flute, pipe, raj

Flute and free-reed pipe (raj) system of the Hmong people, described in Poss (2005) and (2012) and Catlin (1982). Raj is the name for a family of traditional Hmong aerophones commonly made from sections of bamboo, including fipple flutes and free-reed pipes. The language has lexical tone. The surrogate is a phonology-abridging system that primarily encodes tone; Poss reports that the four or five pitches typical to raj instruments correspond to the 7 tones of the language using a variety of mappings, depending on the instrument and the suab (“pitch range” or style of play): “the same words performed on different raj may utilize different relationships between lexical-tone and pitch… the mapping of lexical tones onto the pitch levels within a [pitch] range can change, too” (Poss 2012). According to Poss, there is not always an iconic relationship between the acoustics of spoken tone and their corresponding raj notes. For instance, “the high-falling tone was the lowest pitch in one suab and the highest pitch in another suab” (18). Even for a given instrument and style of play, musicians do not invariably adhere to a strict mapping of lexical tone; still, raj mappings at least appear to be more consistent than the tone-tune associations of sung Hmong poetry (Poss 2005:150). Poss provides the following loose mapping for the style of play suab raj nplaim, where ‘1’ is the highest pitch and ‘4’ the lowest, and parenthetical numbers are alternative notes conditioned by the musical and phonological environment of the tone: lexical tonehigh level  pitch1 high rising 1 mid level 2 falling breathy 2 (3) low level 3 falling creaky 4 (3) high falling 4 (Poss 2012:36) Onset consonants are also partially encoded: “strongly tongued articulations were used for words that began with obstruents [with the exception of /v/], but transitions between sonorants were either lightly tongued on repeated notes or performed smoothly between pitches” (Poss 2012:40). Though confined to typical contexts, the exact content and phrasing of surrogate expressions on the raj may be loose: “‘stock phrases’ are creatively developed into individual expressions… a two-note motive …can be expanded upon to create a rich array of possible expressions” (Poss 2005:126-7). Conventional elaborated phrases used to refer to family members or love interests are in common use. The instrument is typically played by men. Content includes love, courtship, loneliness, names, and proverbs/poetics.

Catlin, A. (1982). Speech surrogate systems of the Hmong: From singing voices to talking reeds. The Hmong in the West: Observations and Reports, 170–197.,Poss, N. F. (2005). The communication of verbal content on the Hmong Raj: An ethnographic analysis of performance practice [PhD Thesis]. The Ohio State University.,Poss, N. F. (n.d.). Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University. 135.