Last night -- as was my frequent want -- I played my dan moi before bed.
A dan moi is a Vietnamese jewsharp played by the Hmong peoples. While a very simple instrument, you can harness a huge range of syncopated sounds by playing it between your lips using your mouth, tongue, teeth and breathing to resonate.
Among the Turkmen peeps --who play the more familiar jewsharp -- it's celebrated as a shamanistic tool.
While I'd like to get into melody runs per the usual r&b song rhythm, my playing has settled into improvised sessions in a sort of freestyle approach as I explore what fancies me.
Herein rests the addiction.
I've always been fascinated with the thudding resonation of frame drums -- from bodhrains to dafs -- as a boutique calming medium. But my fingers have never been up to the task of capturing the many -- mainly Arabic -- rhythms. A jewshap's pitch is way higher, but it can drone as well as any frame drum or any didgeridoo.
This drives the appeal of jewsharps in some cultures as spiritual instruments. You know, the tonal repetition -- just like the Buddhist 'Om'.
Grant you, that was my initial thought, too. But that doesn't explain how or why the jewsharp community world wide is so addicted to these wee things and why, despite cultural differences, the instrument is celebrated as a meditative gateway.
I've heard jewsharps played hillbilly style, as jigs or reels. Fused into electro mixes and heavy metal. Laid down in blues riffs...or as a primary folk instrument per Sonny Terry (the folk harmonica player partnered with Browny McGhee).
But as a solo instrument, the player can not only enter freestyle mode, but in playing for yourself -- just as I do -- the rewards are surprising.
When I play the dan moi -- aside from all of this -- I get music in my head. That's not just because I can hear the sound with my ears, but my whole head is an instrument like some great cave within which an orchestra performs.Indeed, the best sound coming from you is actually inside you. Like some aesthetic belch.
The closest to this is throat singing, which is often paired with jewsharp playing among the Turkmen peoples.
That doesn't mean that I've crossed over to the ethereal. The physical impact of the vibrations surely has an impact on my brain waves...in similar mode to white noise, perhaps.
It's like a meditative switch turned on by my your lips. Indeed all this 'sound therapy' stuff about the healing powers of shanti bowls et al, make a lot more sense when you are chumping on a jewsharp as part of your sleep hygiene routine.
Since dan moi harps are easy to play and cheap I do recommend them as a hobby -- even as therapy, without pretence of a musical career.
I suspect that one reason the jewsharp has not been fully embraced in this usage among westerner alt therapy types, is that the standard metal harp requires jaw tension to hold the frame in your mouth between the teeth. A dan moi, on the other hand, like the bamboo harps of South East Asia, is simply rested on and between the lips. Like laying a spoon atop a teacup across its rim
