Guidelines for disseminating Buddhist principles through the singing of Lanna folk fiddle songs.

Abstract

This article aims to study the method of propagating moral principles through
the singing of Lanna folk fiddle songs. The Lanna native fiddle song or "So", called by
the Native Lanna People, and often referred as a whole as Salo, So, Sueng )", is a
form of singing song that the Lanna people sing and play to lull and entertain
themselves to relax and relieve their sufferings. The singer who sing a Lanna native
fiddle song is called “Chang So”. Nowadays, the singing of the song are various both
in style and forms according to the changing age. There are two kinds of singing “So”
play namely, solo singing and duet-singing that is called in native language as “
Koothong” with the " alternating with Lanna musical instruments such as Pi Chum 3,
Pi Chum 4 or Pi Chum 5 (natively pronounced as Pi Chum). All these musical
instruments has been popular since ancient times, and still been the most popular in
Northern Lanna. There are the Buddhist principles appear in the Lanna folk fiddle
song performance, namely, 1) Panatipata veramani (abstain from harm and killing) as
in the verse “ Give mercy, don’t do any harm , all beings love their lives, if you’re
wicked, it can cause revenge, and when died, go to hell”, 2) Adinnadana veramani
(abstain from stealing) as in the song verse “The Buddha taught that the lazy man
with drunken, less thought, be a theft to steal other’s possession, would be in
punished at last.” , 3) Kamesu micchacara veramani (abstain from sexual misconduct)
, as the song’s verse “beg your pardon, you all, the Buddha taught as the sample to
teach the mind not to do sexual commitment, not to break other wife or husband,
if you don’t believe in doing that you’ll be into the hell world when you died.”,4)
Musavada veramani (abstain from false speech) as in verse “ the person with
careless in speech always speak in vain, in lie, in cheat, will be finally receive the bad
result from false speech they said”, 5) Suramerayamajja pamadatthana veramani as
in the verse “ Drinking too much alcohol cause losing more money and property , and losing consciousness and being able to take every things to sell for drinking
liquor”.