EVERY GENRE PROJECT - July 15 - Hmong Folk Music

Genre of the Day - Hmong Folk Music

Album of the Day - Music and singing of the Hmong by Les Hmong (The Hmong) (1997)

July 15, 2024

Today’s folk music comes out of a group with an all-too-common plight. It’s rooted in the experience of an ethnic group with strong, distinctive traditions that could constitute its own nation much like the Kurdish people, but due to the crosshairs of colonial line-making they were never afforded their own nation and autonomous borders. Without connection to a political entity and more so to the land they inhabit, the 12 million Hmong people indigenous to countries across southeast Asia to sizeable immigrant communities abroad (particularly in Minnesota) must fill in the gap to define autonomy through cultural potency—the music reflects this inclination and deep reverence for the environmental spaces of the Hmong people, as one of today’s instruments is a leaf-turned-horn. 

Though I’ve touched on Rousseau’s bewildering, romantic proposition that human language is simply derived from singing and at one primordial time the two were indistinguishable in a sung form of language that forewent grammatical precision for “euphony, number, harmony, and [the[ beauty of sounds.” Even if you don’t believe a political philosopher’s eccentric thoughts on the history of human language, the music of the Hmong people is one compelling example of his theory at work. The notes played on certain instruments like the qeej, a large bamboo mouth organ often played in ensemble, represent words and musical extensions of speech. Folk songs often feature distinctive context-specific vocabulary that might even be esoteric for a Hmong speaker. 

Hmong music also has the particular distinction of having more of an assigned purpose as a conduit for addressing topics such as courtship and war that are less common to address in conversation. Songs can also amplify the pain of their experience as a stateless nation, with an orphan who prevailed past woeful beginnings to become glorious being one running theme. The words conveyed by instrumental melodies can carry secrets as much as stories, with the banana leaf flute nplooj being employed to communicate messages during wartime. Hmong music bridges a gap that seems impossible to close by connecting the expressive sounds of instruments with linguistic communication. This endemic, distinctive strain of musical expression in Hmong culture is a phenomenon unlike any other after having explored so many genres on this column. 

Given that solely playing with one instrument does not preclude conveying words in a song, this collection of folk songs by various Hmong folk artists oscillates between equally unique singing and instrumental showcases. The unique dynamics of the qeej take us down the path on the first two songs, whereas acapella singing is most appropriate for an elegiac send-off on the first “Funeral Song.” “Love Song” exhibits the equally unique Hmong vocal approach, with the female vocalist sliding and swirling in and out of falsettos. “Leaf Song” is one of the most awe-striking musical moments I’ve bore aural witness to thus far, a simple leaf as the rawest instrument capable of producing fantastical feats of melody. Hmong folk music reminds us to radically challenge our musical expectations; storytelling can blossom even without human words, and sonic odysseys are within the reach of a banana tree’s leaves.