Three Lai

for khaen, violin, and viola
1996
7 minutes

This is my first piece to combine the khaen, a bamboo free-reed mouth organ from Laos and Northeast Thailand, with Western instruments. Instead of contrasting Western and Lao musics against one another, I have combined the three instruments into one larger meta-instrument that plays only one kind of music at a time. The word “lai” refers to the melodic modes on which traditional solo improvisations are based. This piece is a suite of three different approaches to the combination of khaen music and Western music. In the first section the khaen plays in a traditional mode (lai noi) while the strings expand its range and polyphonic capability; the second section departs from traditional music altogether with all instruments forming a tapestry of longer tones; and the third section is an idiomatic khaen melody (in lai yai) played in close canon by all three instruments.

This piece requires khaen in G minor.

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8.5×11 PDF score and parts set
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