Thai Bluegrass

     I was very amused when I read this article and by the videos shown in class.  It was interesting seeing a style of music, that isn't very mainstream for us, become elevated to the same place as current pop music.  I really enjoyed watching the guys with the cowboy outfits lassoing and gun-slinging as the girls went nuts.  What I also noticed is that they were able to emulate not just the instrumental elements and cowboy imagery, but also the vocal elements.  Being able to add the twang in the right parts and not overdoing it is difficult.  It makes me think of how here we have our different accents and the phrases we use when emulating those accents.

     It was interesting how serious they were at making this music.  Their focus on pronunciation was key to being successful for them.  When the ethnomusicologist commented on her subjects pronunciation, the person stopped singing and the tape was replaced by a different one after that.  This emphasis on pronunciation isn't strange to me.  They fear being misunderstood and being made fun of by fellow Thais and foreigners.  I experienced a similar situation when I was in China.  Many of the students wanted to practice their English, because they felt that if they mispronounced a word, it would change the meaning.  While, for us, that isn't necessarily true, it is for both the Thai and Chinese languages, which are tonal.  This means you can say the same sound, in Mandarin for example, in four different tones and it means four different words.