musicThe victory drum

กลองสะบัดชัย · klong sabat chai

Played with the elbow, the knee and the head. The drumming uses the weapons.

Mahatee · CC BY 3.0

What it is

The Lanna war drum, beaten going out to battle for good fortune and to hold the soldiers' nerve. Three old melodies are named: Chaiphaeri, Chaithiti, Chanamarn.

The long version

The Thai article describes how it is played now, and the sentence is the finding: the style is bold and rousing, and the player uses parts of the body — the elbow, the knee, the head — to strike the drum.

Inference — a drum played with the elbow and the knee, in a region whose martial dance is the sport's claimed origin, is not a coincidence anyone needs to argue for. The same body is being trained. In one direction it hits a drum; in the other it hits a man.

Where the oldest one was found. A miniature sabatchai drum set in bronze was excavated at Wat Chedi Sung, Ban Luang subdistrict, Hot district, Chiang Mai — two double-headed drums of different sizes, a gong as wide as the larger drum, three beaters and a carrying pole for the lot. Hot sits on Route 108, on the Mae Hong Son loop.

The common form hangs in temple drum-towers across Lanna: one big double-headed drum, 30 to 35 inches across and about 45 inches long, hide fixed with pegs — Lanna calls them saeo — left long rather than trimmed flush, with two or three small drums called luk tup beside it.

Connected to

• Fon jerng What it is played over.
• Kham Kaiwai The National Artist of it.
• The band The other band, at the ring.
• Lanna Whose drum.

Named here by

• Fon jerng What is played over it.
• Kham Kaiwai His drum.
• Lanna The drum.

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