Traditional Burmese Vocal Music
The Burmese language lies at the heart of Burmese music. Text and poetry guide the melody in all phrases. This is why each instrumentalist has to be a well educated singer before he can start learning his instrument. The classical repertoire "thak cin" ("great songs") embraces several categories, including the royal court songs "cou" and "bwe", songs from the Thai Ayutthaya period or of the Mon people. The language gives form to the music: Rhymes form meters, syllable duration strictly bound to normal speech, are indicated by the lowest notes resounding longer than higher notes. Starting from the 16th century, more freedom and variations were provided, but the core melodies only get varied by the melisma (the singing of a single syllable of text while moving between several different notes in succession, as opposed to syllabic, where each syllable of text is matched to a single note). [Source: Ingo Stoevesandt, The Music of Southeast Asia ///]
Today, most singers prefer to sing in tenor (male) or deep alto (female) voice. Solo singing has become rare, most of the singing is accompanied by a "sito" drum or (more common) by a "saing" ensemble. The importance of the language in the music is displayed by the fact that each student learns the meaning of the basic pitches "tya", "tei" and "tyo" (basic, 7 and 5) and their melodical patterns in the first of the "kyo" songs mentioned above. ///
Unfortunately, most of the modern singers do not know the difference between a diatonic scale and the old Burmese scale anymore. Also, most of the old language used in the singing traditions is not understood by the Burmese audience at all. The reason for this lies in the "Westernization" of the traditional scale used in the traditional Burmese music.