The Pia ’s Subtle Sustain: Contemporary Ethnic Identity and the Revitalization of the Lanna “Heart Harp”

In 1969, a young American ethnomusicologist, Gerald Dyck, spent several months documenting performances of folk music in northern Thailand. Dyck was especially interested in musical traditions that remained distinct from modern, Siam-ized ensembles. In a village outside of the old northern capital of Chiang Mai, Dyck discovered an elderly musician named Nai Tun who was able to play a then rarely seen instrument known as the pin pia.¹ The pin pia, an extremely quiet two to five-string chest-resonated stick zither, was described to him as a troubadour's instrument of the bygone Lanna (Northern Thai) kingdom. Returning to the area some months later to make professional recordings of Nai Tun, Dyck instead stumbled upon his funeral procession; the pia player had died only the week before Dyck's return. In 1975, Dyck published a photo-journal of the pin pia including an ominous postscript: a full-page negative-print plate of the elderly player who had died before his music could be documented. Dyck's prognostication was clear; along with its aged practitioners, a unique local tradition was passing inexorably into history.

In 2004, while lecturing in Chiang Mai, I found the pin pia omnipresent. It was a popular topic in academic discourse, a central image in the local tourist industry, and an important element in the now firmly established Lanna ethnic identity. Pin pia performances were fairly common, recordings were readily available, and a large number of young players could be found throughout the north. The instrument was sold in large outlet malls alongside more common Lanna instruments and the Western guitar.

After providing a basic description of the pin pia and its historical relationship to similar instruments elsewhere in Asia, I trace and explain the very different scenes that Gerald Dyck and I experienced. I describe the development of the pin pia and Lanna music, in general, over the past two decades and investigate the ways in which the instrument and its repertoire have become emblematic of the revitalization and reinvention of Lanna ethnic identity within the context of contemporary multi-ethnic Thailand.²

The Pin Pia

Within the context of traditional Thai music, the pin pia is a comparatively obscure instrument historically associated with the northern Thai Lanna kingdom.³ Organologically speaking, the instrument is a fretless bar zither (Hornbostel, Sachs classification 311.211) and is extremely simple by design, consisting of a shaft of wood, a coconut-shell resonator at the top end, and two to five strings. The headstock, known as the hua pia (lit. pia head) is often an elaborately designed bronze cast in the shape of a stylized elephant head.⁴ Contemporary musicians often use guitar strings on the pin pia, sometimes using heavier gauge brass kim (dulcimer) strings for the lowest (pok) string. The use of guitar and kim strings was introduced during the beginning of its revitalization some twenty-five years ago. This undoubtedly changed the tone of the instrument considerably. Historically, wound plant fibers, gut, or silk hemp may have been used. The instrument does not have a proper bridge; as in similar stick-zithers found throughout South and Southeast Asia, the string is stopped at the top of the instrument by the pressure applied to it by the chord used to attach the resonating gourd to the bar.

The pin pia, having no sounding board and only a small, single resonator pressed against the performer's chest, is surely one of the quietest instruments in the world. In fact, it is nearly inaudible. This very soft, almost meek tone, a quality that would be considered a defect for many Western instruments, is a desired and defining feature of the instrument and its repertoire. My initial instinct after purchasing an instrument was to experiment with different strings and resonators in an effort to amplify its tone. One of my teachers advised, however, that if a pia was loud enough to be heard by an audience of more than two (including the performer), then it was too loud. Indeed, a likely point of attraction for...