by the elders mostly during marriage and New Year festivals, one exclusively for soul-calling ceremonies; in addition there is a dance song and the special song and chanting of the shaman. Larsen (op.cit.) noted that in Lisu songs the melodic line is typically descending in contour, using 6 or 7 tone scales. The interval of a perfect fourth, formed by sustained notes, is structurally important. Songs are in free metre and singers are fere to create their own variations around a basic structure.

Song texts are improvised, but the singers draw from a stock of known and accepted motifs. In courting songs these will be love, longing and jealousy, or the pain of separation. Other songs stress the importance of tradition and affirm the basic values and rules in Lisu society.

Lisu dance songs are very different from their other songs as most follow a fixed 4/4 rhythm to suit the dance. There is a lead singer and a chorus of anyone who feels like joining in to make a call-response pattern.

Lisu courtship songs are highly ritualized and sung by groups of men and women to each other when they meet for the first time. There is also more intimate courting music played or sung by individuals, often involving a private coded language.

Ceremonies involving music still play an important part in the life of Lisu villages and some have made an effort to teach the skills to the young.
The Lisu groups I have recorded (flowery, Black and Laecheesa) have mostly the same style of instrumental music, with some different tunes. The Black Lisu are particularly noted for their singing marathons. Songs, mostly pentatonic, follow a call-response pattern with a lead singer and up to 100 chorus. The call and response overlap with each other on the final note.

I have now released an album of field recordings of Lisu music through Believe which can be sampled and bought on the sites of several major distributors. Link for the Believe player shown below.

follow the links in the menu to listen to and read about music of the ethnic cultures