Page 118 - The International Journal of the Royal Society of Thailand Vol.XIII-2021

The International Journal of the Royal Society of Thailand
Volume XIII – 2021

1. Handling differences of the tuning system

There are three possible methods in handling the differences in the tuning
system. I will clarify pros and cons of each practice. The first is to change the tuning
system of traditional instruments to western tuning system. By doing this, the

burden is put on to the traditional musician since he has to adjust the instrument
to sound like a western instrument and has to perform on the instrument with a

different sound system than it was designed for. The consequence of this method
is the identity loss of the traditional music and an inability to engage in the
performance of the traditional musician. This method does not achieve the goal of

interculturalism but presents the domination of the West over the East. The second
practice is a mid-way method in bridging the gap of tuning differences. Western
theory is based on a diatonic scale in which tonic and dominant are considered

significant pitches. This practice requires traditional instruments to match two
pitches of their scale with western tonic and dominant pitches. The rest of the
scale are retained in their own tuning system. With this method, both cultures can

play together in harmony and at the same time the cultural identity of both the
east and west can be presented in the composition. The pros of this method are

that musicians of both cultures can perform together without dealing with a total
change in their performance practice and the audience, regardless of cultural
background, can enjoy a consonant sound with a little hint of dissonance of cultural

identity. The last method is to let each culture perform based on their own tuning
system without making any changes. This method is the best in presenting the

actual sound system of each culture; however, the con part of this is the large
amount of dissonance might not please the ears of the audience.

Example 1 displays the second method in which each culture set their two

structural pitches on the same tuning of pitch Bb and Eb and left the rest based on
their own tuning. In this example, Bonang from Indonesia and Kulintang of
Philippines set their Bb and Eb to match the structural pitches of western orchestra.

The strings prolong the Bb and Eb as a drone sound throughout the passage (see
example 1).

108 Southeast Asian Musical Heritages in Contemporary Composition