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Mahori Khryang Lek Mahori Khryang Lek: It’s a small size Mahori Orchestra comprising the following instruments:
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Mahori Ensemble |
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In early times, it is likely that rules existed
for the combining of instruments into ensembles, but they were not definitely specified.
One of the first known Thai ensembles was called Khap mai . This ensemble was
composed of three performers: a singer, a Saw sam sai, and a drum called bandoh
that was derived from the same type of drum found in China, Tibet, and India and is
obsolete in Thailand today. The body of the drum has two bowl-shaped halves whose bottoms
are placed together. The heads are held against the open part of the bowls by thongs laced
back and forth between the two heads; the thongs are held in the middle portion of the
drum by another thong that encircles them. A stick, usually decorated by concentric rings,
is fastened to one side of the center area where the two parts of the body are joined. A
string is anchored at the end of the stick, and a small ball is attached to the string.
Although the term mahori now means an ensemble composed of the stringed and percussion instruments, it originally refer only to the string ensemble. Prince Damrong was of the opinion that mahori was invented by the ancient Khmer and was later adopted and elaborated by the Thai (1931:3). Originally the mahori consisted of four members: a krajappi, a saw sam sai, a thone, and a singer who also kept time with the krap phuang. The ensemble was originally played by men, but when it became popular, men of position who had large households allowed the mahori to be performed by women. In the Ayuthaya period, women were not permitted to act on the stage outside royal service, and women of the royal households were trained only to play in the mahori ensemble; men played the percussion ensemble and acted on the stage. King Rama IV removed the prohibition and permitted women to be trained as actresses. The result was that the practice of employing women for the mahori was replaced by training them for the stage. Women players were popular on the stage and more attracted to it than to performing on the instruments, and the women’s mahori as a result fell into decline. Wong Mahori is the ensemble
combining the string ensemble and the piphat together with the piphat instruments (ranad
and khawng wong) reduced to a small size suitable to play with the strings by lady
performers. The Mahori was divided into three kinds. Mahori
Khryang Lek |
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Mahori Khryang Lek Mahori Khryang Lek: It’s a small size Mahori Orchestra comprising the following instruments:
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Mahori Khryang Khu Mahori Khryang Khu is a double melodic percussion mahori orchestra has the following instruments:
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Mahori Khryang Yai Mahori Khryang Yai is a large Mahori orchestra consisting of: String section
Melodic Percussion section
Woodwind section
Rhythmic Percussion section
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