Information About Siamese Project "Genomusic"
Pongprom Snitwong na Ayuthaya is a well-known music composer in Thailand. As a musician, he had worked with the band “Tawan” for 4 albums during 1986-1995 and as a solo artist for 1 album named “Shambala” released in 1995. But since 1990s, he is more renowned as a music composer & producer for numerous famous musicians in Thailand such as Yuenyong Opakul and the band “Carabao”, Assanee & wasan Chotikul, Band “Micro”, Nuveau, Peter, Palmy and Mister Team and many more. Apart from that, he had produced plenty of other musical productions beside the music albums, i.e. base film scores, theme song for T.V. plays, Advertising jingles and the latest, in 2006, he was the founder of the “H.M. Blues”, a project to diffuse the musical compositions of His Majesty Bhumibhol Adulyadej, the King of Thailand (www.hmblues.net).
Despite he had studied about arts, more than 20 years of working in the music industry he is always interested in learning music by himself, especially in the field of Ethnomusicology, as he is so attracted to native music of every ethnic groups all over the world, and in particular, the native music of Asia and Thailand. These attractions were always reflected in his works, for example, the “Shambala” album which was produced under the concept of the ancient Tibetan philosophy written by Sergiem Trungpa and some advertising jingles for “สำนึกรักบ้านเกิด” campaign. In 1999, he was the a co-founder of the “GenX Academy” a music Institute aiming to create professionals for music and entertainment industries (i.e. musicians, Public relations, Multimedia) and that has turned him to work more in academic path.
Apart from being an instructor for music composition and sound design classes at the GenX Academy, he is as well a special instructor for music composition classes at Silpakorn University. As he became specialized in Ethnomusicology, he has always been inviting to do the guest-speaker in the matter for various Universities in Thailand.
During the year of 2002, he has quietly initiated a musical project, which is called “Siamese Project”, influenced by his constant interests in Ethnomusicology since 1997 and started by focusing on native music of the ethnic group speaking Tai-Kadai language.
The first intention was to find some interesting concepts, as a musical experiment, for his new work by using Thai music. The second was to expand his knowledge in Ethnomusicology which is not just being his personal interests but also the common profits in the academic field. And the third was his concerns, according to the latest studies regarding the severe decline of cultures, particularly our Thai native music and recreations. For example, in Central Thailand, we used to have almost 50 traditional songs, but nowadays there are just 4-5 songs which can still be performed by certain peoples. All the rest can be considered as “dead” and hardly find a trace to revive. Luckily, it is not to late to resolve. In the first place, the main objective of this project was defined as to “look for the lost voice of Tais” aimed at exploring, researching and comparing the native music and dances of the Thai ethnic groups only, by tracing from all existing information of human history, archeology and folklore, including field surveys. But as we dig into deeper and deeper, we found out that there were so many cultural and musical links, both clearly seen and hidden, connecting us with other groups in Asia. These relationships cannot be divided nor separated which made him realize that the first concept was not suitable enough.
In 2003, during the process of research for Siamese Project, he discovered some other interesting informations. Today is the era of the real Integration Learning and lots of fresh knowledges had revealed itself in an unexpected way. One of those information came from the advance knowledge in Genetical Biology. It’s so strange how these knowledges effect the musical research project like Siamese, and those effects were on the aspects in which had turned the direction of the project to the more remarkable way. Over 30 years of pioneering research and survey in genetic studies, Prof. Luigi Luca Cavalli Sforza collected and analyzed DNA samples from a wide array of world populations. Prof. Luca believes that the human DNA should have contained the secrets of our ancestors and our history, and if we can “decipher”, we will surely understand all those confidences. This project of Prof. Luca is still carrying out until present by a young scientist, a former student and research assistant of Prof. Luca, Prof. Spencer Wells. Almost the same time when the secrets of DNA were deciphered, Spencer Wells had demonstrated the results of this research in 2002 and it went out in public, published as a book and as a documentary produced by the National Geographic called “The Journey of man”. This is the revelation of the newest history book, untainted from any political ideas. It reveals a secret of our migratory passages and how we conquered the world. And it also conveyed an amazing message that we derived from the same African Mother! This is the knowledge that vanish the separation of the ethnical delusive and tell us how much we relate to each other.
