Like any other nation in the world, Burmese traditional art and culture are a reflection of outstanding features and they help to attract more tourists on private Burma tour. Traditional music in this country is not only about large numbers of instruments in music but also about its beauty in the eyes of tourists visiting Burma.
One of a traditional music band in Burma is Saing Waing which has various musical instruments. Any tourists on Burma tours for the first time should be put under impression by this wonderful band full of wind instruments, drums, gongs called Kyi Waing, string musical instruments and bamboo bells called Pattala. The set of drum Pat Waing is a large one for Burmese people with up to 21 pieces, while a small set has the maximum of 9. Wind instruments can be flute, Hne or Oboe. The musical instrument Hne is used to create loud sounds. With regard to Gongs set, there are also 9 pieces. Burmese people can sometimes play the rectangular ones which are hung on the rectangular frame of several circular gongs. This must be very impressive, right?
Besides, Burma holidays offer you a chance to learn more about other featured musical instruments like Sidaw – a kind of bass drum – for vital events and Ozi – a jar-shaped one, together with Dobat –a cylindrical one used in festivals of the village. The bonshay – a long drum – and bongyi – a large drum – is made for festivals of harvest periods.
The interesting thing to tourists while exploring traditional musical instruments in Burma during their private tour is that the Burma people’s drums can create different changes in their sounds by using glutinous rice attached to the bottom of the drum.
During the 50s of the 20th century, a lot of Western musical instruments were released to the society of Burma, including major cities. Nevertheless, these cannot take place of traditional ones but help to make Burmese music more diverse and attractive. People in Burma only take these traditional musical instruments during festivals as well as Lunar New year. These instruments’ wonderful sounds will be maintained forever. This country’s traditional music acts as the cultural symbol and the attractive beauty to any people coming to visit Burma.
Maha Gita – Kind of Classical Music
With regard to the integral body in classical songs of this country, the “Maha Gita” whose meaning is about great royal songs cannot be forgotten. Their repertoire is at times called “Thachin Gyi” or wonderful songs. They used to be the songs played in the royal courts of Burma and it was the basic form of Burmese classical music. Maha Gita’s repertoire prevails in places where Burma music is performed. It creates a basis for the shared tradition in chamber music ensemble, Hsaing and that coming from performances of solo instruments like the piano. Maha Gita also gives you many basics of theater music like in a puppet theater where there are live actors.
This classical music occurs in printed collections. There are neither traditional examples in terms of notation nor notational system in this country’s tradition. In the 1960s, there was the adoption of cipher notation system from China which was kept for notation of single melodic line. During holidays to Burma, you can see several examples of skeletal structural music patterns printed in Burma like in Western notation throughout the 1940s.
In addition to this body of court songs, you can learn from your private Burma tour that there are a number of instrumental pieces in the form of opening music for the theater which is called “Panama Ti’loun” or “first pieces”. There are a number of instrumental types associated with the Royal Palace Watch such as the “neyi” the first music played each morning in the royal palace and the “yegin” played as the watch musicians navigated the moat around the royal palace. A number of rhythmic and melodic types borrowed from folk repertoire such as “byo” “si daw” and “dophat” also are included in the corpus of Burma traditional music although not formally part of the Maha Gita.
