 | Move over Metallica, the heaviest band in the world isn't American, it's not even some German industrial grindcore band or some Scandinavian Death Metal band. It's a band from Thailand, made up of anything up to 14 elephants. The Thai Elephant Orchestra is a musical ensemble that are based at the Thai Elephant Conservation Center in Lampang in Northern Thailand, established by elephant conservationist Richard Lair of the National Elephant Institute and the American neuroscientist and artist Dave Soldier. The band play on specially built, heavy-duty instruments, mostly traditional Thai style music, lead by their trainers. The band have released three albums since 2002, and have received world-wide recognition. |
| The Thai Elephant Orchestra primarily uses the Lanna Thai five-note scale. Traditional Thai music is a genre familiar to the elephants, so they chose Thai music scales with a few blues notes. The Thai Elephant Orchestra isn't the first ever elephant band in the world, even the famous circus Barnum & Bailey, had an "elephant band". But often such bands played along to backing music from a human band, unlike the Thai elephants that play all their own instruments. | |
