Lao music

Traditional Lao music can be divided into classical and folk forms.

The classical form is closely related to that of the Siamese, from which it borrows. The Lao classical orchestra can be divided into two categories, Sep Nyai (or Mahori) and Sep Noi. The Sep Nyai is ceremonial and formal music and includes: two sets of gongs (kong vong), a xylophone (lanat), an oboe (pei or salai), two large kettle drums and two sets of cymbals (xing). The Sep Noi, capable of playing popular tunes, includes two bowed instruments, the So U and the So I, also known to the Indians. These instruments have a long neck or fingerboard and a small sound box; this sound box is made of bamboo in the So U and from a coconut in the So I. Both instruments have two strings, and the bow is slid between these two strings, which are tuned at a fifth apart and always played together. Furthermore this mahori or sep noi ensemble (the sep nyai is strictly percussion and oboe) may include several khene. In this respect, it differs markedly from the mahori orchestras of Cambodia and Siam.

Some ethnomusicologists believe that Laos is a country where the ancient art music of the Khmers has been best preserved -- as well as diverse forms of folk music related to the oldest types of Indian music, music that has largely disappeared in India itself. They claim to find in Laos a scale which the ancient Hindus called the "celestial scale," the Gandhara grama, which is a tempered heptatonic scale, or a division of the octave into seven equal parts.

Lao folk music, known as Lam, is extemporaneous singing accompanied by the khene.