THAI MUSIC

In 1991 I was travelling in northern Thailand with a small group of treckers in a minibus. We made a stop at a temple where there was a restaurant nearby. After the meal I went inside the temple-grounds to have a look. In the shade, under a bamboo-roof behind the thick walls sat two musicians practising on their instruments, each one playing along without taking notice of what the other one was playing. To my ears, well trained for western classical music, this was painful. So I walked on, around the temple itself, but the sounds of cling-clang and pling-plong of these bell-like and xylophone-like instruments followed me. I started to notice a certain “coincidental” interference in rhythm and sound. This sharpened my ears, a whole world of patterns aroused and spread through the air, involving the musicians and the temple and myself, vibrating in a perfect unison for a short but illuminating moment before disorder again took over. I consider this event to be a musical way of practising Buddhism.