Then in 2004, Spencer Wells had presented the next information obtained from the new project, also supported by the National Geographic which is called “Genograhic” together with the book named “Deep Ancestry”. Spencer gives the details about the project which reports the migratory passages and the family tree of different groups of ancestor, divided by types of Mitochondria and Y-Chromosome of each group scattered in every area of the world.
From these informations, the Siamese Project had come to the major turning point. The presumed wall of races and frontier were destroyed. When we look at the name we created, we seem to be so apart and different. When we speak about Thai, Laos, Myanmar, China, Vietnam or Bhutan, we can feel the detachment and the difference when we look to the images which has been changed by the nature and the traditions we built, we seem to be totally different. But in reality, we are incredibly close relatives and the evidence that confirmed this word is in our blood. This is the bond that unites and holds us back together. This has made Mr. Pongprom thought that, This - is the better way for Siamese Project. It will not just open up a new exciting way for music research which is believed never been done before but also represent the concept of crumbling up the racial separations and can bring along the harmony in both cultural and political ways. It is interesting to find out that “if we are genetically connected by blood, would it be possible that we are also connected by culture, such as music?” With this concept and inspiration, finally it came the first official Siamese Project “Genomusic”, a project to survey and research any trace of music culture that show the connections between Thai ethnic group and other relative groups in Asia studying DNA groups & Migratory passages to Asia. The information will be analyzed and draw a comparison between each group to find the relations, make database-examples and shoot the documentary. It is assured that this project will collect a greatly amount of raw materials for musical creations that would be extremely fun and exciting.
แผนที่แสดงการอพยพของมนุษย์กลุ่มที่เข้าสู่เอเชียแปซิฟิค (click to enlarge)
This knowledge is not just to open up our vision to see what we used to neglect and start to look for something similar that we have shared, but it will also make us feel that the difference we saw had diminished or gone. Still it will answer the question we used to wonder about “Why did they do that the same way as we did?”, “Why Chant(or pray) is so similar everywhere in the world?”, “Is Chant a kind of verse?”, “Why the traditional songs of Lanna, Tai Lue and Zhuang are almost the same?”, “Why the song Zhungdra of Bhutan sounds like our Thai traditional song Khamen Sai Yok?”, “Why every fiddles in the world look so similar and were made nearly the same?”. When we look at our traditional Thai fiddles, we see lots of similarity to the Chinese Erhu fiddle, the Bhutanese Chewang fiddle, the Mongolian Morin Hurr fiddle, the Middle Asia’s Rebec fiddle, the Middle East’s Rebab fiddle, the Indian Sarangi fiddle and the Europe’s Viol, so many traces appear and challenge us to go out and find the answer.
This project introducing and claimed 2 new hypotheses to the ethnomusicology academic study.
1- If all people are connected genetically, Is it possible that we are also connected in our cultural heritages, such as music and performing arts ? (by now we know the answer is .. Yes)
2- If the first theory is right, So, Music should be possibly categorized them into the family or phyla similarly to linguistic.
1- If all people are connected genetically, Is it possible that we are also connected in our cultural heritages, such as music and performing arts ? (by now we know the answer is .. Yes)
2- If the first theory is right, So, Music should be possibly categorized them into the family or phyla similarly to linguistic.
To proof these hypotheses, At the end of 2005, the Siamese Project “Genomusic”’s team, composed of Pongprom Snitwong na Ayuthaya as a Team Leader, lined up with the top sound engineers, photographers, videographers and technicians went on field trips to survey and collect data. They had contacted local persons, native artists & musicians, and concerned Authorities for assistance and collaboration for the first research area limited in the South East Asia zone, using the “Tai” tribe as the gateway to link to other close relative groups like M*, A,B,C,M4,P31,M174,M175,F,P37.1. The research area will cover Thailand/Myanmar/Laos/Cambodia/Vietnam/China (Yunnan, Guangxi, Hainan)/Malaysia/Indonesia/Papua New Guinea/India (Assam)/Bhutan and it is expected that the research will be ready to present by the end of 2010 in the forms of music album, Interactive DVD, book and documentary.
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