Music has been central to Thai funerals for centuries, and playing at
funerals has long been an important source of work for musicians and, along
with monks,ordination rituals, continues to form the bulk of most musicians5
engagements. Until the early part of this century, a Thai ensemble
called naang hong accompanied death rituals, but it has virtually disappeared
today and has been replaced by an ensemble called “piiphaat M o n or the
piiphaat ensemble of the Mon people. Although it is now possible to hold a
funeral without any music or performance (funerals are increasingly streamlined
in the rushed, time-pressed world of Bangkok), music was traditionally
felt to be essential for a death ritual. Certain musical pieces that punctuate
the stages of a funeral are not just mere accompaniment but are, rather,
musical pieces that embody ritual actions that release the dead from this
world.