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Songklot

"I am Songklot Thongkham and my nickname is 'Tum'. I am an only child born in Bangkok on October 17, 1966. I was married and have a daughter and a son. After high school, I left to study Thai art in a university in the north. There I studied local arts, especially Lanna (northern Thai) stringed instruments, until I graduated in 1989. I then came back to my hometown. Later I started working as an assistant in the College of Music at Mahidol University, where I would prepare teaching media, compile ancient phonograph records, etc. I worked there for eight months and returned to the north where I worked two years as a ceramic designer and as a magazine photographer.

"I received a scholarship to research Lanna musical instruments – the common and the unusual – as part of the university's conservation project. I completed this project in three years and then opened a little ceramic shop. After a while I returned to Bangkok to work as a photographer, but deep in my heart I was missing musical instruments and the knowledge associated with them.

"Northern Thailand has always impressed me because of its ancient culture and traditions, the local people who are friendly and kind-hearted and the many artists practicing various art forms. This northern land fascinates. Therefore I decided to return and create new instruments – especially flutes. During the following eight years, I intensively studied Thai flutes – their materials, vibrations, the way sound travels in wood, sound structure, Thai finger-positioning systems and local music theory – until I could craft flutes that sounded exactly as the customer specified.

"It is true that my love of art and Thai music, my skills, my thirst for knowledge and my knowledge of Thai music instruments made experts notice me. They entrusted me with specialized research, which I conducted with pride, pleasure and thoroughness. The decade I spent researching and studying flutes not only gave me a deep knowledge of flute making and playing, but it also has allowed me to concurrently study the making and playing of many other musical instruments, which I also create with my hands, my heart and my love. In the future I hope to establish a museum about local music instruments, local wisdom and local knowledge. This way the next generations will learn, preserve and hand down ancient knowledge and techniques generation to generation."