Music of Myanmar

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The music of Myanmar is a mixture of many regional varieties, including Chinese music, Indian music and Thai music. Today, hip-hop, rap, and other urban genres of music are most popular in Myanmar.

Traditional music from Myanmar is melodious, generally without harmony, and usually in 4/4 time (na-yi-se) or 2/4 (wa-let-se) or 8/16 (wa-let-a-myan). There are "the segments combined into patterns, combined into verses, combined into songs [that] make Burmese music a multileveled hierarchical system...The Burmese musician manipulates the various levels of the hierarchy to create the song..." (Becker 1969, p.272)

[edit] Musical instruments

Musical instruments include the brass se (which is like a triangle), hne (a kind of oboe) and bamboo wa, as well as the well-known saung, a boat-shaped harp.<ref name="sy">Shway Yoe (Sir James George Scott) 1882. The Burman - His Life and Notions. New York: The Norton Library 1963, 317-319.</ref> Instruments are classified into five groups:

Instruments made of non-precious metals like brass or bronze: kyei
Instruments made from skin, hide or leather: thay-ye
String instruments: kyo
Wind instruments: lei
Clapper instruments: let-ko

These instruments are played in a musical scale consisting of seven tones, each associated with an animal that is said to be the producer of the tone. Each tone can be played raised, lowered or natural (corresponding to sharp, flat or natural), resulting a possible twenty-one combinations. The Pat Waing drum circle, for example, consists of twenty-one drums, one tuned to each tone in each possible combination, and the saing saya (maestro) sits in the middle using various parts of his hands to strike the drums in order to produce a melody. The Kyi Waing is the gong circle strung up in the same fashion and the gongs are struck with a knobbed stick and in accompaniment to the pat waing.<ref name="sy"/>

The Usabha tone, produced by the bull
The Phevata tone, produced by the horse
The Chajja tone, produced by the peacock
The Gandhara tone, produced by the goat
The Majjhima tone, produced by the crane
The Panzama tone, produced by the cuckoo
The Nisada tone, produced by the elephant

The Myanmar harp is of special significance. It dates back to the 9th century, though it has changed quite a bit since then, expanding, for example, from three strings to sixteen. During the Konbaung period (1752-1885), courtly musicians included Ma Mya Galay, a queen, Hlaing Hteikhaung Tin, a princess, Myawaddy Mingyi U Sa, a minister, and Nat Shin Naung, King of Taungoo.