Hmong Multiple Free-Reed Pipes 3

The multiple free-reed mouth organ, rab qeej (traa gheng), arguably the most celebrated cultural and spiritual icon in Hmong tradition, is constructed with six pipes of varied proportions that come from a hardy genus of thick bamboo, xyoob qeej (shiong gheng). These pipes are rooted in two rows into a wind chamber, formerly made from a gourd, presently from the fitted halves of hollowed mahogany wood bound together with tree bark.  The wind chamber narrows into a long neck that leads to the mouth hole, which may be equipped with a blowing shield and a removable wooden stopper to protect the embouchure.

Each pipe is fitted with a brass or bamboo reed that is attached with beeswax to cover an opening cut into the section of bamboo pipe located inside the wind chamber. Each pipe also has a single finger hole, pierced close to the wind chamber. Tone is produced when a musician blows air through the wind chamber and covers a pipe’s finger hole with a thumb or finger, thereby causing its reed to vibrate. A player uses circular breathing to create a flow of continuous sound.

The six bamboo pipes display different lengths, circumferences, timbres, tunes, and functions. The upper and lower pipes are set with two or three vibrating reeds for greater volume, creating a resonant drone. The qeej’s four inner pipes provide melodic ‘speaking’ voices, as each is able to reproduce tones, vowels, and consonants inherently embedded in Hmong speech patterns. Played individually, in combination, or all together, the qeej is able to create complex narratives.

NB: The bamboo pipes of this qeej display a gentle arc in the new style, in comparison to a tradition of straight pipes used in the past.

Because the qeej is able to communicate complex narratives on its mulitple pipes using speech-like tones and cadence, it is held in highest esteem as a cultural icon and a spiritual medium, and thus plays a vital role in numerous secular and sacred ceremonies.

The qeej is prominent in celebrating numerous cycles-of-life and -seasons events, such as weddings, festivals, social affairs, and welcoming guests. The most spectacular performances, however, occur during the New Year Festival as bachelors demonstrate their musical prowess by playing complex speaking and non-speaking qeej music, while simultaneously performing a variety of challenging martial arts moves near a cliff’s edge.

For sacred ceremonies, including ancestral rites and offerings to spirits, a musician must first perform special musical prayers to honor the spirit that resides in the qeej, thereby reanimating its powers to communicate with supernatural beings.  Of all sacred rites, the qeej’s most important role unfolds during the many varied enactments in a traditional Hmong funeral: instructing the deceased’s soul on its serpentine journey to the celestial world and back, accompanying the deceased to the funeral bier, leading family and friends under the funeral drum, signaling the deceased souls’ meals, and performing a final farewell at the gravesite.

Recording
Music for the New Year, Tsiab Pebcaug, played on the qeej multiple reed pipes (Hmoob Txaij)

As Loos, Ban Ta, Phongsali Province, Laos, December 2005

Ethnic Group: Hmoob Ntsuab (Blue Hmong)

Local Name: Qeej (geng or kheng)

Type: Multiple Free-reed Pipes

Class: Free-reed Aerophone

Tuning: Pentatonic scale

Age: Mid-20th c.

Materials: Mahogany wood, ‘shong qeej’ bamboo, buffalo hide, mixed metal, cotton

Dimensions: 137 x 84 x 11 cm / 54″ x 33″ x 4.33″

Location: Thailand / Laos

Owner:

Catalog Number: 5736