qeej, free-reed mouth organ

Free-reed mouth organ system of the Hmong people, described in Falk (2003), (2004a) and (2004b), Catlin (1982), Poss (2012), Schwörer-Kohl (1984), Morrison (1996), and Mareschal (1976). The instrument itself (qeej in Hmong) is a polyphonic reed aerophone with a hardwood resonating body and six bamboo pipes; each pipe holds a single brass reed except the shortest, which has two or three, and each has a finger-hole which forces air across a reed when covered during play (Schwörer-Kohl 1984:611). Instruments vary in size, with the longest pipe measuring between 2 to 5 feet in length (Morrison 1996:2). In Hmong traditional music, the highest two pitches (produced on the shortest pipe ntiv luav) and the lowest are often used as drones, and only the remaining four or five pitches are used to produce surrogate speech. The language is analyzed to have 7 or 8 lexical tones depending on variety; the detailed descriptions in Falk (2003) and Schwörer-Kohl (1984) both refer to varieties with 7 (White Hmong of Laos and Green Hmong of Thailand respectively). The surrogate system encodes lexical tone, with variable mappings that “reduces the seven tones of spoken language to four or five musical pitches” (Falk 2003:5). Generally, the mapping is similar to the assignment of pitches to linguistic tones in Hmong vocal music (kwv txhiaj) (Catlin 1982:192). In fact, texts played on the qeej “are first encoded in song”, functioning as a pedagogical tool and “mnemonic aid” (Falk 2003:5). For reference, Catlin (1982) and Mareschal (1976) mostly concur on this mapping for 5-note vocal music, with 1 being the highest pitch and 5 the lowest: lexical tonehigh level pitch1 full falling4 mid-rising1 mid-level2 low-mid level3 low breathy3 low glottalized ending5 —Catlin (1982:178)However, the qeej encoding system is obscured by several features: the reduction of tonal contrasts from 7 to 4 or 5; a musical injunction against two consecutive identical notes; the use of “two-, three-, or four-part polyphony” in which only one of the notes corresponds to a linguistic tone; and the “use of qeej ‘language,’ which incorporates euphonic and onomatopoeic syllables, words borrowed from other languages and dialects, and tone change in the case of words that the qeej cannot ‘play.’” (Falk 2004:9). The qeej surrogate system is mostly used to recite a repertoire of Hmong ritual and spiritual (surrogate) texts, especially at traditional funerals; the New Year and other festivals also have their own qeej repertoire (Morrison 1996:9). These texts are not typically known or understood by Hmong people other than the performers themselves; “[k]nowledge of these texts is the hallmark of competence as an erudite musician” (3). Moreover, since the exact content of texts varies between practitioners, “players only understand one another's playing if they had the same teacher” (24). In fact, qeej funeral texts are not intended to communicate with a living audience but to the soul of the deceased (3). However, “improvisational use of the qeej for nonritualistic speaking is not prohibited [though] seldom done” (Morrison (1996:17). Content includes ritual, poetic, and ceremonial material, especially related to life, death, and creation.

Falk, C. (2003). “If you have good knowledge, close it well tight”: Concealed and framed meaning in the funeral music of the Hmong qeej. British Journal of Ethnomusicology, 12(2), 1–33. https://doi.org/10.1080/09681220308567361,Falk, C. (2004a). Hmong instructions to the dead: What the mouth organ qeej says (part one). Asian Folklore Studies, 1–29.,Falk, C. (2004b). Hmong instructions to the dead: What the mouth organ qeej says (Part two). Asian Folklore Studies, 167–220.,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. (2012). Hmong Music and Language Cognition: An Interdisciplinary Investigation [PhD Thesis]. Ohio State University.,Schwörer-Kohl, G. (1982). Uber den Begriff Ntiv in der Musikterminologie der Hmong in Nordthailand und Laos. Jahrbuch Fur Musikalische Volks-Und-Volkerkunde, 68–83.,Morrison, G. (1998). The Hmong Qeej: Speaking to the spirit world. Hmong Studies Journal, 2(2), 1–17.,Mareschal, E. (1976). La musique des Hmong.