The two most popular styles of traditional Thai music are luk thung and Piphat.
Luk Thung translates to ‘children of the field’, an appropriate name considering the genre is about the hardships of everyday life for the people living in poverty in the rural areas of Thailand. It developed in the mid-20th century during world war-II with influences from Latin America, Asia and, especially, American country music. The songs are typically sung with a distinctive country accent and common use of vibrato (musical effect consisting of a regular, pulsating change of pitch) accompanied by thumping drums and pulsating organ riffs.
Luk Thung — Thai Countryside Folk Music
While Luk Thung is a bit modern-ish, Piphat is the most common and iconic Thai classical music. Symbolizing the dancing of the Thailand’s legendary dragons, The Piphat ensemble is made up of percussion and wind instruments such as xylophone (ranat), an oboe (pi), barrel drums (klong) and horizontal gong-chimes (khong wong lek and khong wong yai). There are many different types of Piphats, and each are normally associated with a certain festival or ceremonial purposes.
