Khen

Khen (Laos. ແຄນ) is a Lao multi-vocal musical wind instrument, a type of lip organ . It is an airphone consisting of several bamboo tubes of different lengths (from 80 cm to 3 m) with metal tongues arranged in two parallel rows and connected to a small wooden case with an air hole. In addition to Laos, where it is considered one of the national musical symbols, it is also widespread in the Isan region in northeast Thailand ^[1] . The first samples of this tool are supposed to have appeared in the Bronze Age ^[2] .

There are four register types of this tool, differing in the number of tubes, which can be 6 (this option is most common among the national minorities of Laos ^{[3] [2]} ), 10, 14 (or 16; this is the most common type with an average length of tubes in 1 m and a range of 2 octaves), or 18. The sound is emitted both when blowing and when typing air ^[4] . Unlike other Lao folk instruments, khen has a mnemonic notation expressed as special icons on the tubes. In the past, it was widely used by wandering musicians who accompanied singers and reciters of traditional Laotian poems of lamas dressed in bright costumes ^[3] ; in modern Laos it is used during holidays, village spring games preceding peasant weddings, and shamanic ceremonies (phi) ^[3] , as well as in ensembles and orchestras. The music of khan consists of five frets, the playing formulas of each of which are memorized by playing by heart; almost all performers of this music are men.

Khen has a certain distribution outside of Laos: for the first time it reached Europe at the end of the 19th century, along with Christian missionaries returning from Laos; in Sardinia, a Mundorgel musical instrument was created on its basis ^[5] . Since the 1990s, khen has been used by some Western jazz musicians ^[6] . In 2017, Lao folk music played with the help of khen was included in the UNESCO list of oral and intangible heritage masterpieces ^[7] .