Musical Structures

The syllables in each line of Khai Keng Ki are:

Lines Texts Number of

characters 1 Bu Siang Sim Chim Mui Miao Huap 7 2 Pae Hiang Bowong Khiap Iap Nang

Chao Ngo

7 3 Ngo Kim Kiang Bung Tik Sio Thi 7 4 Yong Kai Yi Lai Ching Sik Ngi 7

Fig. 75. The verse structure of Khai Keng Ki

Theoretically, the lyrics of every kind of text should follow the nature of the melody, but in practice it is not related to the musical phrase. As in the two examples in figure 61 and figure 74, the melodic phrase can be subdivided into a metrical pattern with two or four beats. But the textual structure does not always follow the same system because sometimes the textual lines and verses contain a varying number of beats or measures. That is why the musical phrases often do not coincide with the textual phrases.

instead. This basic melody for Mahayana chanting used in Southern Thailand is quite hard to specify because it has to be understood as a kind of skeleton to guide the musician, who fills it while playing. In practice the basic melody is different each time it is performed while the structure of the melody remains the same.

Fig. 76. Two interpretations of the basic melody of Kuiy Meng Chang

b. Scale and Principal Tone

A pentatonic scale is generally used in traditional Chinese music and this is also the case in Southern Thailand. In more recent Chinese music the heptatonic scale is used with two additional notes; these are Fa and Ti in the Western system. In general this is also the case in the heptatonic system of Thai music.

There is another fact in the scales, which can be considered as derived from a pentatonic or from a heptatonic scale. As for the pentatonic scales, we have the characteristic feature of the passing notes, which are used to fill the gap between two notes in a minor third. But sometimes there are notes in a pentatonic melody, which can also be understood as parts of the main scale in the frame of a hexachord, like in the following example of Kuiy Meng Chang, but in principle it is very difficult to decide from which original scale this one descended.

Fig. 77. Transcription of Kuiy Meng Chang and its range of notes

c. Melodic Patterns

The melodic pattern is the direction of the melody movement. The style of the melodic movement in each song is important as it identifies its uniqueness. To consider the characteristic of a song it should be divided into a short melody or sequence of intervals for analysis. The direction of the melodies can be in an ascending or descending pattern or both.

The melodies for chanting can be divided into two styles. The common style is the syllabic style, with a single note (or a short group of notes) for one word.

The other style is the melismatic style, which sets more than two notes for one word. The melismatic style in chants consists of geng, chio, chang and ki. The melismatic style must be considered in terms of melismatic length and melodic patterns.

Consideration of melismatic length

The length of each melisma varies. It can consist of 2, 3, or 4 measures or more. Regardless of the length, the beginning and ending note of the melisma should fall on a strong beat or on the first note of the measure. The length of each melismetic (between the words) is irregular.

The meaning for the symbols used in the following examples is as follows:

………… represents the melismatic line.

________ represents the text line and the drawing of the voice from one word to the next one.

Fig. 78. A part of melisma of Iang Chue Chang, measure 1 – 3

There are three words in this chart (figure 78), namely Eiang, Chue and Chang.

The length of each melisma is two beats, a strong and a weak beat. Every strong beat in this example falls with the word and the weak beat has no text.

Every two beats (strong and weak) have their own melodic movement with eighth and sixteenth notes to make more detail in the melisma.

Fig. 79. A part of melisma of Iang Chue Chang, measure 7 – 11

This example (figure 79) shows the length of a melisma in its irregular form.

The first word is Piang, the pitch remains on in Sol is not melismatic. The melisma includes the word Sai, Sam and Siang. The first melisma between the word Sai and Sam has a length of only one measure while the next melisma includes two measures.

Fig. 80. A part of melisma of Iang Chue Chang, measure 37 –41

The chanted from word to word in this figure has a long melisma of four measures. The melodic movement contains half notes, quarter notes, eighth and sixteenth notes. These three melismatic lengths may be presented alternating with one another.

Consideration of the melodic patterns

The direction of the melodic movement in melismatic patterns has various forms. The melismatic parts of the melodies can be broken up into small patterns and separated into different categories of movement.

Fig. 81. The melismatic pattern in melodic pattern of serrated patterns (ascending and descending), Low Heang Chang measure 28 - 30