KHUM DIN DRUM AS LANNA MUSICAL AND CULTURAL HERITAGE

Abstract

     This article aims to introduce a traditional Lanna drum as Lanna musical and cultural heritage. The drum, as well as Lanna music as a whole, are unique with their distinct styles and melodic patterns, and have long history of being developed by local Lanna musicians. Drums, percussion instrument, are widely used in all regions in Thailand and well known for their echoey loud sound.
The sound that drums produce depends on the instrument's shape and the materials they are made of. Khum Din drum or ‘Glong Khum Din’ is one of those drums invented long time ago and still found in Thailand to this day. This Khum Din drum was first invented by cavemen for the purpose of warning and caution signs, by hitting with bare hands, as signs used to make people aware of dangers. Thereafter, it was developed by two Lanna artists - Kham Kawai and Manop Yarana, into their own versions of ‘Glong Din’, that was used for calling for rain to keep land fertile. The drum was made by digging a hole in the ground, placing a sheet of betel palm husk on top, putting a bamboo stick vertically in the middle of the husk, pulling a string straight across the husk while having the string pressing down or holding the top of the standing bamboo stick firmly, then hit the string with small wooden sticks to produce the drum sound. Later on, Mongkol Shiengcharee, one of Manop Yarana’s students, had made the body of Glong Din of soil-cement mixture and placed it higher on the ground surface, which made it easily been spotted and used as a historical site for education. The author hopes that this paper will help getting ‘Glong Khum Din’ publicized and make the it more widely known among people working in this field, so that there will be more people continue conserving, expanding, and using the drum.