The folk music of Northern Thailand has been heavily influenced by the Lanna Cililization, which held away over the area from the 11th to the 18th centuries. Today, tradional northern groups still play the Saw U and during festivals is not unlikely to see groups of musicians playing three of four Saw U's with other instruments.
The Saw U is a two-stringed instrument. The name Saw Duang may come from the fact that the instrument resembles a certain kind of snare or trap which is used to catch a type of edible lizard which is eaten by the people in the northern provinces of Thailand. This trap is called a duang dak yae and is also made of bamboo. So the name of this instrument may come from its shape rather than from the sound produced when it is played.
The head is made from a rather large coconut shell without lumps and more of an oval shape. The saw u is very similar to a two-stringed Chinese instrument called u-hu, but the Chinese instrument has frets along the neck which the Thai instrument does not. Also the tunning pegs of the u-hu are to the right of the player. At the place where the tunning pegs are inserted in the neck of the Chinese instrument, a long groove is cut into the neck and the stumps fit into these grooves and are tied to the tunning pegs after passing through the groove. This instrument has a low tone.
The name of the Thai instrument comes from the chracteristic sound that the Thais hear when the instrument is played, just as the Chinese gave their instrument a name according to the sound they heard it produced. The pattern or model for the saw u was probably taken from the Chinese instrument. Shown below is a saw u with bow string and resin with pouch.
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